Animals

The wild denizens that share our planet, including videos, photo essays, and news on recently discovered—or increasingly rare—species.

Latest in Animals

Two lionesses. One tilts her head towards the left, while the other sticks out her tongue.
Environment

Captive big cats can tell voices apart

By Laura Baisas

Pink lab-grown beef rice in white bowl
Environment

Scientists swear their lab-grown ‘beef rice’ tastes ‘pleasant’

By Andrew Paul

The skeletal remains of a frog and a human were uncovered at Seminario Vescovile in Verona, Italy.
Science

Iron Age humans found mysteriously buried with dogs and horses

By Laura Baisas

A Skywalker gibbon in a green and leafy forest. Distinguishing characteristics of Skywalker hoolock gibbons compared to other gibbons include thinner eyebrows, a black or brown beard instead of a white one, and incomplete white face rings on the females, like this adult.
Environment

Scientists tracked the love songs of Skywalker gibbons to find them

By Laura Baisas

A smiling bonobo in a body of water.
Science

Primates have been teasing each other for 13 million years

By Laura Baisas

A mother and calf humpback whale swim underwater.
Environment

Close to half of migratory species are in serious decline: UN report

By Laura Baisas

pleurocystitid soft robot
Technology

A sea creature extinct for half a billion years inspired a new soft robot

By Andrew Paul

An illustration of an ancient shark called Glikmanius careforum swimming. It was about 10 to 12 feet long and had a powerful bite.
Science

Three new ancient shark species discovered in Alabama and Kentucky

By Laura Baisas

Photo illustration of hawkmoth navigating to flower during vehicle exhaust emission.
Environment

Air pollution messes with moths’ ability to smell flowers

By Lauren Leffer

Desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria)
Technology

Cyborg locusts may one day help search-and-rescue missions

By Andrew Paul

Anchovy sex is a force of nature
Environment

Anchovy sex is a force of nature

By Christina Couch / Hakai Magazine

Eight gray seals and four wild horses stand on a sandy beach.
Environment

See wild horses and gray seals mingle on Sable Island

By Laura Baisas

The St. George’s Cross medusa is about four inches wide, three inches long, and has about 240 tentacles. It has a red cross on its body when viewed from above.
Environment

New jellyfish discovered near Japan may contain multitudes of venom

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s illustration of the new pterosaur species Ceoptera evansae. Several of the winged reptiles fly over trees and grass in Jurassic-era Scotland.
Environment

New pterosaur species discovered in Scotland

By Laura Baisas

An ermine moth with white wings and black spots sits on a yellow dandelion.
Science

Moths fight against echolocating bats with sounds of their own

By Laura Baisas

For many people, bed bugs are becoming a fact of life again.
Environment

Getting rid of bed bugs is trickier than ever

By Ute Eberle / Knowable Magazine

Chronic wasting disease currently is known to infect only members of the cervid family—elk, deer, reindeer, caribou, and moose.
Health

Possibility of wildlife-to-human crossover heightens concern about chronic wasting disease

By Jim Robbins / KFF Health News

Three common clownfish with orange coloring and white stripes swimming in a sea anemone.
Environment

Can clownfish count?

By Laura Baisas

‘Jaws’ portrayed sharks as monsters 50 years ago, but it also inspired a generation of shark scientists
Environment

‘Jaws’ portrayed sharks as monsters 50 years ago, but it also inspired a generation of shark scientists

By Gavin Naylor/The Conversation

A multiple-exposure photograph of insects circling an artificial light at night. The light can mess with a moth’s sense of what direction is up and which way is down.
Environment

Why artificial light—and evolution—trap moths

By Laura Baisas

H5N1 flu has been confirmed in Gentoo penguins for the first time. Over 20 Gentoo chicks have been reported dead from the virus or are showing symptoms of this highly contagious strain of bird flu.
Environment

