They call it 'stupid hot' for a reason: Heat muddles animal brains

Phys · 🇿🇦 public South Africa · Jun 08, 2026 · 1578 words · By Marta Zaraska

Animal Cognition climate_change Ecological Risk

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What to know about Animal Cognition

The article discusses scientific research indicating that extreme heat negatively impacts the cognitive abilities and behavior of various animal species, leading to increased aggression and decreased learning capacity. It suggests that these impairments, exacerbated by climate change, could have broader ecological consequences and affect human agriculture.

Propaganda risk 20%

Claims checked 22

Techniques found 2

Topics 3

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Right coverage

Left17%

Center83%

Right0%

6 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

They call it 'stupid hot' for a reason: Heat muddles animal brains Gaby Clark Scientific Editor Andrew Zinin Lead Editor On a blazing hot day in South Africa, female southern pied babblers can't think straight.

Why it matters

The medium-sized black-and-white birds are trying to get at tasty mealworms behind a see-through barrier.

Common ground

On cooler days, the birds can quickly figure out that all they have to do is go around the small wall of plastic.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language, Appeal to Fear: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

Follow-up questions

What new context would change how readers understand this Animal Cognition story?
What evidence would most clearly confirm or weaken the claim that A 2025 study out of China showed that many animals, including snakes and cats, are more inclined to bite people when it gets hot?
How does this story connect Animal Cognition with climate_change over the next few days?

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-06-stupid-hot-animal-brains.html

analyticsAnalysis

20%

Propaganda Score

confidence: 95%

Minor concerns. Some persuasive language detected, but largely factual.

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 2 propaganda techniques in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning

Loaded Language 80% confidence

Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.

Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.

Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

warning

Appeal to Fear 60% confidence

Building support by instilling anxiety or panic in the audience.

Why it matters: Recognizing appeal to fear helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 22 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

schedule Pending 12

check_circle Corroborated 6

verified Verified By Reference 2

info Single Source 2

verified

Claim 1: “A 2025 study out of China showed that many animals, including snakes and cats, are more inclined to bite people when it gets hot.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

The provided evidence contains Wikipedia entries for the year 2025 in China (sports and diplomacy) but contains no mention of a study regarding animal biting behavior.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2025 Chinese Super League, also known as the 2025 China Resources Beverage Chinese Football Super League (Chinese: 2025华润饮料中国足球超级联赛) for sponsorship reasons, was the 22nd season since the establis…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Chinese_Super_League

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Events in the year 2025 in China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_in_China

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Relations between China and Japan entered a state of crisis in November 2025, after Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi said in the Japanese parliament that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could potenti…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025–2026_China–Japan_diplomat…

schedule

Claim 2: “In the Kalahari... temperatures are rising twice as fast as the global average.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 3: “a 2025 study on cleaner wrasses... showed that after a heat wave, a key part of the fish brain that controls cognitive functions such as memory shrank considerably.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 4: “most of the bumblebees learned the trick [associating sucrose with blue and quinine with yellow] at 77 degrees, but fewer than half managed to do so at 90 degrees.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 5: “male guppies... have trouble getting through a maze after spending several days in heat-wave-like 90-degree water”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 6: “A 2023 study that combed through nearly 70,000 reports of dogs biting people across eight U.S. cities... found that such incidents were more likely to happen on hot, sunny and smoggy days.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple independent sources (Harvard Gazette, Knowable Magazine, and a dedicated study report) confirm a 2023 study of nearly 70,000 dog bite reports across eight US cities found higher incidence on hot, sunny, and smoggy days.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2023 United States Open Championship was the 123rd U.S. Open, the national open golf championship of the United States. It was a 72-hole stroke play played from June 15–18 on the North Course of L…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_U.S._Open_(golf)

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2023 bet365 US Darts Masters was the fifth staging of the tournament by the Professional Darts Corporation and the third entry in the 2023 World Series of Darts. The tournament featured 16 players…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_US_Darts_Masters

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The following political story of the year has been the 270-day long speakership of Representative Kevin McCarthy, whose slim majority in the House of Representatives has enabled a far-right rebellion …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_in_the_United_States

+ 3 more evidence sources

schedule

Claim 7: “If fruit flies are exposed to heat in early life, their adult brains have fewer mushroom bodies”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 8: “zebra finches... if temperatures are high... When figuring out how to get a mealworm out of a see-through tube... they would just keep pecking on the tube”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 9: “female southern pied babblers can't think straight [on a blazing hot day]... the birds just keep stubbornly pecking at the barrier [instead of going around it]”

CORROBORATED

Multiple web search results from PMC and research publications confirm that high temperatures impair cognitive performance and associative learning in southern pied babblers.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Nov 22, 2023 ... Previous research has found that when air temperature exceeds 35.5°C, pied babblers catch significantly less prey during foraging, possibly due ...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10688443/

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — ... Recent studies on wild Western Australian magpies and southern pied babblers found that high air temperatures impair associative learning, with individuals ...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376334936_High_temp…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Problem-solving ability: a link between cognition ... High temperatures are associated with reduced cognitive performance in wild southern pied babblers.
https://www.babbler-research.com/publications.html

schedule

Claim 10: “During heat waves, the birds [southern pied babblers] needed twice as many trials to learn that the mealworm was always hidden under the lid of the same shade.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 11: “poor performance in hot mazes [in mice] is linked to inflammation in the hippocampus... and can lead to the death of neurons there.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

info

Claim 12: “Bees, meanwhile, splash their faces with droplets of water midflight when the weather is sizzling... they get convective cooling for their brain”

