Wildlife(Page 13)

The latest on the fascinating flora and fauna of our planet.

Latest in Wildlife

A mother and calf humpback whale swim underwater.

Endangered Species

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

By Laura Baisas

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

Anchovy sex is a force of nature

Anchovy sex is a force of nature

By Christina Couch / Hakai Magazine

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 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

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

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.

Can clownfish count?

By Laura Baisas

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

‘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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Endangered Species

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

By Laura Baisas

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

By Max Graham/Grist

A jellyfish Cladonema pacificum with multiple branched tentacles.

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.

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

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

An aardvark with a long nose sits in grass.

Why scientists are studying aardvarks’ poop

By Laura Baisas

Lessons from Lake Tanganyika’s scale eating fish

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.

Reindeer can see UV light—and we may know why

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

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

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

Releasing pet goldfish into the wild has serious consequences

By Laura Baisas

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

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

By Hannah Norman / KFF Health News

A circular grey fossil with long linear grooves on it.

Fossil first identified as plant is actually a baby turtle

By Laura Baisas

Glowing blue lights of the tiny ostracods move in sync with one another.

Watch the mucus-filled, synchronized mating dance of bioluminescent ‘sea fireflies’

By Laura Baisas

A dinosaur called poposaurus walks near some trees. The dinosaur comes from a group of extinct relatives of the crocodile known as Poposauroidea.

Tracing the crocodiles’ curious evolutionary family tree

By Laura Baisas

1-guilla eel robot without casing

Watch this eel robot effortlessly glide underwater

A white axolotl in a tank. Axolotls are sometimes called the ‘Peter Pan of amphibians’ since they do not go through a traditional metamorphosis and keep larval traits like their signature gills.

Endangered Species

Go (virtually) adopt an axolotl, the ‘Peter Pan’ of amphibians

By Laura Baisas

A large rat stands on a tree trunk at night. The Vangunu giant rat is the first new species of rodent described from Solomon Islands in over 80 years.

A legendary Vangunu giant rat was finally caught on camera

By Laura Baisas

All the fish we cannot see

All the fish we cannot see

By Moira Donovan / Hakai Magazine

An orange California newt sits on a rock. The amphibians are endemic to California.

Female Taricha newts are more poisonous than males

By Laura Baisas

A newborn rhino calf stands under his mother. He is black and does not have his signature horns in yet.

Endangered Species

A critically endangered Sumatran rhino named Delilah welcomes first calf

By Laura Baisas

Six African penguins standing on a rock. They have white plumage with black dots arranged in individual patterns on their chests.

African penguins may tell each other apart by the spots in their plumage

By Laura Baisas

Tracking bird migration with radio-based technology

Tracking bird migration with radio-based technology

By Sara Van Note / Undark

An Indian cobra found in the farmlands of Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, India. Around 58,000 Indians die from snakebites every year, the highest rate in the world.

In India, a need for new antidotes to curb deadly snakebites

By Kamala Thiagarajan / Undark

A mature Megasyllis nipponica with a developing female stolon.

Why these sea worms detach their butts to reproduce

By Laura Baisas

Broadclub Cuttlefish

Cuttlefish and their amazing technicolor dreamcoats

By Olivia Ferrari / Hakai Magazine

A serotine bat with its mouth open, showing teeth. Serotine bats are widely spread throughout Europe and Asia and have a 15 inch wingspan.

Scientists are confounded by the sex lives of serontine bats

By Laura Baisas

Two wild bonobos sit in a tree. Researchers examined pro-social behaviors of the smaller species of great ape in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Wild bonobos show surprising signs of cooperation between groups

By Laura Baisas

A bioluminescent sea cucumber called Scotoplanes or the “sea pig.”

Surprise! These sea cucumbers glow

By Laura Baisas

A piping plover walks along L Street Beach in South Boston. The bird is small, with white and grey plummage.

Piping plovers are in trouble, but there’s some good news

By Laura Baisas

Attenborough's long-beaked echidna, photographed by a camera trap.

Elusive egg-laying mammal caught on camera for the first time

By Laura Baisas

A lateral view of Loncovilius carlsbergi. It is a six-limbed beetle less than an inch long, with two antennae protruding from its head.

These newfound beetles have male genitals shaped like a bottle opener

By Laura Baisas

An Anna’s hummingbird with bright pink plumage flies near some leafy green trees.

Hummingbirds have two creative strategies for flying through tight spaces

By Laura Baisas

Smallmouth buffalofish caught at Apache Lake, Arizone

Century-old buffalofish are still living in their prime