Wildlife

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

Latest in Wildlife

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

‘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

A circular grey fossil with long linear grooves on it.
Environment

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.
Environment

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.
Environment

Tracing the crocodiles’ curious evolutionary family tree

By Laura Baisas

1-guilla eel robot without casing
Technology

Watch this eel robot effortlessly glide underwater

By Andrew Paul

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.
Environment

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.
Environment

A legendary Vangunu giant rat was finally caught on camera

By Laura Baisas

All the fish we cannot see
Environment

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.
Environment

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.
Environment

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.
Environment

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

By Laura Baisas

Tracking bird migration with radio-based technology
Technology

Tracking bird migration with radio-based technology

By Sara Van Note / Undark

A blue Bird Buddy Smart Bird Feeder filled with seed is mounted to a green post.
Gear

The best bird feeder camera is cheaper than ever at Amazon for Black Friday

By Stan Horaczek

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.
Environment

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

By Kamala Thiagarajan / Undark

A mature Megasyllis nipponica with a developing female stolon.
Environment

Why these sea worms detach their butts to reproduce

By Laura Baisas

Broadclub Cuttlefish
Environment

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.
Environment

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.
Environment

Wild bonobos show surprising signs of cooperation between groups

By Laura Baisas

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

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.
Environment

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

By Laura Baisas

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

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.
Environment

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.
Environment

Hummingbirds have two creative strategies for flying through tight spaces

By Laura Baisas

Smallmouth buffalofish caught at Apache Lake, Arizone
Environment

Century-old buffalofish are still living in their prime

By Hannah Seo

Illustration in green, yellow, orange, and purple of big sauropod dinosaurs lifting weights in front of a prehistoric landscape
Science

The mystery of why some dinosaurs got so enormous

By Riley Black

A side view of a great white shark. Regional endothermy in fish has been seen in apex predators like the great white sharks or giant tuna.
Environment

Megalodon’s warm-blooded relatives are still circling the oceans today

By Laura Baisas

A louse on human hair under a microscope. Humans and lice have coevolved for thousands of years. The oldest human louse known to scientists is a 10,000 year-old specimen from Brazil.
Environment

What head lice can tell us about human migration

By Laura Baisas

A baby loggerhead turtle pokes out of a shell on the sand. Its head and front flippers are out of the shell, with the lower half remaining inside.
Environment

Endangered sea turtles build hundreds of nests on the Outer Banks

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of Ekgmowechashala, the last primate to inhabit North America before humans. The animal has a white furry face, with a pink nose, and large dark eyes like a lemur. It is sitting in a leafy tree.
Science

North America was once home to some unusual wild monkeys

By Laura Baisas

An orange starfish, or sea star, on a black backgorund. The unusual five-axis symmetry of sea stars has long confounded our understanding of animal evolution.
Science

The sea star’s whole body is a head

By Laura Baisas

An artist's illustration of an early lamprey's teeth and sucker. The Jurassic lampreys Yanliaomyzon had a feeding apparatus that surprisingly resembles that of the pouched lampreys. It foreshadows the ancestral flesh-eating habit of present day. lampreys.
Environment

Giant prehistoric lamprey likely sucked blood—and ate flesh

By Laura Baisas

Ma Rainey, a post-reproductive female of the Ngogo community of chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda, and her adult son Wes. The two are sitting among trees in a forest.
Environment

Wild chimpanzees show signs of potential menopause—a rarity in the animal kingdom

By Laura Baisas

A long torpedo-shaped fish swims among green plants. Knifefish like the black ghost knifefish are known for their shimmying motions and electrical pulses. and live in freshwater lakes and rivers in Central and South America.
Environment

Why electric knifefish ‘shimmy’

By Laura Baisas

AlgaRay robot floating atop water in Antigua
Technology

This seafaring robot ‘eats’ stinky seaweed and dumps it in deep water

By Andrew Paul

A kingfisher with blue and yellow feathers and outstretched wings dives through the air.
Environment

How kingfishers pull off breakneck dives without hurting their brains

By Laura Baisas

a collection of woolly mammoth figurines on petri dishes on a blue background to represent Colossal's de-extinction project
Environment

Is de-extinction only a pipette dream? This startup has a big, expensive plan to find out.

By Andrew Zaleski

A view from the summit of Volcán Salín, one of three Andean volcanoes where researchers uncovered the mummified cadavers of mice. Analyses of the mummies, combined with the capture of live specimens, suggest that the rodents scaled the Mars-like peaks on their own — and are somehow managing to live on them.
Environment

How did mummified mice end up on volcanoes in the Atacama Desert?

