Which is better, cats or dogs?; three-legged lion and brother swim through dangerous waters; scientific reports on cats; and lagniappe – Why evolution is true

Here is a 45 minute BBC podcast from The infinite monkey cage with physicist Brian Cox and comedian/actor Robin Ince, along with others arguing about the relative merits of cats and d*gs. Here is the BBC summary.

Brian Cox and Robin Ince sniff and paw through the evidence to settle the age-old debate about whether cats are better than dogs. They will be joined by TV dragon and dog lover Deborah Meaden, comedian and cat companion David Baddiel, evolutionary scientist Ben Garrod and vet Jess French. You'll learn how humans' domestication of our four-legged companions has had profound effects on their physiology, temperament, and communication methods. They debate which species is the most intelligent and skilled and try to resolve the most important question of all: Which species really loves you?

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Out of ScienceAlert We have a story and video about two lion brothers, one with a missing leg, crossing a river in Uganda infested with crocodiles and hippos. Click on the heading to view it. Below you will find a video:

Excerpts:

A pair of brother lions were captured on video as they swam a death-defying 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) through a Ugandan river full of predators – a sign that human-caused pressure is forcing the animals to take more risks.

Brothers Jacob and Tibu crossed the Kazinga Channel at night. It is the first visually documented long-distance swimming of African lions (Panthera lion), and there were a few false starts.

The researchers recorded potential predators that may have followed the lion duo before successfully crossing. Working with the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the international team tracked their movements using heat-detecting drone cameras.

“Lions are known to occasionally hunt both crocodiles and hippos, but in the water they themselves become vulnerable,” the researchers write in their published paper.

“River crossings in Africa carry a significant risk of injury or even death from encounters with the much larger Nile crocodile, or hippopotamus.”

The video (there aren't many videos of swimming, so watch the video closely towards the end):

You did it! A little more:

“The fact that he and his brother Tibu managed to survive for so long in a national park that faces significant human pressure and high poaching rates is an achievement in itself,” Braczkowski added.

The reason for Jacob and Tibu's adventure? Most likely it's about finding females to mate with. However, this is less a tale of romantic courage and more a sobering tale of a lion population decimated by poaching and increasing human activity in Queen Elizabeth National Park.

“Our science has shown that this population has almost halved in just five years,” says Braczkowski.

In fact, there is a road bridge that the lions could have used more safely – but conservationists believe the presence of people on and around the bridge, currently guarded by the Uganda Peoples' Defense Force, would have tripped up the brothers from using it.

Instead, researchers have observed lions crossing the much riskier sea channel, which is infested with crocodiles and hippos, six times.

. . . “Competition for lionesses in the park is fierce and they lost the battle for female affection in the hours before the swim, so it is likely that the duo made the risky journey to get to the females on the other side of the canal,” he says Braczkowski.

The research was published in Ecology and evolution.

Here is the paper: Click here to read it:

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ListVerse offers 10 heartwarming and “scientific” stories about cats, many with videos. Click below to read and I'll show some of the videos:

A contraceptive vaccine for feral cats, easier than trapping and neutering:

Cats sit in squares:

The extraordinary visual perception and brain connectivity are why cats love sitting in two-dimensional squares or other shapes, even if those shapes are incomplete (e.g. four cutouts spaced apart in the shape of a square).

The fact that these appear to form a closed shape is the Kanizsa square illusion, which exploits our brain's tendency to fill in the gaps and see contours that are not there. The same thing happens in the cat's mind, which means your cat will probably love a flat, incomplete square as much (or almost as much) as a fresh, cozy box.

If you have a cat, you may have noticed that it has whiskers on its legs. But what are whiskers for?

Cats don't just have whiskers on the whisker part of their body. They also have whiskers on the parts of their body that do not have whiskers, including the backs of their legs. These are called carpal vibrissae because carpus means wrist and vibrissae is the fancy Latin scientific word for whiskers, or technically nose hairs.

Like the whiskers around their snouts, these vibrissae aren't just there to tickle you; These are sensory organs with which a cat perceives its surroundings. They can detect tiny movements such as changes in air pressure and the environment to help cats navigate their world and achieve their excellent feline agility. By using these whiskers on the wrist, cats can sense surfaces and objects, improving their spatial awareness, environmental orientation and hunting skills.

And a new breed of cat with unusual fur:

The universe launched a new type of cat in May 2024, recently described by science. This rare Finnish domestic cat has a novel coat pattern called “salmiak” and a kind of cookies-and-cream vibe. People in Finland noticed the pattern that appeared around 2007 and noticed that instead of traditional tuxedos, these black and white dresses featured a gradient color, like a pinch of salt and pepper. The ombré effect occurs when the fur becomes lighter from root to tip, from black to white.

To make it official, scientists in the journal have identified genetic mechanics Animal genetics as “a 95 kb deletion downstream of the KIT gene.” Ah, of course that makes a lot of sense! To put it more understandably, a missing piece of DNA leads to the fur type “Salmiak”, named after a popular Finnish salt licorice variety. Because Finns love licorice for some reason. But they also love cats, so it evens out

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Lagniappe: Cats at a Japanese cat cafe react to an earthquake in 2018. I bet they started reacting before people noticed the quake and quickly fled.

h/t Barry, Bill