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Dozens of Florida Lakes Have Leeches — Does It Matter?
Florida's lakes and streams hide more than alligators and fish. The slimy, blood-sucking creatures lurking in warm shallow water turn…
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New Zealand’s Glowing Caves Hide Tiny Predators with Fishing Lines
Inside New Zealand's limestone caves, larvae barely visible to the naked eye have engineered a hunting trap so effective it…
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How a Spider With a Poppyseed-Sized Brain Executes a Spider Hunt
A half-inch spider with a brain the size of a poppyseed routinely takes down prey many times its own size,…
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The Viper Whose Spiderlike Tail Fools Birds — and Fooled Scientists for Decades
A viper collected in Iran's Zagros Mountains sat in a museum drawer for nearly four decades before scientists realized its…
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Why 95% of a Marine Iguana’s Salt Exits Through Its Nose
Marine iguanas are the only lizards on Earth that forage at sea, and the salty diet they consume should be…
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70 Dolphins Dead: How One Bloom Shattered a Marine Food Web
Yellow foam, dead fish by the thousands, and dolphins washing ashore with no obvious injuries. What began as a strange…
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Citizen Scientists Helped Decipher How Harvestmen Became Oddly Devoted Dads
Paternal care is vanishingly rare in the animal kingdom, yet one spider relative pulls it off repeatedly across thousands of…
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The Real Reason Aquatic Turtles Must Have a Basking Spot
Most turtle owners focus on clean water and the right food, but a missing piece of the habitat can quietly…
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The ‘Dance of Joy’ That Reveals Your Ferret’s Wild Origins
Your ferret's seemingly silly sideways hops and frenetic tunneling are echoes of a wild predator still lurking beneath the domesticated…
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Why Fireflies Flash in Sync — and Where to See It
In a handful of forests across North America, thousands of fireflies abandon their solo acts and pulse together in eerie,…
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Blue the Dog Has One Job at Grand Canyon: Elk Patrol
Grand Canyon National Park has a new wildlife management strategy, and it runs on four legs and a loud bark.…
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Hear a Mystery Bird? Merlin’s AI Can Name It Instantly
You’re walking in a natural area, and you see a little bird flitting around in the underbrush. You wonder what…
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Why 90% of Humans Are Right-Handed: It’s How We Walk
If you’re a lefty and have ever felt excluded from the right-handed club as you write a letter, throw a…
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Can a Million Eggs Finally Save This Toad?
In this video, you see Texas Parks and Wildlife staff releasing toad eggs and tadpoles from the Houston Zoo into…
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Inside the Navy Program Where Dolphins Still Outperform Machines
Dolphins are notoriously smart – expressing emotions like joy and grief; maintaining cooperative social networks; and solving problems in nature…
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3 Field Signs That Reveal a Marbled Salamander’s Sex
If you come across a marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum), consider yourself lucky—they spend most of their time hidden from view.…
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Meet the 5-Foot Bird That Eats Baby Crocodiles
Just the name “shoebill” is a clue that this is a strange bird. The shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) is a type…
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1,000+ Cold-Stunned Turtles and the Network Racing to Save Them
Earlier this year, more than a thousand sea turtles were found cold-stunned along the Texas coast when the air temperature…
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Inside the Unusual, Ladder-Spinning Movement of Bagworms
We’ve all watched caterpillars crawl, creating a ripple-effect with their multiple pairs of legs alternately making contact with the surface.…
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How an African Bullfrog Exhausted a Deadly Boomslang While Barely Moving
In this video, we see a boomslang snake trying to eat an African bullfrog in South Africa. Boomslang snakes (Dispholidus…
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How Losing Their Shells Helped Squid Outlive the Dinosaurs
Most people have encountered squid through their local seafood menu or field trip to an aquarium. Unlike octopuses, which are…
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This Rare Shark Is Small Enough To Hide In Your Pocket
What’s finned, bioluminescent, and hiding out in the Gulf of Mexico? A shark that’s small enough to fit into your…
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Black Bear vs. Grizzly: The Advice That Could Save Your Life
For most North American hikers, the possibility of a bear encounter has crossed their minds. Whether a hiker is prepared…
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How One Hunter Is Battling Florida’s Growing Invasive Reptile Crisis
In this video, a Florida man, the “Python Cowboy,” hunts for invasive species. As he points out, “Here in Florida,…
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A Strange Daytime Sighting Reveals Rare Flying Squirrels Quietly Moving Into Nebraska
In Nebraska, an elusive mammal that looks like your garden-variety tree squirrel but has strikingly large eyes and a rudder-like…
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A 400-Million-Year-Old Fish Smile Is Changing What We Know About Teeth
These days, all fish have teeth. The shapes of their teeth vary according to diet, ranging from the little pegs…
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Nature’s Meat Stripper: Anatomy of a Tiger’s Tongue Explained
A recent Instagram post described a tiger’s tongue as “built to strip meat, fur, and feathers straight off bone.” This…
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Love Under the Ice: The Secret Winter Romance of North America’s Engineers
While other animals are hibernating or hunkering down for the winter, beavers are spending intimate time in mating and reproduction.…
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How Well Can Humans Smell Compared to Other Animals?
