773 results
- Animals
Fish beware: Bottlenosed dolphins may be able to pick up your heartbeat
Fish, sharks and platypuses are adept at sensing electrical signals living things give off. Bottlenosed dolphins make that list too, studies suggests.
- Animals
These devices use an electric field to scare sharks from fishing hooks
SharkGuard gadgets work by harnessing sharks’ ability to detect electric fields. That could save the animals’ lives, a study suggests.
- Oceans
Sharks face rising odds of extinction even as other big fish populations recover
Over the last 70 years, large ocean fishes like tuna and marlin have been recovering from overfishing. But sharks continue to decline toward extinction.
- Ecosystems
Tiger sharks helped discover the world’s largest seagrass prairie
Instrument-equipped sharks went where divers couldn’t to survey the Bahama Banks seagrass ecosystem.
- Animals
One mountain in Brazil is home to a surprising number of these parasitic wasps
Darwin wasps were thought to prefer temperate areas. But researchers scoured a mountain in the Brazilian tropics and found nearly a hundred species.
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The animal kingdom never ceases to amaze
Editor in chief Nancy Shute revels in the wonder of animals, from psychedelic toads to extinct pterosaurs.
- Animals
Whale sharks may be the world’s largest omnivores
An analysis of the sharks’ skin shows that the animals eat and digest algae.
- Science & Society
Humans exploit about one-third of wild vertebrate species
An analysis of nearly 47,000 vertebrate animal species reveals that using them for food, medicine or the pet trade is helping push some toward extinction.
- Paleontology
Paleontology has a ‘parachute science’ problem. Here’s how it plays out in 3 nations
When researchers study fossils from lower-income countries, they often engage in dubious or illegal practices that can stifle science.
- Paleontology
Megatooth sharks may have been higher on the food chain than any ocean animal ever
Some megalodons and their ancestors were the ultimate apex predators, outeating all known marine animals, researchers report.
- Paleontology
Great white sharks may have helped drive megalodons to extinction
Analyzing zinc levels in shark teeth hints that megalodons and great whites competed with each other for food.
- Animals
A global report finds amphibians are still in peril. But it’s not all bad news
A survey of about 8,000 amphibian species provides the latest update on extinction risk trends stretching back to 1980.
