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A novel avian influenza virus has developed the ability to infect aquatic mammals and is responsible for an outbreak of fatal pneumonia that recently struck harbor seals in New England. The announcement was made by researchers from the Center for Infection & Immunity (CII) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, the National Oceanic […]
A camera attached to a South American seabird allowed scientists to directly observe its dive-and-feed techniques for the first time. The video below explains this exact process, and it’s absolutely stunning! Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society mounted a small camera on the back of an imperial cormorant in Punta León, a coastal protected area […]
Defense, like offence, is expensive for any animal. It takes resources and a lot of energy, and for some, it even comes at an ultimate sacrifice. Such is the case of a species of termite found in the rainforests of French Guiana. There, worker termites, after they age and are no longer capable of serving the […]
Researchers have discovered what they believe to be a grandfather of snakes, which descended from terrestrial rather than marine ancestors. “It’s the missing-link snake between snakes and lizards,” says Nicholas Longrich, a postdoctoral fellow in the geology and geophysics department at Yale University and the lead author of a paper published in the journal Nature. […]
A new research has found after analyzing the genomes of polar bears and brown bears that the two species interbred, after the two species split some 5 million years ago, during periods of warmer climate. Recent evidence suggests this is happening today as well, as an effect of global warming. The team of scientists from Pennsylvania […]
Squids and cephalopods, in general, might not be the sexiest animals out there, but their mating systems are quite interesting,
Magnificently beautiful, the elusive snow leopard is a large cat native to the mountain ranges of Central Asia. Adapted to living in high altitudes, deep in the mountains, and preferring typically inaccessible areas for humans as their dens, has made snow leopards extremely hard to spot, and more importantly keep track off, since it’s an endangered […]
A while ago, we started this animal award, giving the first one to the mimic octopus, and the second one to the amazing Siberian salamander, which can survive after being frozen in temperatures as low as -45 degrees Celsius. Each month, we’ll highlight an animal so special and unique it just makes you go ‘Wow!’. […]
The cheetah is the Bugatti Veyron of the animal kingdom, capable of reaching speeds as high as 29m/s (65mph). Actually, in a 0 to 60 mph race, most cars would have a hard time in out-pacing the fastest land animal in the world. How does the cheetah manage to outstrip all its other animal contenders, even those […]
Researchers from the Natural History Museum in Madrid counted chinstrap penguins in Antarctica’s South Shetland Islands in 1991-1992 and again in 2008-2009. They discovered a frightening decline in penguin population in the area, with one species culled by more than a third. The most affected species at hand is the chinstrap penguin, named so after the black strip […]
Honeybees are one of the most crucial members of the ecosystem, pollinating crops and plant cultures all around the world. Various studies conducted in the past couple of years have shown an alarming dwindling of the world bee population, with some locations being hit more aggressively than others. The main factor linked to this bee genocide seems to be pesticides […]
A group of researchers at University of British Columbia and the Smithsonian Institution have discovered a new sensory organ in rorqual whales, a subspecies of baleen whales, which also includes the largest animal that has ever lived, the blue whale, capable of reaching 150 tonnes. The scientists involved in the study claim that this organ plays a vital role in […]
Scientists have uncovered pieces of fossilized amber containing tiny female insects called thrips, which upon closer inspections were found to have particles of pollen dusted over them. The insects found are around 100 million years old, officially making them the oldest pollination record ever found. During the lower Cretaceous Period, which corresponds to the recently discovered […]
The Cross River gorilla is a critically endangered gorilla species, native to the border region of Nigeria-Cameroon. Today, only about 250 to 300 individuals are alive, due to habitat loss and poaching, making it the rarest of all four gorilla species. It’s so rare and elusive, that no one has ever been able to record […]
Horses are arguably one of the most helpful animals man has ever managed to domesticate. At first they were used as source of meat and milk, but it was soon evident that horses were a lot more suited as labor animals than as a direct food medium. Important agricultural advancements were made possible thanks to horses, and […]
Last year, we reported on one of the most gruesome and horrific acts that goes on in nature; it seems so unreal, like if some sort of SciFi monstrous scenario transcended into the realm of reality, that one has a hard time wrapping his head around it. Yes, as some of you might have read previously, I’m […]
During the tumultuous Cretaceous and Jurassic periods if you could only choose one word to describe the world, it would’ve certainly be ‘big’. Big dinosaurs, big plants, big trees, big fish and big insects, of course. Chinese scientists have found almost perfectly preserved fossils of two previously unknown extinct flea species in Inner Mongolia, which are roughly […]
