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There's a lot more going on under those horns than you'd think.
Why build some tech from scratch when nature did all the dirty work for you over millions of years of evolution?
Despite having a single visual pigment in their retinas, cephalopods can blend with their multi-coloured surroundings easily fooling both prey and predators.
Antartica's penguins are in trouble.
A truly amazing animal.
One of the most familiar livestock animals seems to signal information about their personalities, but also wellbeing, by grunting.
Humans -- tyrants of creators? Two researchers explored this duality by studying both extinct species and those who had evolved as a direct influence of man.
Though they're separated by 25 million years of evolution, monkeys and humans share at least one common fact of life: both choose to have a less engaged social life at old age.
The island rule is not a myth, but an evolutionary reality.
Visitors to the Alice Springs Reptile Centre, home to the largest reptile display in Central Australia, were stunned by the sight of a snake who spun in circles countless times in a ring made from its own skin.
It's amazing to see how the bears can sense human patterns and use us. It's actually refreshing for a change.
The secret lies in an ultra-sticky saliva that's 400 times more adhesive than human spit, a new study reveals.
There may be a fine line between how baby birds learn to sing and humans learn to speak.
Sueur and Pelé have seen Japanese macaques washing potatoes, riding deer for transportation, taking hot-spring baths, handling stones, fighting with snowballs and many other things you'd class as "human". They've written a book about these amazing monkeys which will be out soon.
After studying prairie dogs for 25 years, one researcher believes he figured out what prairie dogs are communicating about. He believes that the animals are not only very efficient communicators, but they also have an eye for details. Gunnison’s prairie dog (Cynomys gunnisoni) is one of five species of the prairie dog. Their name is […]
There's only one fossil of this dinosaur that we ever found -- and you're looking at it.
It's good news for us, but perhaps not good news for the rodents.
Norway is killing more whales than Japan and Iceland combined.
Many animals and plants are trapped in the face of mounting climate change. Their only hope are corridors that free access to cooler areas of the country.
It's something that should have happened a long time ago.
There are scores of marine species that have evolved light emitting abilities -- as many as four in five ocean fish are bioluminescent
One of the most famous biology myths was just confirmed. It was rather shocking.
A conversation is a two-way street where cooperation is paramount, and humans aren't the only great apes that put it to good use.
The transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly is so intense and radical that it's really hard to believe we're talking about the same individual.
Researchers at University of Bern, Switzerland, found Orcinus orca (killer whales) populations have evolved distinct genetic lineages due to unique hunting strategies.
Research showed flowers, and plants in general, generate an electric field and bumblebees can sense it with their tiny hairs.
Human activity has been wreaking havoc on ocean life. One group however seems to thrive where others struggle to survive: new evidence shows that cephalopods' numbers have significantly increased over the last six decades.
Every summer, turtle hatchlings have to quickly dig up the sand of their nests and start a perilous journey towards the sea. This delicate process is very energy consuming, but there's power in numbers.
Scientists from the University of Florida have mate a startling discovery: Nile Crocodiles are now in Florida
Researchers have sequenced the genomes of the tallest mammal on Earth, as well as it's unlikely closest cousin, the okapi. By comparing the genomes of the two species, we now have a firmer grasp of the evolutionary timeline in which the split from a common ancestor took place.
. Perhaps the most impressive feature of spider silk is that it's taut even when it's been stretched to several times its original size. Inspired by the orb spider's silk, researchers at University of Oxford and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris made their own artificial spider silk thread that extends like a solid, but compresses like a liquid.
The vaquita marinas are on the verge of extinction, with only 60 individuals remaining in the wild.
In almost all mammals, the babies develop inside the mother before they are born, a process we all know as gestation. Outside mammals, though, live baby birth is quite rare, especially among insects. That's why everybody got excited by the discovery of a new long-horn beetle species which uses ovoviviparity -- a reproductory mode in which females hatch eggs inside the body.
Kinda looks like the Sarlacc, doesn't it? Well take your geek hat off cause it isn't a sarlacc. Now put your paleontology geek hats on because this is Fossil Friday and we're talking about Zaphrentis phrygia.
Known as the “ship of the desert”, the dromedary camel is one of the largest domestic ungulates and one of the most recent additions to livestock. For 3,000 years, the dromedary camel has been the burden animal of choice for transporting goods across the deserts of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and all of this back and forth has left a permanent mark on their genetic makeup.
Conservation efforts have failed dramatically as this emblematic species comes closer to extinction. Four years ago, there were an estimated 200 southern river terrapins (Batagur affinis edwardmolli), or Royal Cambodian Turtles in the wild. Now, it seems the population has dwindled down by 95%, as just 10 remain in the wild. The news comes just 16 […]
This mesmerizing jellyfish almost looks photoshopped - but it's as real as it gets.
Animals have evolved all sorts of gimmicks for either attack or defence. Some are really over the top, but that doesn't make it less effective. Take the bombardier beetle, for instance, which sprays a deadly mix of boiling chemicals from its butt. This is one insect you don't want to mess with.
Lions previously held by circuses across South America were rescued and will be flown back to Africa, where they will spend the rest of their days in a safe sanctuary. It almost seems like a fairy-tale ending – after spending most or all of their life trapped in circuses in appalling conditions, these lions will […]
It's hard to believe that something so cute can lie at the bottom of the sea, but don't let the appearances fool you.
We now have shark vision.
Sad news comes from African wildlife parks again: three rangers were killed in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Garamba wildlife park. Two others were wounded, including the park manager. Just yesterday we were writing that African park rangers risk their life on a day-to-day basis to protect animals in natural parks, and now this tragedy was reported […]
Polar bears are forced to undertake more marathon, life-threatening swims to find food
Park rangers risk their lives on a daily basis to protect wildlife from poachers. They're also underfunded and understaffed, so allocating resources as efficiently as possible is critical. This is where artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning, and game theory come in. The A.I. can identify and predict poaching patterns, and adapts in time so that park patrols can transition from "reactive" to "proactive" control. Pilot programs launched in Uganda and Malaysia have so far been successful, and a similar system is currently being developed for illegal logging.
When a species almost one hundred times bigger than you, who has access to nukes and can go to space, discovers your remains a few million years after you die and still decides to call you "monstrosus" you must be doing something very right survival-wise.
Is size all there is to it? As far as the brain is concerned, a recent study that assessed corvid intelligence suggests the answer seems no. The researchers found crows, ravens and other corvids score the same on an important cognitive test as the big-brained chimps.
Studies show that childhood trauma like abuse, neglect, physical accidents and other hallmarks put people at greater risk of dying prematurely once in adulthood. A rough childhood is associated with heart disease, diabetes, and addiction later in life, even though the stressful events have subsided. Generally, what doesn't kill you makes your life shorter. This is true for baboons as well, according to researchers at Duke University, University of Notre Dame and Princeton University.
Hint: it's the urine.
Helicoprion is an extinct genus of shark-like, cartilaginous fish that lived from the early Permian (~290 m.y. ago) all through to the massive Permian-Triassic extinction episode (roughly 250 m.y. ago.)
For the first time in over one hundred years worldwide tiger numbers have increased, but there are still only 3,900 specimens in the wild.
