Something fun from the NY Times science section: a creature that looks like a rodent and sings like a bird.
James Gorman writes that the hyrax is reminiscent of a Dr. Seuss character: “It looks something like a rabbit, something like a woodchuck. Its closest living relatives are elephants, manatees and dugongs. And male rock hyraxes have complex songs like those of birds, in the sense that males will go on for 5 or 10 minutes at a stretch, apparently advertising themselves …
“Arik Kershenbaum and colleagues at the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University have found something more surprising. Hyraxes’ songs have something rarely found in mammals: syntax that varies according to where the hyraxes live, geographical dialects in how they put their songs together.” More here.
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