New Caledonian crows may find tool use fun, according to a new study.

Getting food is nice. But scoring that food through clever tool use is even better, according to a study on a famously smart species of crow. The findings suggest that humans aren't the only animals to enjoy puzzles, games and challenges for their own sake. New Caledonian crows live on a cluster of remote islands in the South Pacific. The crows are well known to scientists for their ability to build and use tools, but until now, no one had examined the crows' own subjective reasons for doing so, according to...

Male peacock spiders know how to put on a show for potential mates, with dancing and a bit of optical trickery. Microscopic bumps on the arachnids’ exoskeletons make velvety black areas look darker than a typical black by manipulating light. This architecture reflects less than 0.5 percent of light, researchers report May 15 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Read more: https://...