Animals

  1. Animals

    Female hummingbirds may sport flashy feathers to avoid being harassed

    Some female white-necked jacobin hummingbirds boast bright blue plumage that’s similar to males. The colors may help females blend in to avoid attacks.

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  2. Science & Society

    Racism lurks in names given to plants and animals. That’s starting to change

    Racist legacies linger in everyday lingo for birds, bugs and more. Some scientists see the chance to change that.

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  3. Animals

    Frog and toad pupils mainly come in seven different shapes

    Analyzing over 3,200 species revealed that the colorful eyes of frogs and toads have pupils shaped as slits, diamonds, fans and more.

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  4. Animals

    A giant tortoise was caught stalking, killing and eating a baby bird

    Video captures the first documented instance of a tortoise hunting another animal.

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  5. Paleontology

    How fossilization preserved a 310-million-year-old horseshoe crab’s brain

    A 310-million-year-old horseshoe crab’s brain was preserved in clay, thanks to an uncommon fossilization process that protected the fragile neural tissues.

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  6. Animals

    These baby greater sac-winged bats babble to learn their mating songs

    Greater sac-winged bat pups babble their way through learning their rich vocal repertoire, similar to how human infants babble before speaking.

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  7. Animals

    Sunbirds’ dazzling feathers are hot, in both senses of the word

    Iridescent feathers reflect vivid colors. But they also become scorching hot in the sunlight, a study finds.

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  8. Life

    Scientists have a new word for birds stealing animal hair

    Dozens of YouTube videos show birds stealing hair from dogs, cats, humans, raccoons and even a porcupine — a behavior rarely documented by scientists.

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  9. Animals

    Squirrels use parkour tricks when leaping from branch to branch

    Squirrels navigate through trees by making rapid calculations to balance trade-offs between branch flexibility and the distance between tree limbs.

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  10. Animals

    Snake-eating spiders are surprisingly common

    Spiders from at least 11 families feed on serpents many times their size, employing a host of tactics to turn even venomous snakes into soup.

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  11. Animals

    A hammerhead shark baby boom near Florida hints at a historic nursery

    Finding an endangered shark nursery in a vast ocean is like finding a needle in a haystack. But that’s just what scientists did near Miami.

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  12. Animals

    Viruses can kill wasp larvae that grow inside infected caterpillars

    Proteins found in viruses and some moths can protect caterpillars from parasitoid wasps seeking a living nursery for their eggs.

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