Blog
Georgia’s Quail Fell 90 Percent, but One Roost Choice Doubles Survival
Bobwhite quail have nearly vanished from Georgia since the 1960s, and researchers tracking hundreds of radio-tagged birds just uncovered a…
Blog
Blog
One Disaster Could Wipe out This Newly Found Amazon Fish
Scientists just discovered a brilliantly orange killifish deep in the Brazilian Amazon, but the celebration was short-lived. The entire known…
Blog
240 Million Years Apart, These Spiders Build the Same Trap
Two spider families split apart nearly 240 million years ago and went their separate evolutionary ways, yet both spin webs…
Blog
This Toothless Ethiopian Snake Cracks Eggs with Spikes in Its Spine
Deep in one of Africa's last untouched forests, scientists spent seven years unraveling the identity of a snake with a…
Blog
Chimps Caught Guiding an Infant’s Hand to Teach Tool Use
Wild chimpanzees in Senegal were filmed doing something researchers have long debated whether apes are even capable of: deliberately teaching…
Blog
Dogs Show Human-Like Brain Activity When Resisting Temptation
Scientists wired up 14 family dogs with EEG sensors and told them to wait in front of a tempting treat,…
Blog
Teens Felt Less Sad When the Tiny Horses Walked Away
A UC Davis study put teenagers in a pen with rescued miniature horses and donkeys, and what the animals did…
Blog
Oyster Larvae Don’t Chase Food. They Rely on Gravity
A new study reveals that eastern oyster larvae feed in a way scientists never expected, and the discovery raises urgent…
Blog
A Feather in Dinosaur Poop May Explain How Birds Beat Extinction
A researcher crawling through Montana badlands in 2016 stumbled on a fossilized ball of dinosaur dung no bigger than a…
Blog
Could More Mates Keep a Species Alive? Beetles Say Yes
A 15-year beetle experiment spanning 156 generations is forcing scientists to rethink what actually keeps a species alive when populations…
Blog
Blind and Tongueless, This Toad Hunts with Human-Like Fingertips
The Suriname toad is nearly blind, has no tongue, and hunts in water too murky to see through, yet it…
Blog
Documentaries Got It Backwards: Lions Are the Ones Trailing Hyenas
For decades, researchers assumed hyenas shadowed lions to steal scraps from fresh kills. But when GPS collars revealed exactly how…
Blog
Periodical Cicadas Could Slowly Disappear Despite Their Massive Swarms
Periodical cicadas emerge only once every 13 to 17 years, yet their massive swarms may not be enough to save…
Blog
Why 100 Endangered Eagle Rays Swarmed a Malta Tuna Farm
When researchers sent an ROV to inspect a routine tuna farm off Malta, they found something lurking on the seafloor…
Blog
7 Things That Can Take Down a Grizzly Bear
Grizzly bears top North America's food chain, but a surprisingly short list of animals and forces can still bring one…
Blog
One Photo, One Night: How a Fisherwoman Ended a 40-Year Search
Scientists had not spotted the spinach pipefish since the 1980s, its only known specimen was destroyed in World War II,…
Blog
The Alligator’s No. 1 Killer Isn’t What You Think
Alligators have ruled their territory since the age of dinosaurs, but a surprising lineup of animals still manages to hunt,…
Blog
Why a Fort Fisher Sea Turtle Nest Suddenly Started to ‘Boil’
Dozens of loggerhead hatchlings just churned up from the sand at Fort Fisher, and the spectacle has a name that…
Blog
How Boat Noise Makes Baby Reef Fish Swim Toward Predators
Motorboat noise near the Great Barrier Reef is doing something alarming to young spiny chromis fish, and the consequences reach…
Blog
Watch a Camel Take a Dip in the Ocean
A viral video of a camel gleefully rolling in the surf off an Omani beach raises a question most people…
Blog
Scientists Filmed a 4-Foot Squid with ‘Elbows’ Two Miles Deep
A robotic sub on a routine seafloor mission accidentally crossed paths with one of the ocean's most elusive creatures, a…
Articles
Why Colorado’s Thirsty Black Bears Are Wandering into Town This Year
Colorado black bears are showing up in neighborhoods at a rate that has wildlife officials scrambling, and the reason behind…
Blog
Turtles Stuffed in Socks, Labeled ‘Plastic Toys’ — Then Rescued
A Brooklyn man stuffed hundreds of live turtles into socks and shipped them overseas as plastic toys, and he's not…
Articles
Scientists Map the Hidden Highways of Mexico’s Parrot Trade
Poachers have stripped Mexico's wild parrot populations for decades, and even strict international laws failed to slow the trade. Now…
Articles
How 40 Elk Turned an Oregon Town into Their Home
A herd of elk wandered into a quiet Oregon beach town and never left, and now residents are caught between…
Articles
A Sesame-Seed-Sized Creature Could Decide Maine Lobsters’ Future
Baby lobsters are picky eaters, and their preferred snack is vanishing from Maine's warming waters. Researchers now suspect this sesame-seed-sized…
Articles
September Is the Best Month to Watch the Salmon Runs
Every September, two of the Pacific coast's most spectacular salmon runs collide in rivers and streams from California to Alaska,…
Articles
The Government Ordered a Bald Eagle’s Death. A Mayor Said No.
