Animals
-
Animals
It’s a bad idea for a toad to swallow a bombardier beetle
Toads are tough. But there are some insects even they shouldn’t swallow.
By Susan Milius -
Paleontology
This ancient creature looks like a spider with a tail
A newly discovered ancient creature looks like a spider and has silk spinners and spidery male sex organs.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
A peek into polar bears’ lives reveals revved-up metabolisms
Polar bears have higher metabolisms than scientists thought. In a world with declining Arctic sea ice, that could spell trouble.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
A killer whale gives a raspberry and says ‘hello’
Tests of imitating sounds finds that orcas can sort of mimic humans.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Slower speed, tricky turns give prey a chance against cheetahs and lions
A bonanza of data on wild predators running shows that hunting is more than sprinting.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Here’s why so many saiga antelope mysteriously died in 2015
Higher than normal temperatures turned normally benign bacteria lethal, killing hundreds of thousands of the saiga antelopes.
-
Genetics
Baby macaques are the first primates to be cloned like Dolly the Sheep
Scientists have cloned two baby macaque monkeys with the same technique used to clone Dolly. The research could help advance the cloning of other species.
By Dan Garisto -
Health & Medicine
Here’s the key ingredient that lets a centipede’s bite take down prey
A newly identified “spooky toxin” launches a broad attack but might be eased with a version of a known drug.
By Susan Milius -
Life
Light pollution can prolong the risk of sparrows passing along West Nile virus
Nighttime lighting prolongs time that birds can pass along virus to mosquitoes that bite people.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
The mystery of vanishing honeybees is still not definitively solved
The case has never been fully closed for colony collapse disorder, and now bees face bigger problems.
By Susan Milius -
Paleontology
Tiny scales in ancient lagoon may be the first fossil evidence of the moth-butterfly line
Fancy liquid-sipper mouthparts might have evolved before the great burst of flower evolution
By Susan Milius -
Animals
18 new species of pelican spiders discovered
A researcher used old and new specimens to discover 18 species of pelican spiders from Madagascar.
By Dan Garisto