Animals
- Animals
Disco clams put on a streak show
Scuba divers call Ctenoides ales the disco or electric clam because the restless, curling lips of its mantle flash bright streaks.
- Animals
Synchronous birth
For young banded mongoose moms, there’s only one choice for when to give birth — the same day as older, dominant mothers. In communities of these cat-sized animals, all females give birth together, no matter when they became pregnant.
- Animals
When snakes fly
A gliding snake gets some lift by spreading its ribs, but much about its flight remains a mystery.
- Plants
Sexually deceived flies not hopelessly dumb
Pollinators tricked into mating with a plant become harder to fool a second time.
- Animals
Windows may kill up to 988 million birds a year in the United States
Single-family homes and low-rise buildings do much more damage than skyscrapers.
- Animals
Gray seals snack on harbor porpoises
Photo evidence confirms seals' fatal attacks on harbor porpoises in the English Channel, suggesting that declines in the seals' usual fare are forcing the animals to seek out other high-energy food.
- Animals
Animals were the original twerkers
From black widow spiders to birds and bees, shaking that booty goes way back.
- Animals
Mantis shrimp’s bizarre visual system may save brainpower
The mantis shrimp sees each color separately with one of a dozen kinds of specialized cells, a system that may help the animal quickly see colors without a lot of brainpower.
- Animals
Eight ways that animals survive the winter
Migrating to a warmer place is just the start when it comes to finding ways to stay toasty as temperatures drop.
- Animals
Sloths, moths, algae may live in three-way benefit pact
Insects and green slime may justify the slow mammal’s risky descent from trees.
- Animals
Sperm on a stick for springtails
Many males of the tiny soil organisms sustain their species by leaving drops of sperm glistening here and there in the landscape in case a female chooses to pick one up.
- Animals
Insect queens sterilize workers with similar chemical
When exposed to a form of saturated hydrocarbons that mimicked the queen’s scent, the worker insects’ ovaries degraded.