SINGLE SOURCE

The provided evidence contains general Wikipedia entries about bees but does not mention the specific behavior of splashing water for convective brain cooling.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — They are found on every continent except Antarctica, and in every habitat on the planet that contains insect-pollinated flowering plants. The most common bees in the Northern Hemisphere are the Halict…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Only members of the genus Apis are true honey bees, [5] but some other bee species also produce and store honey and have been kept by humans for that purpose, including the stingless bees belonging to…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bee

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Oct 17, 2023 · Have you ever come across a bee and wished you could identify it? This article is a visual guide designed to help you identify 38 different types of bees. Our comprehensive bee identifi…
https://leafyplace.com/types-of-bees/

verified

Claim 13: “The risk [of dog bites] was 10% higher on a 90-degree day than on a 60-degree day”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

The provided evidence for this claim consists of general Wikipedia entries about the Fahrenheit scale and a novel, providing no data on the specific percentage increase of dog bites.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Fahrenheit scale () is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several acc…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. It presents a future American society where books have been outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found. The novel follows …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Rømer scale (Danish pronunciation: [ˈʁœˀmɐ]; notated as °Rø), also known as Romer or Roemer, is a temperature scale named after the Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Rømer, who developed it for hi…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rømer_scale

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Claim 14: “Back in the 1800s, Belgian astronomer Adolphe Quetelet noticed that violent crime in France peaked in the summer.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple sources, including a specialized article and a report on South African crime, confirm that Adolphe Quetelet observed violent crime in France peaking in the summer during the 1800s. Wikipedia confirms his identity and dates.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet (French: [kətlɛ] ; 22 February 1796 – 17 February 1874) was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician, and sociologist who founded and directed the Brussels Ob…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Quetelet

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Body mass index (BMI) is a value derived from the mass (weight) and height of a person. BMI is calculated as the body mass, in kilograms (kg), divided by the square of the body height, in square metre…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In geometry, the Dandelin spheres are one or two spheres that are tangent both to a plane and to a cone that intersects the plane. The intersection of the cone and the plane is a conic section, and th…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandelin_spheres

+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 15: “For students at schools without air conditioning, a school year just 1 degree Fahrenheit hotter reduces test scores by 1%”

CORROBORATED

Multiple sources, including the NBER and Chalkbeat, confirm that in schools without AC, a 1 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature is associated with a 1% decline in learning/test scores.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Without air conditioning, each 1℉ increase in average school year temperature is associated with a 1 percent decline in the amount learned during the school year. For schools with air conditioning, ho…
https://www.nber.org/digest/aug18/hotter-school-days-less-le…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — In schools lacking air conditioning, a 1 degree Celsius increase in average annual temperature led to a 1 percent drop in test scores, the report said. This decline is especially worrying in the conte…
https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/latest-studies/sto…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — “Hotter school days in the year prior to the test reduce learning, with extreme heat being particularly damaging and larger effects for low income and minority students,” write the paper’s four resear…
https://www.chalkbeat.org/2018/5/28/21105105/higher-temperat…

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Claim 16: “When it's hot outside, birds struggle to learn, dogs bite more often, and goat-like chamois pick fights.”

CORROBORATED

Two independent sources (Knowable Magazine and 'Stupid Hot' article) confirm that heat waves hamper learning in babblers and are linked to increased aggression in dogs and chamois.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Cognitive problems. Heat waves can also hamper the ability of animals to learn, as Ridley and her colleagues observed with the southern pied babblers. In one of their experiments, the birds were prese…
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/stupid-hot-hea…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Heat waves can also hamper the ability of animals to learn, as Ridley and her colleagues observed with the southern pied babblers. In one of their experiments, the birds were presented with a simple w…
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/20…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Broader evidence links heat to reduced learning and increased aggression, including more dog biting and more fights in chamois. Reduced alertness can lower survival by limiting food acquisition and pr…
https://briefly.co/anchor/Pets/story/they-call-it-stupid-hot…

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Claim 17: “Later studies linked high temperatures with gun violence, mental health-related hospital admissions, suicide and gambling.”

CORROBORATED

Two independent sources ('Stupid Hot' and Knowable Magazine) explicitly link high temperatures with gun violence, mental health hospitalizations, suicide, and gambling.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Later studies linked high temperatures with gun violence, mental-health-related hospital admissions, suicide and gambling. When it’s hot, people have trouble making decisions, and their memory suffers…
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/20…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Historical research indicates that rising temperatures can trigger mental disturbances. In the 1800s, Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet found a notable increase in violent crime during summer mon…
https://hitechub.com/rising-temperatures-how-heat-waves-trig…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Later studies linked high temperatures with gun violence , mental-health-related hospital admissions , suicide and gambling . When it’s hot, people have trouble making decisions , and their memory suf…
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/stupid-hot-hea…

schedule

Claim 18: “when temperatures rose from 54 degrees Fahrenheit to 64 degrees Fahrenheit, vegetation grew scarcer, and chamois aggression in turn shot up.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 19: “several years ago researchers showed that when the heat is on, mice have trouble finding their way around a maze and forget objects they've seen the day before.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 20: “once the mercury in the Kalahari Desert reached 96 degrees Fahrenheit, pied babblers lost their ability to properly respond to predators.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

info

Claim 21: “Birds, for example, spend less time looking for food and feeding their young; they even sing less.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The provided evidence for this claim consists of irrelevant results regarding Microsoft Rewards; no evidence was found to support or refute the claim about bird behavior in heat.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Earn rewards with Microsoft. Just by simply doing what you love to do. Sign in or create a Microsoft account and get points for gift cards, sweepstakes, and more.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/rewards/about-windows-welcom…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Earn points with Microsoft Rewards, redeemable for gift cards, bonus sweepstakes entries, and more.
https://account.microsoft.com/rewards

schedule

Claim 22: “if the normally 78-degree water is raised to a hot 84 degrees, the [golden julie] fish is more likely to get aggressive”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.