Animals
- Life
Vampire bat friendships endure from captivity to the wild
Vampire bats can form social bonds that persist from a lab setting to the outdoors, suggesting the cooperative relationships are like friendships.
- Animals
Spider webs don’t rot easily and scientists may have figured out why
Spider silk doesn’t rot quickly because bacteria can’t access its nitrogen, a nutrient needed for the microbes’ growth, scientists say.
- Life
Saharan silver ants are the world’s fastest despite relatively short legs
Saharan silver ants can hit speeds of 108 times their body length per second.
- Life
Bird eggs laid in cold climates are darker, which may keep eggs warm
A global survey of bird egg color reveals a simple trend: the colder the climate, the darker the egg.
- Animals
Congolese giant toads may mimic venomous snakes to trick predators
If Congolese giant toads mimic venomous Gaboon vipers, it would be the first reported case of a toad imitating a snake.
- Life
Remarkable fossils capture mammals’ recovery after the dino-killing asteroid
A fossil-rich site in Colorado is revealing how mammals rebounded and flourished after an asteroid strike 66 million years ago.
- Life
Piranhas and their plant-eating relatives, pacus, replace rows of teeth all at once
Piranhas and pacus both lose and replace all teeth on one side of their mouths in one go, which may help to distribute wear and tear.
- Life
Aye-ayes just got weirder with the discovery of a tiny, sixth ‘finger’
Aye-ayes have a sixth “finger,” or pseudothumb, that may compensate for other, overspecialized fingers by helping the lemurs grip things.
- Animals
White bellbirds have the loudest known mating call of any bird
White bellbirds have the loudest mating call, according to scientists who compared the songs of bellbirds and screaming pihas in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Life
A peek inside a turtle embryo wins the Nikon Small World photography contest
The annual competition highlights the wonders to be found when scientists and photographers zoom in on the world around us.
- Animals
New books explore why dogs and humans have such a special bond
‘Dog Is Love’ and ‘Our Dogs, Ourselves’ delve into the complicated, sometimes contradictory relationship that we have with our canine companions.
- Health & Medicine
These tiny aquatic animals secrete a compound that may help fight snail fever
A newly identified molecule from rotifers paralyzes the larvae of worms that cause schistosomiasis, which affects over 200 million people worldwide.
