Animals

  1. Life

    Lost genes may help explain how vampire bats survive on blood alone

    The 13 identified genes underpin a range of physiological and behavioral strategies that the bats have evolved.

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  2. Animals

    Here’s how boa constrictors squeeze their dinner without suffocating themselves

    Carefully controlled breathing allows boa constrictors to pull off their signature move without cutting off their own air supply.

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  3. Life

    Lithium mining may be putting some flamingos in Chile at risk

    Climate change and lithium mining are threatening the flooded salt flats that flamingos in Chile depend on, a study suggests.

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  4. Paleontology

    A new saber-toothed mammal was among the first hypercarnivores

    A 42-million-year-old jawbone with slicing teeth and a gap to fit saberlike teeth is pegged to a new species of the mysterious Machaeroidine group.

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  5. Animals

    How to make irresistible traps for Asian giant hornets using sex

    Traps baited with compounds found in the sex pheromone of hornet queens attracted thousands of males in China.

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  6. Animals

    The spongy moth’s new name replaces an ethnic slur

    The Entomological Society of America renamed Lymantria dispar the “spongy moth,” replacing its previous problematic common name, “gypsy moth.”

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  7. Animals

    Genetically modified mosquitoes could be tested in California soon

    The EPA also OK’d more trials in Key West, Fla. Both states now get their say in whether to release free-flying Aedes aegypti to sabotage their own kind.

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  8. Genetics

    An extinct rat shows CRISPR’s limits for resurrecting species

    Scientists recovered most of the Christmas Island rat’s genome. But the missing genes signal a problem for using gene editing to de-extinct species.

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  9. 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.

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  10. 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.

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  11. 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.

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  12. 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.

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