Jake Buehler

Jake Buehler is a freelance science writer, covering natural history, wildlife conservation and Earth's splendid biodiversity, from salamanders to sequoias. He has a master's degree in zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

All Stories by Jake Buehler

  1. Life

    Africa’s fynbos plants hold their ground with the world’s thinnest roots

    Long, thin roots help this South African shrubland commandeer soil nutrients and keep the neighboring forest from encroaching on its territory.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. Animals

    Part donkey, part wild ass, the kunga is the oldest known hybrid bred by humans

    Syria’s 4,500-year-old kungas were donkey-wild ass hybrids, genetic analysis reveals, so the earliest known example of humans crossing animal species.

  5. Animals

    The largest group of nesting fish ever found lives beneath Antarctic ice

    Researchers stumbled upon a fish breeding colony of unprecedented size, spanning a territory slightly larger than Baltimore.

  6. Health & Medicine

    ‘Blastoids’ made of stem cells offer a new way to study fertility

    Newly created “blastoids” could help with research on nonhormonal contraceptives and fertility treatments.

  7. Life

    Some songbirds now migrate east to west. Climate change may play a role

    In recent decades, more Richard's pipits are wintering in Europe than before. It may signal the establishment of a totally new migration route.

  8. Animals

    Assassin bugs tap spiders to distract them before a lethal strike

    Some assassin bugs stroke their antennae on spiders when within striking distance, possibly imitating touches that spiders experience near their kin.

  9. Animals

    Tuskless elephants became common as an evolutionary response to poachers

    After poachers tore through a Mozambican elephant population, tuskless females tripled in number as humans altered the species’s evolutionary trajectory.

  10. Animals

    Barnacles are famed for not budging. But one species roams its sea turtle hosts

    Once settled and glued to the substrate, adult barnacles stay put. But turtle barnacles upend this trend, sliding slowly across their reptilian rides.

  11. Animals

    Huge numbers of fish-eating jaguars prowl Brazil’s wetlands

    Jaguars in the northern Pantanal ecosystem primarily feed on fish and caiman, living at densities previously unknown for the species.

  12. Animals

    How metal-infused jaws give some ants an exceptionally sharp bite

    Some small animals make cuts, tears and punctures that they couldn’t otherwise do using body parts reinforced with metals such as zinc and manganese.