For more than 20 years, a research team at Lund University in Sweden has studied the common bluetail damselfly. Females occur in three different color forms—one with a male-like appearance, something that protects them from mating harassment. In a new study, an international research team found that this genetic color variation that is shared among several species arose through changes in a specific genomic region at least 5 million years ago.

Name a famous elephant. Babar, perhaps? Or Dumbo? Memorable though these monikers may be to humans, they sound nothing like the names elephants give each other. If you're an elephant, your name is something more like a low, rumbling sound, scientists say.

In a new paper published Aug. 23 on the preprint server BioRxiv, researchers found that African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) made vocalizations specific to individuals in their social groups — and that the recipients responded accordingly. In short, elephants appear to have names for one another.

This makes them the first non-human animals to address each other in a manner that does not imitate the receiver's own call, as dolphins and parrots do. And while other animals do produce what are known as "referential calls" in order to identify objects just as predators or food, those calls are believed to be instinctive and do not require social learning.

I am pretty certain that there was a study that claimed that parrots give each other individual names too a couple of years back.

A team of land managers at the University of Minnesota, working with a colleague at the University of Manitoba, has learned more about the role wolves play in boreal forest dynamics as they prey on beavers. In their study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group used GPS trackers on wild wolves and cameras placed around several beaver ponds at a forested park in Minnesota to learn more about the impact of beavers and wolves on forest dynamics.

Prior research has shown that beavers play a major role in forest dynamics because they clear land, dam streams and forage on areas around beaver ponds. Prior research has also suggested that wolves may alter the impact that beavers have on forest dynamics by preying on them when the beavers stray too far from their self-built lodges—giving wolves a role in forest dynamics. In this new effort, the research team took a closer look to determine the impact wolves have on forest dynamics by preying on beavers.