A team of researchers at Penn State University has identified 24 new species of skinks, a subspecies of lizards, native to the Caribbean Islands, turning the region’s fauna from one of the smallest lizard groups in the world to one of the largest. However, half of these new species are considered already extinct or very […]
The Amur leopard is a beautiful leopard subspecies native to the region of the Russian far east, which since 1996 has been classified as critically endangered. Only a handful of specimens remain today, however a photo which surprised an Amur leopard in China suggests that the species’ numbers are steadily increasing, and conservation efforts are […]
After the great dinosaur extinction some 65 million years ago, mammals finally had their big shot as numerous niches became free for the taking. Thus, from mouse size, some mammal species surfaced which were as large as a bus, the so called mammal megafauna, like mammoths, giant sloths or saber-tooth tigers. However, a dire trial of their […]
A team of international scientists claim that they’ve found evidence of the first non-human species that cultivates planets for non-food purposes. The extremely fine feathered bowerbirds, native to Australia and Papua New Guinea, display an unique courtship behaviour, where males build a home-like structure, called bower, and decorate it with sticks, little stones, and brightly coloured […]
In the past 3 months, over 3000 dead dolphins have been washed ashore on the coasts of Peru, and this worrying trend continues to grow. So far, the average is about 30 per day, but a significant growth has been reported in the past few days. While dead dolphins washing up are not entirely uncommon, […]
A remarkable paleontological discovery surfaced from China recently, after scientists reported they’ve found fossils belonging to the Yutyrannus huali,a very close relative of the Tyrannosaurs Rex, which prove that its entire enormous bus-sized body was covered in feathers. This officially makes it the biggest animal covered in feathers ever found, and also forces paleontologists to rethink […]
Scientists at Newcastle University are currently developing a tiny bio-inspired robot, just one centimeter in length, which in less than five years might be used to diagnose and pinpoint diseases from inside the human body. The researchers, backed-up by the American National Science Foundation and the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, are hoping to […]
The scalloped hammerhead shark which we’ve probably all seen has a twin – and this discovery led to the conclusion that members of the species might be much, much rarer than previously thought. Scientists have shown that the hammerhead, which was already and endangered species has a ‘fishy’ twin – a newfound species that looks […]
Neurons are the absolute core components of the nervous system that transmit information through electrical and chemical signals. I once wondered how neural activity might sound like, and I imagined something like a huge gridline sprinkled with electricity bolts though out. I didn’t know about the SpikerBox, back then, though. It’s a gadget, developed by educational […]
We’ve reported in the past about the frightening, ever growing cases of honeybee population dye-offs of the past few years, and while no immediate or long term plan has been effective thus far, it seems at least that scientists are identifying the causes. It’s been known for some time that some classes of pesticides are […]
The Cambrian era marked a profound change on life on Earth, sparking the rapid development of complex organisms and a diversification of the ecosystem, thus the term “Cambrian explosion“. Prior to this period, animals were simple and small, as well as soft bodied, with no hard parts to display. A team of paleontologists at University […]
In what might seem an oddball experiment in the first instance, later revealing some very interesting scientific facts, a Kyoto University researcher asked 60 women participating in a study to look at a 9-photo grid (eight were of flowers, and another captioned a snake) and identify as quickly as possible the snake photo. Women who were […]
Researchers have completed the great apes family’s genetic library after they sequenced the genes of a western lowland gorilla, joining the already-sequenced genomes of humans, chimpanzees and orangutans. Scientists found that gorillas, which share 98% of their genes with humans, are a lot more related to humans than previously thought, as well as surprising genetic differences which […]
Symbiosis is an absolutely fantastic adaptation in itself, but this case of deep sea symbiosis takes it to a whole new level: basically, a hermit crab uses an anemone as shell; scientists discovered this in a rare place, where to different extreme environments meet. Researchers discovered a junction of two strange environments off the coast […]
Velociraptors have been repeatedly described by paleonthologists as voracious predators, however a recent study of a 75 million year old specimen revealed that the dinosaur wasn’t picky at all, and didn’t miss the chance to pass a free meal. The conclusion came after a pterosaur or “Pterodactyl” bone was found in its gut, suggesting that its […]
Diversity is one of the most shocking aspects when it comes to life on Earth, and knowing how many species walk this planet alongside us is perhaps one of the most important questions in science. However, despite major advancements being made in the field, an answer to that question is still miles away, as efforts […]
