Wildlife(Page 15)

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

Latest in Wildlife

A saber tooth cat fossil is displayed during a press preview of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History on June 4, 2019.
Wildlife

Paleontologists discover two new sabertooth cat species

By Laura Baisas

Cod fish heads
Fish

No guts left behind: Iceland’s quest to repurpose fish waste

By Lela Nargi/Hakai Magazine

Illustration showing Repenomamus robustus as it attacks Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis moments before a volcanic debris flow buries them both about 125 million years ago.
Wildlife

This badger-like mammal may have died while trying to eat a dinosaur

By Laura Baisas

Pair of bluefin tuna strung up on a fishing crane on the coast of Spain
Fish

Who caught the first bluefin tuna?

By Karen Pinchin

A green sea turtle swims in the ocean.
Endangered Species

Hungry green sea turtles have eaten in the same seagrass meadows for about 3,000 years

By Laura Baisas

Bull elk in the wilderness
Birds

Like whales and bats, elk have regional dialects

By Kylie Mohr / High Country News

An artist’s illustration of Alligator munensis, which is skimming the water with its eye out and surrounded by lush green trees. The large tooth sockets towards the back of its mouth suggest this extinct gator could crush shells and may have snacked on hard-shelled prey like snails.
Wildlife

Extinct snub-nosed gator had big teeth for crushing snails

By Laura Baisas

Ocean waves crashing.
Fish

How climate change is pushing oxygen out of the world’s oceans

By Carla Delgado

A dire wolf reconstruction on exhibit at the La Brea Tar Pits & Museum.
Wildlife

Mighty saber-toothed cats and dire wolves probably had achy joints

By Laura Baisas

Group of Chinook salmon.
Fish

Beer’s pungent scent could help salmon find their way home

By Ben Goldfarb/Hakai Magazine

A large group of shells on a beach. Organisms with hard, durable parts, like shells, are more likely to be preserved as fossils than organisms composed entirely of soft tissue.
Wildlife

The fossil record holds clues about modern-day marine ecology

By Laura Baisas

Oldest tunicate on record from the Cambrian explosion, illustrated on the ocean floor
Wildlife

A 500-million-year-old sea squirt is the evolutionary clue we need to understand our humble beginnings

By Maddi Langweil

best solar birdbaths
Birds

The best solar birdbaths

By Stacey L. Nash

Two male male rhesus macaques sit on the ground, one with his head down towards the other
Wildlife

Same-sex mounting in male macaques can help them reproduce more successfully

By Laura Baisas

The giant Douglas firs in British Columbia forests are examples of so-called mother trees
Wildlife

Are ‘mother trees’ real?

By Zayna Syed

Jars of animal and plant specimen.
Wildlife

Why preserving museum specimens is so vital for science

By Darren Incorvaia/Undark

A four-legged spider mite sits on a plant.
Spiders

Before spider mites mate, one of them gets their skin removed

By Laura Baisas

hiking in the mountains
Endangered Species

Human noises make animals in the woods nervous

By Christine Peterson/High Country News

Crotalus helleri snake
Wildlife

Stressed rattlesnakes just need a little help from their friends

By Laura Baisas

Octopuses brooding near hydrothermal vents deep under water. The 19-day Octopus Odyssey expedition located a site of low temperature (7oC) hydrothermal venting with brooding octopus on an unnamed outcrop that was explored for the very first time on this trip.
Wildlife

New species of inkless octopus may have been found in Costa Rica’s deep seas

By Laura Baisas

wall of taxidermy animals and skeletons
Birds

Humans are dangerous predators because we love collecting weird animals

By Emily Harwitz / Hakai Magazine

falcon perches on handler's glove, jersey shore attractions in background
Birds

The birds of summer patrolling Ocean City’s boardwalk

By Laura Baisas, Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet

Common bottlenose dolphins swimming in Coffee Bay in South Africa.
Wildlife

Drones are following dolphins to spy on their complex social lives

By Laura Baisas

A greater honeyguide feeding on beeswax with an open mouth in Niassa Special Reserve in Mozambique.
Birds

Badgers and birds may be teaming up to steal honey

By Laura Baisas

A green adult L. heckscheri frog sits amid some rocks and fungus.
Wildlife

Check out some of the weirdest warty frogs in North America

By Popular Science Team

A spider monkey stands on a tree branch with a baby monkey on her back.
Wildlife

The ancestor of all placental mammals survived the dino-killing asteroid

By Laura Baisas

An orangutan sits in the forest and looks forward with its hands under its chin.
Wildlife

Orangutans can make two sounds at the same time

By Laura Baisas

An artist's illustration of a megalogon, which went extinct 3.6 million years ago and are believed to have grown to lengths of 50 feet.
Sharks

Megalodons were likely warm-blooded, despite being stone-cold killers

By Laura Baisas

Animals and AI help scientists study pandemics
Wildlife

Animals and AI help scientists study pandemics

By Bethany Brookshire/Undark

This pangolin-inspired robot can curl up into a healing ball
Endangered Species

This pangolin-inspired robot can curl up into a healing ball

By Andrew Paul

An artist’s reconstruction of Olympicetus thalassodon pursuing a school of fishes alongside plotopterid birds (background) somewhere in the eastern North Pacific Ocean.
Whales

This dolphin ancestor looked like a cross between Flipper and Moby Dick

By Laura Baisas

A cockscomb pearl mussel.
Wildlife

The secret to better folding phones might hinge on mussels

By Rahul Rao

A school of grunts and horse-eye jack fish swim above a reef in Hol Chan Marine Reserve near Ambergris Cay, Belize.
Fish

