Females generally choose mates that produce the loudest, brightest or most elaborate sexual displays, and these costly male displays are predicted to be condition dependent. However, mate choice itself is a costly behaviour also expected to be condition dependent. Male fall field crickets, Gryllus pennsylvanicus, produce a conspicuous long-distance calling song that attracts females and is cond...

Stink bugs of the pentatomid family communicate using substrate-borne vibrational signals transmitted through host plants. Specific signal length and repetition rate are critical for mate recognition and are susceptible to masking by simultaneous conspecific and congeneric signals. We tested whether overlapping conspecific signals interrupt Nezara viridula (L.) sexual behaviour with playback of...

The behavioural sequence of courtship and mating of Sesamia nonagrioides Lefèbvre males and females in laboratory cages is described. The attractant capacity of both sexes was studied by tethering males or females. The courtship and mating sequence of tethered females was the same as untethered ones, but tethered males were absolutely inactive. Age (1 day versus 2 days) did not affect the matin...

Detour behaviour, an individual's ability to reach its goal by taking an indirect route, has been used to test spatial cognitive abilities across a variety of taxa. Although many amphibians show a strong homing ability, there is currently little evidence of amphibian spatial cognitive flexibility. We tested whether a territorial frog, Allobates femoralis, can flexibly adjust its homing path whe...

Abstract This Perspective discusses the use of fear appeals in promoting health behaviour. The discussion establishes that appeal-based public messages (i.e. emphasise consequences failing to engage a particular behaviour) have two components (1) perceived threat and (2) efficacy. A has subcomponents (a) high susceptibility (e.g. ‘I can contract COVID-19’) (b) severity ‘COVID-19 kill me’). In p...

In this paper we will show that Ikema, a dialect of Miyako Ryukyuan, has a three-tone system, where three tonal classes, Types A, B, and C, are lexically distinguished, contra the previous studies which have claimed that it has a two-tone system. The results of our quantitative analysis of production data also revealed that Type A words are remarkably small in number, indicating that Type A wor...

With this comment, I comment on the key ideas of opinion paper by Ocklenburg et al. The authors describe trends in lateralization research for next decade. my commentary, take liberty pointing out that it is first more important to focus relevant questions be answered context before calling trends. Furthermore, humans should human brain and behaviour because highly specialized despite many simi...

The study explored the childbirth-related hygiene and newborn care practices in home-deliveries in Southern Tanzania and barriers to and facilitators of behaviour change. Eleven home-birth narratives and six focus group discussions were conducted with recently-delivering women; two focus group discussions were conducted with birth attendants. The use of clean cloth for delivery was reported as ...

Offspring are frequently raised alongside their siblings and are provisioned early in life by adults. Adult provisioning is stimulated by offspring begging, but it is unclear how each offspring should beg, given the begging behaviour of their siblings. It has previously been suggested that siblings may compete directly through begging for a fixed level of provisioning, or that siblings may coop...