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Ever Wondered What Baby Porcupines Sound Like?
Baby porcupines, called porcupettes, produce sounds so eerily similar to a human newborn that hearing them for the first time…
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Articles
Do Dogs Really Have a “Sixth Sense”?
When my dog started shadowing my every move, I wrote it off as quirky behavior until I remembered my childhood…
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The Real Reason Beavers Slap Their Tails on Water
That dramatic splash a beaver makes before vanishing underwater looks like a random quirk, but it triggers a chain reaction…
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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,…
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Cute Animals with a Dark Side
Fluffy fur and big eyes have a way of making even the most ruthless creatures seem harmless, but some of…
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Shark Extinction Risk Jumped from a Third to 37.5% in Two Years
Sharks, rays, and chimaeras are disappearing faster than scientists predicted, and the fishing routes intersecting their most critical migration corridors…
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The Vampire Squid Discovery That Science Had to Correct
For decades, the vampire squid stood alone as the last survivor of an ancient cephalopod order, until a strange specimen…
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40 Great Whites in One Day: What El Niño Means for California Beaches
A forecasted super El Niño is reshaping California's coastline in ways that go far beyond storms and flooding, and surfers,…
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Why a Live Giant Squid at the Surface Is One of the Ocean’s Rarest Sights
New footage from a Japanese fishing vessel captures a live giant squid at the ocean's surface, an encounter so unusual…
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39% Of Mosquitoes Now Resist Common Yard Sprays, Study Finds
The yard sprays homeowners depend on to keep dangerous mosquitoes at bay may be quietly training those mosquitoes to survive…
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Why Male Komodo Dragons Stand Up and Wrestle Like Sumo Fighters
When male Komodo dragons rise on their hind legs to grapple, they are performing a ritualized contest that determines mating…
Blog
How a Young Bald Eagle Outsmarted the Adults and Stole the Prize Fish
A slow-motion clip of bald eagles fighting over a single fish shows kleptoparasitism, dominance displays, and a patient juvenile pulling…
Articles
Scientists Are Preparing Panama’s Golden Frogs for Life Outdoors
For the first time since the early 2000s, critically endangered Panamanian golden frogs are feeling rain again, and what scientists…
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Watch These Stunned Fishermen Haul in a Huge Shark the Length of an Elephant
A deep-water fishing trip off the Bahamas turned into something far beyond a typical catch when an absolute monster rose…
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Giraffes Can’t Hide from Storms — So They Do This Instead
Standing 18 feet tall in an open savanna leaves a giraffe with nowhere to hide when a storm rolls in,…
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What Your Aging Dog’s Walk Reveals About Their Brain Health
A new study found something unexpected buried in the way senior dogs walk, and it points to trouble happening long…
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Extinct on Paper: 2 Hawaiian Insects Found Thriving Against the Odds
Hawaii's rarest insects have a way of vanishing quietly, island by island, until scientists assume they're gone for good. But…
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The Slice-or-Crush Trade-Off That Traps Every Carnivore
Carnivore teeth face a brutal constraint baked into evolution itself: the same growth process that makes a tooth deadly at…
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Arms Built for Trees Make Gibbons Hilariously Bad Walkers
Gibbons dominate the treetops with their extraordinary arms, but watching them attempt to run on solid ground reveals a hilariously…
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Nature’s Cleverest Parents
Some animals bribe, blackmail, and con their way through parenthood, while others starve themselves to death for their young. The…
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Vultures Aren’t Dirty Harbingers of Death, They’re a Public-Health Defense
Vultures have long been cast as filthy omens lurking at death's door, yet their absence from an ecosystem can trigger…
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The Moth with a Skull on Its Back Squeaks Like a Toy
A moth infamous for the human skull emblazoned across its back has another unsettling trick up its sleeve, one that…
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23 Beach Closures and a Fourth of July Bite: What’s Behind NY’s Shark Summer
New York beaches are closing at an alarming rate this summer, but the real reason has nothing to do with…
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A 6-Foot Lizard Was Caught Climbing Convenience Store Shelves
A massive lizard turned a convenience store into its personal jungle gym, and the footage is every bit as wild…
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Why Whooping Crane Chicks Are Raised by People Dressed Like Cranes