Antarctic penguins are now dying from the H5N1 strain of bird flu

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s reconstruction of the locomotor behavior and paleoenvironment of Lufengpithecus. Six primates that resemble chimpanzees are in a wooded area. Some are walking upright on two legs, while others are on all fours.
Science

Extinct ape’s inner ear holds clues to how humans learned to walk upright

By Laura Baisas

A great white pup swimming in the Pacific Ocean. In July 2023, wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna and University of California, Riverside biology doctoral student Phillip Sternes took footage of what could be the first newborn great white shark ever recorded.
Environment

This could be the first newborn great white shark ever captured on camera

By Laura Baisas

Biohybrid robot legs in underwater container
Technology

Watch this cool, useless biohybrid robot take a stroll

By Andrew Paul

This photograph shows a male dusky antechinus in a naturalistic enclosure located in Cape Otway, Australia.
Environment

Sex is more important than sleep for these marsupials

By Laura Baisas

Elephants navigate a landscape invaded by big-headed ants at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia, Kenya. Following invasion by big-headed ants, whistling-thorn trees are rendered vulnerable to elephants, whose browsing and breaking of trees promotes savanna openness.
Environment

Invasive ants leave lions scrambling for prey on the savannah in an ecological chain reaction

By Lauren Leffer

A colony of Emperor penguins in Antarctica. The larger black, white, and yellow adult penguins are standing behind the small and fuzzy black, white, and grey chicks.
Environment

Poop stains reveal four previously unknown Emperor penguin colonies

By Laura Baisas

A blue bottle fly.
Environment

How bug ‘wranglers’ help document the lives of flies, dung beetles, and more

By Laura Baisas

A colorful orange pink, and purple butterfly rotates against a dark screen. A new camera system and software package allows both researchers and filmmakers to capture and display animal-view videos.
Environment

How animals see the world, according to a new camera system

By Laura Baisas

A sea otter resting in a kelp bed in Monterey Bay, California.
Environment

Sea otters can help conserve vital kelp forests

By Laura Baisas

A brownish-gray tardigrade swimming. These microscopic invertebrates have eight limbs and shriveled skin.
Environment

We may know what makes tardigrades so darn tough

By Laura Baisas

A mako shark swimming in the ocean.
Environment

The ‘meg’ may have been longer and less chonky than previously thought

By Laura Baisas

A yellow salamander with a brown stripe on its back sits on a green leaf.
Environment

Why small, scary, and ‘non-charismatic’ lost species are harder to rediscover

By Laura Baisas

A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals
Environment

A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals

By Lauren Leffer

Water skimmer inspired robot atop water
Technology

These micro-robots were inspired by mini-bugs and water striders

By Andrew Paul

Dead elephant seal pups in the front line with an adult male carcass contrasting in size, and another adult individual in the background. The beach in Argentina is empty of living seals that should be thriving in the area at this time of the year.
Environment

Seal pup die-off from avian flu in Argentina looks ‘apocalyptic’

By Laura Baisas

An octopus hatchling emerges from a group of eggs at a new octopus nursery. This nursery was first discovered in June 2023 at Tengosed Seamount off Costa Rica.
Environment

Four new octopus species discovered in the deep-sea vents off Costa Rica

By Laura Baisas

An Eastern dwarf tree frog covered in seeds.
Environment

These Australian frogs get absolutely covered in seeds

By Ethan Freedman

Check out some of the past year’s best close-up photography
Technology

Check out some of the past year’s best close-up photography

By Andrew Paul

A pink hummingbird sits on a perch inside of a tunnel. Green and black stripes are projected on the walls of the tunnel.
Environment

How hummingbirds switch gears at breakneck speeds

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s impression of a group of G. blacki within a forest in southern China. Four of these giant apes sit on the grass near a stream, while an orangutan hangs from a tree branch. They are brown with yellow-ish manes around their faces.
Environment

These extinct, nearly 10-foot-tall apes could not adapt to shifting seasons

By Laura Baisas

Fruit bats hanging on tree branches in daylight in Bangladesh on November 6, 2023.
Science

