Biology (Page 20)

A guide to life, on Earth and beyond, including the top news about plants, animals, and physiology.

Latest in Biology

Jellyfish glowing green underwater

Jellyfish-inspired glowing dye can glom onto fingerprints at crime scenes

An orange Chaunacops fish swimming in the waters of Chile’s Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park.

See the strange new species discovered near Chile—with the help of a deep-diving sea robot

By Laura Baisas

Sea cucumbers and fish feeding at a coral reef.

Sea cucumbers are the ‘scum suckers’ corals desperately need

By Laura Baisas

An eyelash pitviper from the New Wold tropics.

Why are there so many snakes?

By Lauren Leffer

Two sea lampreys. They have circular heads with rows of teeth and a suction cup mouth at the center.

You might have more in common with the sea lamprey than you realize

By Laura Baisas

‘Lost Bird’ not seen in 20 years photographed for the first time

‘Lost Bird’ not seen in 20 years photographed for the first time

By Laura Baisas

A single humpback whale calf swimming in the waters off of French Polynesia.

We finally know how baleen whales make noise

By Laura Baisas

Giant Antarctic sea spiders can grow up to 20 inches wide.

Giant Antarctic sea spiders’ reproductive mystery solved after 140 years of confusion

By Laura Baisas

A purple and white carnivorous plant called Arisaema thunbergii growing in a forest. It has a tube and cup shaped flower and uses a musky odor to lure fungus gnats.

Bug-munching plant turns insect nurseries into death traps

By Laura Baisas

Fire in a forest

Fire is driving animals’ evolution

By Kylie Mohr / High Country News

An array of the best sex toys for couples on a white fuzzy carpet.

The best sex toys for couples, tested and reviewed

A clear glass tea cup with steaming brown tea sits on a table next to a green tea leaves.

The ingredients for a tastier, stronger tea could be in the soil

By Laura Baisas

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

Captive big cats can tell voices apart

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.

Scientists tracked the love songs of Skywalker gibbons to find them

By Laura Baisas

A smiling bonobo in a body of water.

Primates have been teasing each other for 13 million years

By Laura Baisas

The first published photographs of bacteria.

Charles Darwin’s eclectic personal library is now online

By Laura Baisas

A mother and calf humpback whale swim underwater.

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

By Laura Baisas

pleurocystitid soft robot

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

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

Three new ancient shark species discovered in Alabama and Kentucky

By Laura Baisas

A bunch of wet blueberries.

Why blueberries aren’t technically blue

By Laura Baisas

Desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria)

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

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

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.

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.

New pterosaur species discovered in Scotland

By Laura Baisas

Illustration of 3D printed brain tissue culture with 25nm scale

Scientists have 3D bioprinted functioning human brain tissue

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

Moths fight against echolocating bats with sounds of their own

By Laura Baisas

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

Can clownfish count?

By Laura Baisas

Screenshot showing shaded rendering of Doom via E. Coli bacteria display

Running ‘Doom’ on E. coli cells… very, very slowly

Green dots representing spores are dispersed from a leaf.

Watch ‘tiny tornadoes’ spread plant pathogens

By Laura Baisas

Two long stone tools from the Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician (LRJ) culture uncovered at Ranis. Item 1 is a partial bifacial blade point characteristic of the LRJ. Item 2 also contains finely made bifacial leaf points.

Neanderthals and modern humans intermingled in Europe 45,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

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.

Why artificial light—and evolution—trap moths

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.

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.

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

By Laura Baisas

Biohybrid robot legs in underwater container

Watch this cool, useless biohybrid robot take a stroll

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

Sex is more important than sleep for these marsupials

By Laura Baisas

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.

Poop stains reveal four previously unknown Emperor penguin colonies

By Laura Baisas

A blue bottle fly.

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

By Laura Baisas

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

We may know what makes tardigrades so darn tough

By Laura Baisas

A mako shark swimming in the ocean.

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.

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

By Laura Baisas

Dense thickets of the reef-building coral Desmophyllum pertusum make up most of the deep-sea coral reef habitat found on the Blake Plateau in the Atlantic Ocean. The white coloring is healthy–deep-sea corals don’t rely on symbiotic algae, so they can’t bleach. Images of these corals were taken during a 2019 expedition dive off the coast of Florida.

World’s largest known deep-sea coral reef is bigger than Vermont

By Laura Baisas

A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals

A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals

By Lauren Leffer

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.

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

By Laura Baisas

An Eastern dwarf tree frog covered in seeds.

These Australian frogs get absolutely covered in seeds

By Ethan Freedman

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

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

Green rhodopsin proteins inside the blue cell walls help these yeast grow faster when exposed to light.

This yeast loves light

By Laura Baisas

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

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.

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.

Why fruit bats can eat tons of sugar without getting diabetes

By Laura Baisas

Microscopic view of Oikopleura dioica

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

A white toilet bowl in a bathroom with yellow brick walls is surrounded by multiple shelves holding plants and towels.

Scientists finally discover the enzyme that makes pee yellow

By Laura Baisas

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.

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.

Matabele ants might be able to diagnose and treat infected wounds

By Laura Baisas

A jellyfish Cladonema pacificum with multiple branched tentacles.

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

By Laura Baisas

Five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs have been identified

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.

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

By Laura Baisas

Gray and fuzzy mold growing on red strawberries.

Plants may fight mold with molecules and bubbles

By Laura Baisas

An aardvark with a long nose sits in grass.

Why scientists are studying aardvarks’ poop

By Laura Baisas

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

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.

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

By Laura Baisas

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.

Arctic seals have special noses

By Laura Baisas

Two people hold coffee cups while looking at a a sunrise.

Neanderthals may have been early risers

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.

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

By Laura Baisas

Brainoware biocomputing study illustration

A ‘brain organoid’ biochip displayed serious voice recognition and math skills