Animals
- Animals
Mirror beetles’ shiny bodies may not act as camouflage after all
Hundreds of handmade clay nubbins test the notion that a beetle’s metallic high gloss could confound predators. Birds pecked the lovely idea to death.
By Susan Milius - Animals
Culturally prized mountain goats may be vanishing from Indigenous land in Canada
As fewer mountain goats are spotted along British Columbia’s central coast, First Nations people team up with biologists to assess the population.
- Paleontology
Scientists are arguing over the identity of a fossilized 10-armed creature
An ancient cephalopod fossil may be the oldest ancestor of octopuses, but the interpretation hinges on the identification of one feature.
By Anna Gibbs - Oceans
Some deep-sea octopuses aren’t the long-haul moms scientists thought they were
Off California’s coast, some octopuses lay eggs in the warmer water of geothermal springs in the “Octopus Garden,” speeding up their development.
- Animals
This newfound tarantula is the first known to make its home in bamboo
Bamboo stems provide the spider with ready-made burrows and nests, but the arachnid must rely on other animals or natural forces to gain entry.
By Becki Robins - Animals
How lizards keep detachable tails from falling off
A hierarchical structure of micropillars and nanopores allows the tail to break away when necessary while preventing it from easily detaching.
By Anna Gibbs - Animals
A diamondlike structure gives some starfish skeletons their strength
Electron microscope images of knobby starfish’s calcite skeletons reveal an unexpected architecture that compensates for the mineral’s brittleness.
- Animals
Deep-sea Arctic sponges feed on fossilized organisms to survive
Slow-moving sponges, living deep in the Arctic Ocean where no currents deliver food, scavenge a carpet of long-dead critters.
- Animals
Male elephant seals aim to get huge or die trying
Males will risk death to eat and grow as large as possible, since only the biggest males mate. But females aim for long-term survival.
By Jake Buehler - Animals
Gory footage confirms orca pods can kill adult blue whales
For the first time, three recorded events show that orcas do hunt and eat blue whales using coordinated attacks that have worked on other large whales.
By Anna Gibbs - Animals
Vinegar eels can synchronize swim
Swarming, swimming nematodes can move together like fish and also synchronize their wiggling — an ability rare in the animal kingdom.
By Nikk Ogasa - Animals
A new device helps frogs regrow working legs after an amputation
A single treatment shortly after adult frogs lost part of their legs spurred regrowth of limbs useful for swimming, standing and kicking.