Why fruit bats can eat tons of sugar without getting diabetes

By Laura Baisas

Microscopic view of Oikopleura dioica
Science

This tiny sea creature builds a ‘snot palace’ to capture food

By Andrew Paul

Dragonflies mating - Azure damselflies
Environment

The bizarre sex lives of insects

By Emmanuelle Pouydebat / MIT Press Reader

An illustration of the pelagic ecosystem and the organisms fossilized in Sirius Passet, revealing how Timorebestia was one of the largest predators in the water column more than 518 million years ago.
Environment

Extinct ‘terror beasts’ were some pretty formidable worms

By Laura Baisas

A Matabele ant tends to the wound of a fellow ant whose legs were bitten off in a fight with termites.
Environment

Matabele ants might be able to diagnose and treat infected wounds

By Laura Baisas

A lineup of four of the best mosquito traps
Gear

The 6 best mosquito traps for 2024

By Amanda Reed

Salmon fishing in Alaska, fisherman in gloves handling fish in net on a boat
Environment

As salmon disappear, a battle over Alaska Native fishing rights heats up

By Max Graham/Grist

A jellyfish Cladonema pacificum with multiple branched tentacles.
Environment

These fingernail-sized jellyfish can regenerate tentacles—but how?

By Laura Baisas

Three feral hogs in grass. One is black and standing while grazing. The middle is gray and sitting. The third is brown and also sitting.
Environment

Wild ‘super pigs’ from Canada could become a new front in the war on feral hogs

By Marcus Lashley / The Conversation

Five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs have been identified
Environment

Five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs have been identified

By Laura Baisas

A small brown frog standing on leaves at the water’s edge.
Environment

This tiny ‘leaf-nester’ is the smallest known fanged frog

By Laura Baisas

An aardvark with a long nose sits in grass.
Environment

Why scientists are studying aardvarks’ poop

By Laura Baisas

Lessons from Lake Tanganyika’s scale eating fish
Environment

Lessons from Lake Tanganyika’s scale eating fish

By Jeffrey McKinnon / MIT Press Reader

A reindeer stands on snowy ground with hills in the distance.
Environment

Reindeer can see UV light—and we may know why

By Laura Baisas

The Wakayama Soryu was about the size of a great white shark and lived more than 72 million years ago.
Environment

This ‘blue dragon’ sliced through the ancient Pacific with paddle-like fins

By Laura Baisas

A lineup of the best automatic cat feeders on a plain background
Gear

The best automatic cat feeders for 2024

By Amanda Reed

A bearded seal swimming in Arctic waters in Svalbard, Norway. Their name comes from the long and sensitive facial whiskers that they use to find food.
Science

Arctic seals have special noses

By Laura Baisas

A bird called a green honeycreeper stands on a tree branch. It has blue male plumage on its left side and green female plumage on its right.
Environment

Rare bird with half male and half female plumage photographed in Colombia

By Laura Baisas

A man holes a 14-inch goldfish removed from the Niagara River.
Environment

Releasing pet goldfish into the wild has serious consequences

By Laura Baisas

New Zealand’s quest to save its rotund, flightless parrots
Environment

New Zealand’s quest to save its rotund, flightless parrots

By Rina Diane Caballar / Knowable Magazine

Paleontologist Martin Lockley sits in front of a rock with dinosaur claw marks and shows how dinosaurs must have clawed into the rock during a mating ceremony where they made pseudo nests for potential mates.
Science

Why dinosaur footprints inspired paleontologist Martin Lockley

By Laura Baisas

Even lab mice are getting VR headsets now
Technology

Even lab mice are getting VR headsets now

By Andrew Paul

‘Forever chemicals’ found in freshwater fish, yet most states don’t warn residents
Environment

‘Forever chemicals’ found in freshwater fish, yet most states don’t warn residents

By Hannah Norman / KFF Health News

Explore Animals

Explore Environment

Agriculture
Animals
Climate Change
Conservation
Energy
Sustainability
Weather