By Laura Baisas

four of the best bird feeder cameras sliced together against a white background
Gear

The best bird feeder cameras in 2024

By Becki Robins

A blue Bird Buddy is mounted on a post in front of a house.
Gear

Bird Buddy Smart Bird Feeder review: A camera that’s not just for the birds

By Abby Ferguson

An illustration of a newly discovered shark species called Strigilodus tollesonae. The shark looks somewhat like a stingray, with outstretched wings, fan-like top fins, and a long tail with black spots.
Science

Prehistoric shark called Kentucky home 337 million years ago

By Laura Baisas

Smallmouth bass.
Environment

It’s not too late to stop a bass invasion in the Colorado River

By Ben Goldfarb / High Country News

A group of worker bees surround the queen bee on a honeycomb. All worker honeybees are female and they can go to extreme lengths to serve their queen even shedding their own ovaries.
Environment

Female honeybees may pass down ‘altruistic’ genes

By Laura Baisas

An endangered Texas ocelot in the vicinity of the highway.
Environment

Wildlife exits on Texas roads could help endangered ocelots

By Laura Baisas

Galapagos giant tortoises are restoring their own ecosystem
Environment

Galapagos giant tortoises are restoring their own ecosystem

By Syris Valentine/Hakai Magazine

Two frogs mating in a body of water.
Environment

Female frogs appear to play dead to avoid mating

By Laura Baisas

Grazer looking chunky and getting ready for winter on September 14, 2023. The bear is in the river intensely staring for salmon.
Environment

Fierce mama Grazer takes 2023’s Fat Bear Week crown

By Laura Baisas

An underwater closeup of Cayo margarita (a new species) in the coral reef of the Florida Keys. Note the two long tentacles, used by the snail to spread the mucus net for feeding.
Environment

New neon-yellow snail from the Florida Keys gets a happy hour-ready name

By Laura Baisas

A capybara standing on a riverbank. Capybaras are semi-aquatic rodents that can weigh up to 174 pounds.
Environment

4 capybara facts you’ll love, and 1 you’d like to forget

By Laura Baisas

Blue bins of fish and other seafood caught near the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan
Environment

This nuclear byproduct is fueling debate over Fukushima’s seafood

By Rahul Rao

Disease plagues Tasmanian devils—except for on one island
Environment

Disease plagues Tasmanian devils—except for on one island

By Jessica Wynne Lockhart/Hakai Magazine

A lioness bears her teeth. Mammals in a new study were twice as likely to abandon a waterhole when hearing human voices than the sounds of a lion.
Environment

Humans are now the African savannah’s top predator

By Laura Baisas

Two chimpanzees share a meal. A new study found that same-sex sexual behavior helps establish and maintain positive social relationships in animals including chimpanzees, bighorn sheep, lions, and wolves.
Environment

Mammals may use same-sex sexual behavior for conflict resolution, bonding, and more

By Laura Baisas

The Morona-Santiago stubfoot toad (Atelopus halihelos) in Ecuador is listed as critically endangered.
Environment

How we can help the most endangered class of animals survive climate change

By Laura Baisas

Four legged robot inspired by frog
Environment

This robot trio mimics the life cycle of a frog

By Andrew Paul

A green monk parakeet standing in dirt. Parrots could have a unique tone of voice just like humans do.
Environment

No two parakeets sound exactly the same

By Laura Baisas

Animal deterring robotic wolf sentry
Technology

Robotic ‘Super Monster Wolves’ are guarding Japanese towns against bears

By Andrew Paul

This fluffy anteater could be a new species
Environment

This fluffy anteater could be a new species

By James Hall/Hakai Magazine

A killer whale in the Salish Sea is observed harassing a porpoise, a behavior that has long perplexed scientists.
Environment

Why are these orcas harassing porpoises? Scientists have 3 theories.

By Laura Baisas

This 6-million-year-old turtle shell still has some DNA
Environment

This 6-million-year-old turtle shell still has some DNA

By Laura Baisas

A volcano spews lava and ash. In roughly 250 million years, massive tectonic activity could push together all of our current landmasses into a supercontinent like Pangea and make the climate inhospitable to humans and other mammals.
Science

A boiling hot supercontinent could kill all mammals in 250 million years

By Laura Baisas

A hyenea shows its jaws. Giant hyenas went extinct about 500,000 years ago, but were roughly 240 pounds and skilled scavengers like their modern counterparts.
Science

How many ancient humans does it take to fight off a giant hyena?

By Laura Baisas

To protect wild bumblebees, people have to find them first
Environment

To protect wild bumblebees, people have to find them first

By Sarah Trent / High Country News

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