When a Tennessee wildlife rescuer found an injured bald eagle, he expected a fight to save her wing. He never…
Articles
One Seahorse Species Was Actually 3 — Nobody Noticed for a Century
A routine dig through fishing bycatch in southern India upended more than a century of scientific certainty about a well-studied…
Articles
One of America’s Rarest Butterflies Makes a Remarkable Comeback
When fewer than ten Poweshiek skipperling butterflies remained across the entire United States, a desperate last-ditch effort inside zoo walls…
Articles
Australia’s Daring Plan to Hand-Vaccinate 5,000 Wild Penguins
Bird flu has reached the world's smallest penguin colonies in Australia, and officials are racing against time with an unprecedented…
Articles
Days After Jackie Died, a New Female Found Shadow’s Nest
Beloved bald eagle Jackie passed away, and within days a young female appeared at Shadow's nest singing morning songs with…
Articles
Could Mosquito Bites Stop the Disease That Kills a Child Every 2 Minutes?
Scientists have long treated the malaria-carrying mosquito as the enemy, but researchers in Australia are now betting that the bite…
Articles
This Tiny Solar-Powered Sea Slug Just Won Invertebrate of the Year
A sea slug the size of a grain of sand just beat out thousands of competitors to claim a prestigious…
Articles
Inside the Mobile Hatchery Restoring Caribbean Conch
Queen conch once blanketed Caribbean shallows in such numbers that anyone could scoop them up by the armful. Now a…
Articles
Why Some Yellowjacket Nests Are Fine to Ignore—And Others Aren’t
A yellowjacket nest appeared just feet from my front porch, and the question of whether to ignore it or act…
Articles
7 New Frog Species Found Hidden in Museum Drawers
Madagascar's diamond frogs spend most of their lives hidden, and scientists have barely scratched the surface of understanding them. Now…
Articles
One Feral Cat Killed 30 Rare Birds. Then It Walked into a Trap.
For three years, a single feral tabby cat outwitted every trap conservationists set on a New Zealand peninsula, leaving a…
Articles
Scientists Filmed an Orca Hunting Trick Seen Nowhere Else on Earth
Off the coast of northern Norway, a group of orcas hunts with a coordinated technique so specialized that no other…
Articles
What Humpback Whales Are Actually Doing While They Sing for Hours
Scientists could record humpback whale songs traveling for miles, but what the whale's body was actually doing during those hours…
Articles
Tuna Fishing Gear Has Drifted into 174 Marine Sanctuaries
Commercial tuna fishing fleets deploy millions of floating devices across the open ocean, and once those devices drift away, no…
Articles
Cranes, Cargo Planes, and Vets in the Water: Inside the Beluga Rescue
When Marineland threatened to euthanize its entire beluga population, a scramble began across two continents to pull off one of…
Articles
From 4 to 200: The “Cocaine Hippos” Colombia Can’t Control
Pablo Escobar smuggled four hippos into Colombia decades ago, and the country has been paying for it ever since. A…
Articles
The Tiny Fish That Cheats Its Clients and Gets Away with It
On coral reefs, tiny cleaner wrasse boldly swim into the mouths of fish 20 times their size, but they have…
Articles
Meet the Nearly Extinct Frog That Communicates by Waving
Living beside roaring waterfalls makes croaking useless, so this critically endangered Panamanian frog evolved a completely silent way to flirt,…
Articles
The Tuskfish Does Something Only Mammals and Birds Were Known to Do
A fish with no hands just cracked open a clam using a rock, and scientists are scrambling to figure out…
Articles
The Desert Frog That Carries 60% of Its Weight in Stored Water
Buried beneath the baked clay of the Australian Outback, one small frog pulls off a survival trick so extreme that…
Articles
A Brainless Jellyfish Uses 24 Eyes to Navigate Mangroves
Without a brain to guide it, a tiny box jellyfish somehow threads its way through tangled mangrove roots with uncanny…
Articles
The Oystercatcher’s 15-Year Comeback
Once nearly gone from the eastern seaboard, oystercatchers faced a threat no one expected: it wasn't adult birds dying off,…
Articles
Chimps and Bonobos Form ‘Hug Trains’ to Avoid Food Fights
Before chimpanzees and bonobos sit down to share a meal, they perform a surprisingly tender ritual that keeps the peace.…