Animals
- Animals
Gut microbes help some squirrels stay strong during hibernation
Microbes living in the critters’ guts take nitrogen from urea and put it into the amino acid glutamine, helping squirrels retain muscle in the winter.
- Animals
Urban animals may get some dangerous gut microbes from humans
Fecal samples from urban wildlife suggest human gut microbes might be spilling over to the animals. The microbes could jeopardize the animals’ health.
- Animals
An Arctic hare traveled at least 388 kilometers in a record-breaking journey
An Arctic hare’s dash across northern Canada, the longest seen among hares and their relatives, is changing how scientists think about tundra ecology.
- Animals
Scientists uncover the secret to fishing cats’ hunting success
Volunteers in India have helped to explain how one of the world’s semiaquatic wild cat species hunts.
- Animals
A ‘trapdoor’ made of muscle and fat helps fin whales eat without choking
An “oral plug” may explain how lunge-feeding fin whales don’t choke and drown as they fill their mouths with prey and water while eating.
- Animals
These tiny beetles fly fast thanks to wing bristles and a weird, wide stroke
Minuscule featherwing beetles have evolved a unique way of flying that lets them match the speed of beetles three times as big.
- Animals
Scientists vacuumed animal DNA out of thin air for the first time
The ability to sniff out animals’ airborne genetic material has been on researchers’ wish list for over a decade.
- Animals
Part donkey, part wild ass, the kunga is the oldest known hybrid bred by humans
Syria’s 4,500-year-old kungas were donkey-wild ass hybrids, genetic analysis reveals, so the earliest known example of humans crossing animal species.
- Animals
The largest group of nesting fish ever found lives beneath Antarctic ice
Researchers stumbled upon a fish breeding colony of unprecedented size, spanning a territory slightly larger than Baltimore.
- Animals
Female dolphins have a clitoris much like humans’
The similarities suggest female dolphins experience sexual pleasure, which may explain why the species is so randy all the time.
- Animals
Here’s what goldfish driving ‘cars’ tell us about navigation
When measuring intelligence, the saying goes, don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. But what about its ability to drive a vehicle?
- Microbes
Drug-resistant bacteria evolved on hedgehogs long before the use of antibiotics
A standoff between bacteria and antibiotic-producing fungi living on hedgehogs may have led to the rise of one type of MRSA some 200 years ago.