Fish are thriving near marine protected areas—and so are coastal communities

By Laura Baisas

A Northern Hawk Owl looks directly into the camera as it perches at the tip of a frost-covered tree. Dark pine cones on the bare branches stand out against a white background, mirroring the pattern of the owl’s dark breast feathers.
Birds

Owls, puffins, and even city pigeons glam it up in winning bird photos

By Maddi Langweil

Bumblebee pollinator over red and orange flowers
Wildlife

Microscopic worms use electricity to ride bumblebees like EVs

By Laura Baisas

Line of rocks letting water leak through to represent a different approach to water management during drought
Wildlife

‘Slow water’ could transform the Southwest, one little rock wall at a time

By Erica Gies

Deer and other animals in wildfire smoke during California Dixie fire in 2021
Wildlife

Clouds of wildfire smoke are toxic to humans and animals alike

By Carla Delgado

The sustainable secret to raising tastier crabs
Fish

The sustainable secret to raising tastier crabs

By Sofia Quaglia/Hakai Magazine

A glow-worm on a leaf.
Wildlife

Bright white lights are a buzzkill for glow-worm romance

By Laura Baisas

Australian giant skink
Wildlife

This chunky ancient lizard was 1,000 times bigger than its modern relatives

By Sara Kiley Watson

Orca whale pod off Iberian coast from the subpopulation of orcas attacking sailboats in Europe
Whales

Orcas are attacking boats. But is it revenge or trauma?

By Zayna Syed

Two ants facing one another. Ants release a pheromone that helps other ants sense danger.
Wildlife

Ants brains are surprisingly good at communicating danger to others

By Laura Baisas

Young longleaf pines growing healthily in a burnt landscape
Wildlife

Longleaf pine forests in Alabama are making a comeback—thanks to fire

By Jamie Helmick

Noisy boats can cause temporary deafness in squid
Fish

Noisy boats can cause temporary deafness in squid

By Emily Harwitz / Hakai Magazine

emperor penguin and chicks
Birds

Many bird species are struggling—but data can help us save them from extinction

By Emily Sohn/Knowable Magazine

Paramecium bursaria under a microscope. All creatures whose cells house a nucleus, including Paramecium bursaria, can be traced back to a common ancestor called the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (LECA).
Wildlife

Newfound single-celled hunters may have been Earth’s first-ever predators

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of the rhynchosaur Bentonyx from the Middle Triassic of Devon, about 245 million years ago.
Wildlife

This ancient reptile had a deadly vegetarian diet

By Laura Baisas

The California two-spot octopus (Bimaculoides) is the first octopus species to have its genome sequenced and is very helpful for studying cephalopods.
Wildlife

Octopuses rewrite their own RNA to survive freezing temperatures

By Laura Baisas

A monkey laying on a tree smiling.
Wildlife

Super semen could be one reason why primates evolved to masturbate

By Laura Baisas

A badger in a forest on a rainy day.
Wildlife

Air quality monitoring stations could help track and preserve threatened species

By Laura Baisas

Lionfish are now threatening ecosystems and livelihoods in Brazil
Fish

Lionfish are now threatening ecosystems and livelihoods in Brazil

By Osmar J. Luiz/The Conversation

An elk grazing in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Wildlife

The role of people in preserving nature, according to America’s National Parks docuseries

By Laura Baisas

A moth with wings extended outward lands on a flower.
Wildlife

This massively underrated pollinator needs your help

By Laura Baisas

These species were discovered in museum collections. They might already be extinct.
Bats

These species were discovered in museum collections. They might already be extinct.

By Katarina Zimmer / Undark

The adult gomphothere skull (foreground, tusk capped in white plaster) was separated from the main body (background, covered in plaster) prior to its preservation.
Wildlife

Elephants once roamed Florida—and scientists just stumbled on a graveyard full of them

By Laura Baisas

A mother and baby golden snub nosed monkey. These primates live in mountainous regions of southwestern China. Longer periods of maternal care may have helped them form more complex societies.
Wildlife

Chilly climates may have forged stronger social bonds in some primates

By Laura Baisas

This fake beach is a magnet for tourists—and peaceful endangered sharks
Endangered Species

This fake beach is a magnet for tourists—and peaceful endangered sharks

By Dag Goering/Hakai Magazine

A male and a female mallard duck in some green grass by some bushes.
Birds

Don’t feed ducks bread. Here’s what to give them instead.

By Natalie Wallington

Why it’s time to stop naming new species after people
Wildlife

Why it’s time to stop naming new species after people

By Asher Elbein/Undark

A saltwater crocodile with its mouth wide open.
Wildlife

Snorkeler pries crocodile’s jaws off his head to survive attack

By Laura Baisas

A sloth hangs in a tree in Costa Rica. The mammals have the slowest digestive system of any animal on Earth. It can take sloths two weeks to digest an entire meal, and they sleep about 20 hours a day to conserve energy.
Wildlife

Sloth schedules are surprisingly flexible

By Laura Baisas

The weevil Anchylorhynchus trapezicollis is the main pollinator of South American palm Syagrus coronata. Here, the weevil is seen on a female flower, touching the receptive parts and leaving pollen grains in the process.
Wildlife

Move over, bees: The lowly weevil is a power pollinator

By Laura Baisas

The sun over the ocean. Over 5,000 species could be at risk if deep sea mining begins in the Pacific Ocean's Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
Wildlife

A deep sea mining zone in the remote Pacific is also a goldmine of unique species

By Laura Baisas

Andean long-tailed chinchillas are mysteriously thriving on Chile’s coast
Wildlife

Andean long-tailed chinchillas are mysteriously thriving on Chile’s coast

By James Hall/Hakai Magazine