Animals
Giant, deep-sea roly-polies steal a gene to endure starvation
The enormous deep-sea cousins of your garden’s pill bugs can go five years without food. A gene they pilfered from bacteria may be part of the secret.
Animals
More Stories in Animals
- Paleontology
A textbook assumption about early land vertebrates may be wrong
Three species that lived about 308 million years ago challenge the idea that the first land vertebrates underwent amphibian-like metamorphosis.
- Health & Medicine
A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading
It’s just a matter of time before Sporothrix brasiliensis reaches the U.S. a CDC expert says.
- Science & Society
How real is the Cyclops in The Odyssey?
The iconic one-eyed monster coming to movie screens in July in The Odyssey might have more in common with tiny water critters than with humans.
- Animals
Songs prep the brains of finches yet to hatch for a hot world
Adult finches make "heat calls" as the temperature rises. Exposure to the song prepares their unhatched young's brains for the heat.
- Paleontology
Frozen squirrel poop hints at sights and smells of Ice Age ecosystems
DNA preserved in ancient scat reveals what Yukon ground squirrels ate and what animals shared their world.
- Animals
These birds clack their wing bones together to woo mates at night
During courtship, male scissor-tailed nightjars crack their wings together to make a sharp snapping sound. It's the result of colliding arm bones.
- Animals
Honeybees and shrimp are now getting vaccinated
A shrimp vaccine for commercial use could protect the environment and prove vaccines aren’t just for vertebrates.
- Animals
This tiny, blue octopus is new to science
The deep-sea octopus is fully mature despite fitting in a palm, a trait researchers think may help it reproduce faster than larger relatives.
- Animals
Bumblebees can solve problems on their own
With no training, bumblebees can work out how to use a ball like a ladder to feed on sugar from an out-of-reach flower.
