Life
-
Paleontology
Big Gulp? Neck ribs may have given aquatic beast unique feeding style
The fossilized neck bones of a 230-million-year-old sea creature have features suggesting that the animal's snakelike throat could flare open and create suction to pull in prey.
By Sid Perkins -
Animals
Pirates of the Amphibian: Males fertilize eggs of another guy’s gal
For the first time among amphibians, scientists have found frogs that sneak their sperm onto egg clutches left by another mating pair.
By Susan Milius -
Plants
A new, slimy method of self-pollination
When all else fails for pollination, a Chinese herb in the ginger family resorts to something botanists say they haven't seen before: a do-it-yourself oil slick.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Super Bird: Cooing doves flex extra-fast muscles
Muscles that control a dove's cooing belong to the fastest class of muscles known.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Owls use tools: Dung is lure for beetles
Burrowing owls' habit of bringing mammal dung to their burrows attracts edible beetles and counts as form of tool use.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Mom bears more sons when she gets extra bouquets
When researchers spiff up a male starling's courtship by delivering some extra bouquets to his mate on his behalf, the couple tends to produce more sons than usual.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Policing egg laying in insect colonies
Kinship by itself can't explain the vigilante justice of some ant, bee, and wasp workers.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
How dingoes got down under
DNA analysis suggests that Australia got its famous dingoes from a very few dogs brought along with people fanning out from East Asia some 5,000 years ago.
By Susan Milius -
Plants
Smokey the Gardener
Wildfire smoke by itself, without help from heat, can trigger germination in certain seeds, but just what the vital compound in that smoke might be has kept biologists busy for years.
By Susan Milius -
Paleontology
Growth Spurt: Teenage tyrannosaurs packed on the pounds
Detailed analyses of tyrannosaur fossils suggest that the creatures experienced an extended growth spurt during adolescence.
By Sid Perkins -
Plants
Lowering lilies on the tree of life
Water lilies may belong on the lowest branch of the family tree of flowering plants, along with a shrub called Amborella.
By Susan Milius -
Paleontology
Fossil find extends ants’ ancient lineage
The recently described, 92-million-year-old fossil of a primitive worker ant pushes back the first record of its particular subfamily by 40 million years, forcing researchers to reevaluate their ideas about the early evolution of these insects.
By Sid Perkins