Minister says she does not want to see compulsory redundancies, as Oireachtas committee prepares to quiz executives again today

Seabirds such as auks, puffins and sea-parrots have tough lives at sea — but are new food shortages causing further damage to these species?

Barnacle research may help reveal location of lost Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

City great tits may be less bright than their rural cousins but are they less healthy? Researchers have been looking into the matter...

Chronic stress is difficult to quantify but cortisol, a hormone released when stress is experienced, can leave a trace in hair tissue for weeks or months so scientists examined this to see if urban coyotes are more stressed than their rural counterparts

The readiness to interact with and explore novel stimuli — curiosity — is the cornerstone of innovation

What’s next... walking with dinosaurs?

Haley Dolton and members of her team at Trinity sailed quietly up to sharks off the Cork coast. Then, using a long pole, they attached muscle-temperature recorders to the backs of the basking giants

The male killer-whale is a 'mammy's boy' — he leaves her only for one-night-stands with females in other pods

Cork scientists have shown that larger members of the pterosaur tribe were actually devoted parents

Researchers have found that same-sex behaviour is in fact widespread among non-human animals. However, the researchers caution against direct comparisons with humans

Pity the poor migrants arriving hungry and exhausted after an arduous journey, only to find that the locals have eaten the lion’s share of the creepy-crawlies and commandeered the best nesting locations

"What turned the hens on, the experiment showed, was not just the music itself, but the ability of a singer to repeat his recital accurately."

Wildcats once roamed much of Europe — but were they ever in Ireland? A prominent zoologist insisted they were but others say old stories probably refer to the pine marten

Researchers have found that dingoes are maintaining their identity and are challenging the view that pure dingoes are on the decline due to cross-breeding

And there's a good reason why Giant's Causeway and honeycombs are hexagon shaped...

This bird’s flamboyant crest made it a solar symbol to the ancient Egyptians and Minoans. Its image adorned their temples and monuments

'Neophobia’ — fear of the new — affects some more than others

A hooded crow has brains, strong claws, and a razor-sharp beak — but it has a bit of an image problem

Arif Khan Gurjar, a farmer in Uttar Pradesh, came upon an injured Sarus crane on his land. He took the bird home and nursed it back to health. The patient should have flown off when well enough, but it refused to leave.

The porbeagle (‘porpoise-beagle’?) is the reigning apex predator of our seas. But are its days on the throne numbered?

Most birds don't hibernate but some do indeed use downtime creatively

Following the composer's death a document addressed to his brothers was discovered among his possessions. In it, Beethoven asks that the cause of his death be determined and the results made public

In one case, a hedgehog pushed another down a flight of concrete, and another was shoved into water. The scientists call this competitive behaviour ‘barge and roll’

The demeanour of the pair suggests this was indeed an adoption. The baby remained very close to the adult’s flank, swimming behind the flipper — this offers maximum protection to a calf and makes it easier for a baby to keep up with its mother

As in all crowded situations, avian or human, rows erupt from time to time. Being with like-minded individuals offers support in times of stress.

Many animals are sensitive to magnetic fields, which have a wide variety of uses, from navigation to a role in helping to catch prey, say researchers

Numbers of hedgehogs are falling across Europe and this project examines the rate of decline and tries to discover the causes

A paper just published suggests that fish have some remarkable mental faculties — some fish are self-aware

We now have urban foxes, city park squirrels and suburban songbirds: some animals have made permanent moves to towns but others pick and mix their accommodation and dining locations

The numbers of the world's third-largest cat, the jaguar, have increased thanks to a growing ecotourism trade

Ferrets can no longer be tolerated on Rathlin which has important bird communities — ferrets, which were released on the island to control the rabbit population, also take eggs and chicks

More than 97% of the world’s water is salty but researchers are investigating using climate change itself along with a vertical water capture structure to harvest fresh water

Winter ‘murmuration’ season is under way: starlings wheel about in spectacular aerial ballet but don’t collide. This is how they avoid pile-ups...

Trackers, fur clippings and whisker samples all analysed in bid to figure out why rogue coyotes attacked a human

Dogs have been bred to herd livestock, assist hunters, guard settlements, catch rats, track people, detect substances, lead the visually impaired, and pull sledges. They may even help diagnose diseases

The pale-grey male Hen Harrier is known as ‘the seagull hawk’ in the west of Ireland — they get their name from raiding chicken coops but they also feed on small mammals and birds

Dido, the African elephant, and Aura, the Iberian lynx, both have impressive lineages

A GPS tag allowed researchers track the 11-day 13.5k journey from Alaska to Tasmania

Young bees rolled balls more frequently than did older ones, just as children and pups play more enthusiastically than adult humans and dogs

Dogs live in a universe of odours — to them, smelling is a prime communication medium

Seabirds reduce risk by flying into the eye of a storm

Carbon-14 dating of adult shark specimens give age estimates of 250 to 500 years

Elephants don't have musophobia but maybe you do?