Beetle mania! PhD student Lauren is reshaping the family tree of longhorn beetles

PhD student Lauren Ashman is on a mission with the ANU Research School of Biology and the CSIRO to find out where Rhytiphora Longhorn beetles came from. Using DNA sequencing, she hopes to organise Rhytiphora into cleaner groups. Knowing the family groups is important for museum collectors and conservationists working on Australian land, Lauren says. And also for farmers, for whom longhorn beetles can be timber and crop pests.

Birds are the “canaries in the climate-change coal mine”

A bird study led by The Australian National University (ANU) provides new understanding of the ways birds and mammals respond to a rapidly warming world.

Honeyeaters send lightning-fast warning signals

New Holland honeyeaters are experts at sounding the alarm when there’s danger, using a two-stage alarm call. They ‘front-load’ information about urgency into the first note of their alarm call, so other honeyeaters can respond quickly. The clever honeyeaters follow this up with more notes to reinforce the message and signal how long to remain hidden.