During man’s exploits through out history, a great number of species were driven to extinction, either by excessive hunting, habitat destruction, disease or pest introductions and so on. There are currently around 11,000 animal species listed as endangered, and the list is getting ever thicker each day. During the past few decades, as awareness to […]
Each year, billions of chickens are raised all over the world with the sole purpose of providing meat at the end of their couple of weeks-long lives. The animals are forced to live in precarious conditions, thousands lined up next to each other, and are stuffed with nutrients designed to make them grow a lot […]
A team of German and American researchers have discovered four new species of tiny chameleons on the island of Nosy Hara, just off the northern coast of Madagascar, which considered one of the smallest reptiles known to man. Some are so small they can balance on the tip of a match. The four new species […]
Butterflies are one of the most enchanting beings in the animal kingdom, a symbol of grace and beauty encountered in every art form. From a crawling larva to a majestic winged creature, it’s difficult not to take notice of the similarities between the butterfly’s metamorphosis process and the ups and downs life serves before one […]
The leading theory that explains why zebras are striped (remember the age old riddle? black stripes on white or white stripes on black?) is because it offers them protection against predators, by providing camouflage, as colour blind animals confuse the strips with tall grass in the savanna. A team of researchers from Hungary, however, offer a different, […]
The origins of life is one of the biggest mysteries scientists have been trying to unravel for a very long time. While a lot of effort is being directed to finding alien life, it’s crucial, at least in my opinion, for us to understand how the first signs of life spurred on our own planet. […]
The size of a fist when fully grown, the tiny Philippine tarsier has always been considered a very quiet being. Ironically, this big eyed, lemur-like animal wasn’t quiet at all, you just needed the right ears to hear him our. Recently, researchers at Humboldt State University in California have proven that the Philippine tarsier is quite the chatty being, […]
I used to see moths as simple, clumsy beings, whose sole purpose in life is that of annoying people by hitting light-bulbs head first repeatedly in a closed loop. The hawk moth (Manduca sexta), however, is in a whole different league entirely, and it’s because of this hummingbird-like insect that I’ve come to reconsider my views upon the […]
Casey Holliday, a University of Missouri researcher, was looking through some of the hundreds of unlabeled items kept in a storage facility when he come about a remarkable find – a skull fragment from an ancient croccodile, dating back from the late Cretaceous, around 95 million years ago. What’s really interesting about the find is […]
Around 140 millions years ago, mammals didn’t even outsize a modern day mouse, as dinosaurs dominated Earth’s crowded surface. As the latter became extinct, a myriad of free ecosystems and niches opened up, including those once dominated by giant plant eating dinosaurs, and mammals where quick to fill these up. After compiling and analyzing a […]
Darwin’s theory of natural selection illustrates perfectly what evolution is all about, the survival of the fittest if you will. It’s because of natural selection that a crocodile has an armor-like skin to protect it against enemies, a chameleon can change its color and camouflage itself for protection and hunting or humans evolved a more […]
The bond between man and dog has always been extremely evident, an unconditioned friendship, at least from the dog’s part, which has lead the latter to be rightfully often referred to as man’s best friend. But how, why, and when did dogs become such a significant part of our lives. By domesticating farm animals like cattle, pigs […]
Federal regulators have designated almost 42,000 square miles of ocean as critical habitat for the leatherback turtles, the largest turtles in the world; even though this is a much welcomed initiative, the surface is far, far less than environmentalists and biologists were expecting. A haven for turtles This protected area is the first of its […]
Current unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), commonly referred to as drones, are packed with state of the art technology, but despite this they’re not very smart as far as maneuvering around obstacles is concerned. Birds, for instance, can fly through forests at incredible speeds, traveling through out the whole woods at times, with no risk of […]
The increasing amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in oceans is literally driving fish crazy, according to an Australian researcher. Professor Phillip Munday of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University explains that the CO2 interferes with their ability to hear, smell, and swim – the most important things for […]
Measuring only a fraction of a coin, these tiny frogs were discovered hopping around in the tropical forests of Papua New Guinea. But small as they are, they have really big names: Paedophryne amauensis and Paedophryne swiftorum are the smallest vertebrates found so far, according to the report published in PLoS one. Until now, that […]
Researchers at Berkley University have developed an extraordinary robotic toy car called the “Tailbot”, equipped with a stabilizing tail, which is able to correct and adjust its position during mid-air leaps to land safely. The biologists and engineers involved in the study were inspired by lizards that swing their tails upward to prevent them from pitching head-over-heels […]
