Animals
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