Conservationists at the International Crane Foundation suit up in elaborate disguises each summer, spending 12-hour shifts pretending to be birds…
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A Contagious Melanoma Has Infected 40% of Catfish in This Lake
Biologists in Vermont noticed something alarming on the skin of catfish in a border lake, and a decade of research…
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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.…
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4,635 Camera Trap Photos Crack the ‘Ghost Dog’ Mystery
For decades, field biologists managed only two direct sightings of the Amazon's most elusive canine, leaving scientists to wonder if…
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9 California Mice Named After Superheroes Could Save Their Species
Nine captive-bred Pacific pocket mice, each named after a superhero, were just released into one of the last known habitats…
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From 100,000 to 4,000: The Race to Save Wild Tigers
A century ago, tigers ruled across nearly all of Asia, but a relentless combination of threats has pushed them to…
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The Town That Carries Frogs Across a Road Every Spring
Every spring in Keene, New Hampshire, volunteers wade into the dark to carry thousands of frogs and salamanders across a…
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The Destructive Caterpillar That Can Digest Styrofoam
A crop-destroying caterpillar notorious for ravaging cotton and soybean fields may hold an unexpected solution to one of the world's…
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Animals That Inspired Useful Inventions
Nature spent millions of years quietly solving the same problems that stump modern engineers, and a surprising number of breakthroughs…
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One Million Octopuses Spared After 5-Year Global Battle
A Spanish seafood giant had a bold plan to farm one million octopuses on a single dock, and the world's…
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A Cobra Slid Under a Sleeping Farmer’s Shirt — He Survived
A farmer napping outdoors woke up to find a venomous cobra sheltering under his shirt, with rescuers urging him not…
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Why Sharks Keep Stealing Anglers’ Catches — and What NOAA Is Doing
Shark depredation has frustrated ocean anglers for generations, but now complaints have grown loud enough that a federal agency is…
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How (and Why) Do Kangaroos Move Their Ears?
Kangaroo ears do far more than just listen, and understanding what drives their constant swiveling reveals just how much danger…
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Sled Dogs Burn 15,000 Calories a Day — Here’s How
Sled dogs complete the equivalent of dozens of back-to-back marathons through freezing conditions, sleep a few hours, and wake up…
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It’s Not the Eclipse Affecting Animals — It’s the Humans
When biologist Adam Hartstone-Rose watched zoo animals during a solar eclipse, he expected them to shrug it off like a…
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That Weird Hammer-Headed Worm Has Pufferfish Neurotoxin
An unsettling worm with a hammer-shaped head is spreading across the United States, and it carries the same nerve toxin…
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The Real Reason Woodcocks Do That Hypnotic Rocking Walk
American woodcocks perform a peculiar, rhythmic rocking walk that has puzzled scientists for decades, and the leading theories are stranger…
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He Logged 100 Hours Reading to Shelter Animals — Hopper Was His Favorite
An 11-year-old boy walked into a Jacksonville shelter, sat down with a dog, and started reading out loud. What happened…
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How Beavers Can Fell a Tree in Minutes
A beaver's sharp teeth can bring down a tree faster than most people would believe possible, and the technique these…
Education
The Ocean’s Unicorns: A Free Unit Plan on Narwhals
Called the unicorns of the sea, narwhals hide extraordinary secrets beneath the Arctic ice, from spiral tusks to survival tricks…
Articles
The Panda of the Sea Vanished for 10 Years. DNA Changed That.
Once abundant in the South China Sea, the Chinese bahaba vanished so thoroughly that scientists struggled to prove it still…
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Tiny Tree Snails Make Historic Comeback 40 Years After Vanishing in Moorea
For four decades, a tiny tree snail vanished entirely from the wild islands of French Polynesia, surviving only in the…
Blog
The Most Effective Bodyguards of the Animal Kingdom
Some animals earn their safety by cleaning parasites off sharks. Others recruit whole ant armies to fight their battles. Nature's…
Blog
Meet the Woman Reconnecting the Amazon One Canopy Bridge at a Time
When Fernanda Abra looked at the roads slicing through the Brazilian Amazon, she saw something most engineers missed: a ceiling…
Articles
Ticks Took Over Her Yard and Guinea Fowls Solved the Problem
Wood ticks were making her yard unusable, and tick medication for her dogs had become routine. The solution she found…
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The Chemical Reason Mosquito Bites Itch but Stings Burn
A mosquito bite and a bee sting both break the skin, yet one leaves you scratching while the other feels…