Articles
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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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…
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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…
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…
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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…
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How Lion Populations Fell 90% — and What Conservationists Are Doing to Help
Lion populations have collapsed at a speed that has left conservationists scrambling, and the chain of consequences stretching from vanishing…
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Red Wolves Reach a Major Milestone in North Carolina
North Carolina's red wolves have teetered on the edge of total extinction for decades, and 2026 brought a breeding season…
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9 Bugs That Look Like Wasps but Are Totally Harmless
That yellow-and-black insect hovering near your garden might look exactly like a wasp, but thousands of completely harmless species have…
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Baby Anteaters Cling to Mom’s Back for Up to 2 Years
Giant anteaters and tamanduas look nothing alike, yet these two species share a surprisingly tender side that has nothing to…
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7 Insects Whose Smells Range from Cilantro to Rotting Flesh
Some insects smell like cilantro, others like bleach or rotting flesh, and a few can blister skin or trigger asthma…
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7 Plants Whose Stings Can Last for Months, and One Is Even Called ‘Suicide Plant’
Some plants make poison ivy look harmless, delivering venom so persistent it can outlast treatments, seasons, and even the plant…
Blog
Animals That Sleep Surprisingly Little
Some animals have evolved sleep strategies so bizarre they barely resemble sleep at all, and the reasons behind them reveal…
Blog
Nature’s Effective Recycling Crew
Without a hidden army of recyclers working through the world's dead, rotting, and discarded matter, ecosystems would collapse under their…
Blog
Animals That Sacrifice Body Parts to Survive
Some creatures carry a shocking last resort when cornered by a predator: willingly giving up a piece of themselves to…
Blog
Animals That Do Things No Other Creature Can Do
Some creatures have evolved abilities so bizarre and so singular that nothing else on Earth comes close to matching them.…
Articles
Endangered Night Heron Surprises Chicago Worker Mid-Meeting
A Chicago office worker filming a mystery bird outside her high-rise window had no idea she was looking at a…
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Animals With Astonishing Sensory Abilities
Some animals perceive the world through senses so refined they border on supernatural, detecting seismic waves through their feet, mapping…
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Do Earwigs Actually Crawl into Your Ear and Lay Eggs?
For 2,000 years, the earwig has carried one of nature's most unsettling reputations, and the truth about what this creature…
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Tiny Crab Hid Under Rocks in the South China Sea and Fooled Researchers for Years
Researchers kept walking right past this tiny South China Sea crab, convinced it was a species they already knew. It…
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Jellyfish Found in an Idaho Freshwater Pond Stuns Local Dad
A dad swimming with his daughters in a landlocked Idaho park pulled something unexpected out of the water, and it…
Articles
Teeth Smaller Than Rice Helped Add a Branch to the Marsupial Family Tree
A few teeth barely bigger than grains of rice sat unidentified in an Australian cave for millions of years, and…
Blog
Demolition Experts of the Animal Kingdom
Some animals don't just adapt to their environments, they demolish and rebuild them entirely. Meet the eight creatures that punch,…
Articles
A Baby Goat Jumps, Faints Stiff-Legged, and Pops Right Back Up
A tiny goat takes a daring leap, then something totally unexpected happens the moment it lands. The science behind this…
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The Insect Nicknamed ‘Cow Killer’ Has Never Killed a Single Cow
The red velvet ant earned its nickname by supposedly killing cows with a single sting, yet its venom contains none…
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How Scientists Cut a Bloodsucking Invasive Fish Population by 90%
Sea lampreys have terrorized Great Lakes fish populations for decades, latching onto hosts and draining them like aquatic vampires. Scientists…
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How Eye Placement Determines Whether an Animal Hunts or Hides
Viral memes showing animals with digitally repositioned eyes are funny, but the real reason nature placed them there in the…
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Is a Venus Flytrap a Plant or an Animal?
A plant that snaps its jaws shut, digests its prey with acid, and hunts insects challenges everything we think we…
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Inside the Extraordinary Effort to Save a Premature Giraffe Calf at Tanganyika Wildlife Park
When a premature giraffe calf arrived by emergency C-section after her mother's organs began shutting down, the team at Tanganyika…
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Rescued Baby Woodpecker Named Woody Gets a Second Chance
An Alabama couple cutting down a storm-damaged pine tree had no idea something was alive inside it. What they found…
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The U.S. County That Made Bigfoot Hunting a Felony
A Washington State county passed a law that treated killing a certain legendary forest creature as seriously as a violent…