Animals
- Life
Scientists have a new word for birds stealing animal hair
Dozens of YouTube videos show birds stealing hair from dogs, cats, humans, raccoons and even a porcupine — a behavior rarely documented by scientists.
- Animals
Squirrels use parkour tricks when leaping from branch to branch
Squirrels navigate through trees by making rapid calculations to balance trade-offs between branch flexibility and the distance between tree limbs.
- Animals
Snake-eating spiders are surprisingly common
Spiders from at least 11 families feed on serpents many times their size, employing a host of tactics to turn even venomous snakes into soup.
- Animals
A hammerhead shark baby boom near Florida hints at a historic nursery
Finding an endangered shark nursery in a vast ocean is like finding a needle in a haystack. But that’s just what scientists did near Miami.
- Animals
Viruses can kill wasp larvae that grow inside infected caterpillars
Proteins found in viruses and some moths can protect caterpillars from parasitoid wasps seeking a living nursery for their eggs.
- Animals
Polar bears sometimes bludgeon walruses to death with stones or ice
Inuit reports of polar bears using tools to kill walruses were historically dismissed as stories, but new research suggests the behavior does occur.
- Life
Near-invincible tardigrades may see only in black and white
A genetic analysis suggests that water bears don’t have light-sensing proteins to detect ultraviolet light or color.
- Animals
How some lizards breathe underwater
Researchers have figured out how some anole lizards can stay underwater for as long as 18 minutes.
- Life
‘Wild Souls’ explores what we owe animals in a human-dominated world
The new book Wild Souls explores the ethical dilemmas of saving Earth’s endangered animals.
- Animals
How intricate Venus’s-flower-baskets manipulate the flow of seawater
Simulations show that a deep-sea glass sponge’s intricate skeleton creates particle-trapping vortices and reduces the stress of rushing water.
- Animals
This butterfly is the first U.S. insect known to go extinct because of people
A 93-year-old Xerces blue specimen’s DNA shows that the butterfly is a distinct species, making it the first U.S. insect humans drove to extinction.
- Life
Pikas survive winter using a slower metabolism and, at times, yak poop
Pikas endure bone-chilling temperatures on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau by reducing their metabolism, and when possible, eating yak poop.