As mammals with large brains, humans experience smell as a powerful sensory experience that’s closely linked with memory. The smell…
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How One Invasive Species Is Rewiring an Entire Island’s Ecosystem
The island of Guam has a snake problem. Though innocuous enough in appearance – slender with brownish or greenish coloration…
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Asian Carp, the Massive Fish That Could Reshape the Great Lakes Forever
Asian carp are large, voracious, and invasive. After their introduction to the United States during the early 1970s to control…
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Inbreeding Threatens Michigan’s Only Rattlesnake — What It Means for Conservation
If you come across a rattlesnake in Michigan, it’s an eastern massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus), the only venomous snake in the…
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13,000 Pound Dad Waits For His New Baby At The Zoo
Smithsonian’s National Zoo is all abuzz with excitement because first-time elephant mom Nhi Linh is pregnant. With a window for…
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The Antelope That Could Take Its Entire Genus with It: Hirola’s Unfair Fight
“Hirola” translates from Somali to something like “the peaceful one” or “the lone one,” referring to its solitary habits. Like…
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Conservation Isn’t Just Saving Beaches: This Turtle Study Says Reefs and Routes Matter Too
Three species of sea turtles are regularly observed in the Red Sea, which is an inlet of the Indian Ocean:…
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Blocked or Crossed: Why Caribou Survival Hinges on a Single Road
Migratory land mammals roam annually over large swaths of landscape to obtain seasonally available resources. For example, caribou (Rangifer tarandus)…
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Porcupine or Doppelgänger? DNA Unravels a Forest Impostor
You’d think that porcupines climbing trees would be visible and therefore well-studied. Roughly the size of housecats with thousands of…
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Walking on Ice: How Blue-Spotted Salamanders Defy Freezing Death
While tromping around chilly places in Ontario, Canada during the winter, the last creature you might expect to see is…
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Why Harassing Elephant Seals Is Illegal and Dangerous
In an unfortunate recent event, a couple threw rocks at an elephant seal at Point Reyes National Seashore in California.…
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Does a Pelican Gathering Off California Coast Signal This Seabird’s Comeback?
Last month, a mob of pelicans amassed on the Central California coast, diving in droves for fish prey in the…
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Why You Should Always Seek Medical Attention for a Raccoon Bite
Raccoons are kind of cute, with their black face markings and striped tails, right? These masked bandits thrive in urban…
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Bag Limits Explained: Why Hunters Can Only Take So Many Animals
As we head into the middle of hunting season in many parts of the U.S., it’s a good time to…
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How Recycling Your Old iPhone Could Save a Gorilla’s Life
In an episode of the Amazing Wildlife podcast, we found out that the San Diego Zoo Safari Park is collecting…
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Light Pollution’s Hidden Harm: How Artificial Light Disrupts Bird Migration
The millions of birds—encompassing almost 500 species—that migrate across North America every year undertake challenging journeys. They must cover hundreds…
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Feral Cats Just Landed on New Zealand’s ‘Predator Free 2050’ List
People love to keep cats as pets; domestic cats are playful but relatively low-maintenance. Worldwide, over 350 million pet cats…
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Horsehair Worm and Praying Mantis: A Truly Unique Relationship
You’re not likely to witness a horsehair worm making its exit from a praying mantis, but if you do, it’s…
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How Squirrels Accidentally Plant Oak Forests
You’ve likely seen a squirrel dashing around with an oak tree acorn in its mouth. It may be about to…
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A Closer Look at How Ant Colonies Raise the Next Generation
The unusual life cycles of ants are deeply rooted in their social nature. Ants and other social insects like termites,…
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The Animals of Saguaro National Park: From Cactus Wrens to Coyotes
Saguaro Park in southeastern Arizona, near Tucson, offers a landscape unlike anything you’ll see elsewhere. The park hosts about a million…
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Meet California’s New State Snake: the Giant Garter Snake
We’ve all heard of state birds, like Virginia’s northern cardinal or Michigan’s American robin. But a state reptile? About half…