Animals
- Animals
These mystery mounds are actually giant piles of earthworm poop
The grassy mounds that dot a watery landscape in South America are created by giant earthworms, a new study finds.
- Animals
Hornbills join toucans in the cool beak club
Like toucans, southern yellow-billed hornbills keep things chill with cool beaks.
- Animals
The bizarre mating ritual of a bee parasite
Stylops ovinae insects — parasites found in mining bees — have short lives filled with trauma.
- Animals
Some animals ‘see’ the world through oddball eyes
Purple urchins, aka crawling eyeballs, are just one of several bizarre visual systems broadening scientists’ view of what makes an eye.
- Life
How the Galápagos cormorant got its tiny wings
Galápagos cormorants’ tiny wings may be due to altered reception in cellular antennas.
- Health & Medicine
Scientists wrestle with possibility of second Zika-spreading mosquito
It’s hard to say yet whether Asian tiger mosquitoes will worsen the ongoing Zika outbreak in the Americas.
- Animals
‘America’s Snake’ chronicles life and times of iconic timber rattlesnake
America’s Snake looks past timber rattlesnake’s fearsome reputation and delves into the fascinating biology of this iconic serpent.
- Animals
Vultures are vulnerable to extinction
Life history makes vultures more vulnerable to extinction than other birds, a new study finds, but humankind’s poisons are helping them to their end.
- Animals
History of road-tripping shaped camel DNA
Centuries of caravan domestication and travel left some metaphorical tire marks on Arabian camel genes, researchers find.
- Animals
Crocodile eyes are optimized for lurking
Crocodiles hang out at the water’s surface, waiting for a meal. A new study shows their eyes are optimized for spotting their prey from this position.
- Animals
Cause of mass starfish die-offs is still a mystery
Sea stars off the U.S. west coast started dying off en masse in 2013. Scientists are still struggling to figure out the cause.
- Animals
Why Labrador retrievers are obsessed with food
A genetic variant could explain obesity trends seen in Labrador retrievers.
