Wildlife(Page 9)

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

Latest in Wildlife

A new snake species named Tachymenoides harrisonfordi was discovered during an expedition in Peru in May 2022. The copper scaled snake is seen here coiled on some brown grass.
Environment

Harrison Ford’s latest namesake is an Andean snake species

By Laura Baisas

Four bivalve species found along the Maine coast, including the Northern Quahog, Eastern Oyster, a steamer clam, and a blue mussel presented together in a bed of seaweed at low tide.
Environment

Popular shellfish resist extinction in surprising ways

By Laura Baisas

A gray wolf howling in the woods. The wolves come in many colors including white, tan, black, and brown.
Environment

A new pack of endangered gray wolves is roaming Northern California

By Laura Baisas

Talpa hakkariensis, found in the Hakkari region of southeastern Turkey, was identified as a new species of mole, highly distinctive in terms of both its morphology and DNA. The mole is peeking out of an underground burrow.
Environment

These moles may have been hiding for 3 million years

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of an ancient whale against a sea-blue background.
Science

This tiny, 8-foot long whale swam off Egypt’s coast 41 million years ago

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

The Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone National Park, with steam rising and mountains in the distance. Temperatures at Yellowstone’s famous hot springs can reach 198 degrees Fahrenheit.
Environment

Don’t lick the toads and other things to avoid at national parks

By Laura Baisas

A male peacock displaying his signature blue and green plumage.
Environment

Miami suburb turns to vasectomies to solve its peacock problem

By Laura Baisas

A man is looking in a glass case of coprolites collected in Nong Yakong village, Chaiyaphum Province, Thailand.
Environment

Rare parasites found in 200 million-year-old reptile poop

By Laura Baisas

Reconstruction of Hupehsuchus about to engulf a shoal of shrimp. The ancient lizard widely opens its skinny snout and large mouth to swallow a large ball of shrimp.
Environment

The planet’s first filter feeder could be this extinct marine reptile

By Laura Baisas

A Heliconius butterfly with black, orange, and white on its wings.
Environment

Butterflies can remember specific flower foraging routes

By Laura Baisas

best bird feeders
Gear

The best bird feeders

By Julian Vittorio

A long and skinny silver trumpetfish uses a colorful parrotfish as camouflage.
Environment

Trumpetfish use other fish as camouflage

By Laura Baisas

Crab in ocean reaching with pincher.
Environment

As oceans become more acidic, creatures could struggle to smell

By Ethan Freedman/Hakai Magazine

A woodpecker uses a bird feeder. Interest in bird feeding surged in 115 countries during early COVD-19 lockdowns.
Environment

People around the world got really into feeding birds during the pandemic

By Laura Baisas

An artist's rendition of the Perucetus colossus.
Science

This giant sea cow-like whale may have been the heaviest creature to ever live on Earth

By Sara Kiley Watson

Porites rus corals and scuba diver
Environment

Coral is reproducing in broad daylight

By Chloe Glad/Hakai Magazine

A moth called a tobacco budworm on a green leaf. Moths like the tobacco budworm use pheromone signaling to find mates.
Environment

How male tobacco budworm moths found their perfect cologne

By Laura Baisas

Artistic reconstruction of a group of Burgessomedusa phasmiformis swimming in the Cambrian sea.
Environment

Jellyfish may have been roaming the seas for at least 500 million years

By Laura Baisas

Side view of woman's hand feeding horseback on sunny day
Health

Why studying horses could help humans stay healthy, too

By Jane Manfredi/The Conversation

wolf pack on rock formation
Environment

Howls, butt sniffs, and pee sprays: understanding animal languages

By Eva Meijer/MIT Press Reader

A scanning electron picture of a female Panagrolaimus kolymaensis nematode.
Environment

Recently awoken 46,000-year-old nematodes already have 100 generations of babies

By Laura Baisas

A pink river dolphin, or boto, displaying aerial behavior in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve.
Environment

Eavesdropping on pink river dolphins could help save them

By Laura Baisas

Red7Marine kittiwake offshore wind farm habitat
Technology

Artificial nests could give endangered birds a home near new offshore wind farm

By Andrew Paul

Get up close to eagles, owls, hawks, and more with the best bird watching binoculars.
Gear

The best bird-watching binoculars

By Charlotte Nash

A kākāpō chick. The birds are are large flightless parrots from New Zealand who are masters of camouflage and known for a booming call.
Environment

A flightless parrot is returning to mainland New Zealand after a 40-year absence

By Laura Baisas

deep sea bubbles
Environment

The key to bringing deep sea samples up to the coast? An underwater freezer.

By Annie Roth / Hakai Magazine

American actor Richard Dreyfuss (left) (as marine biologist Hooper) and British author and actor Robert Shaw (as shark fisherman Quint) look off the stern of Quint's fishing boat the 'Orca' at the terrifying approach of the mechanical giant shark dubbed 'Bruce' in a scene from the film 'Jaws' directed by Steven Spielberg, 1975.
Environment

Why the creators of ‘Jaws’ regretted making sharks the monsters

By Laura Baisas

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

Paleontologists discover two new sabertooth cat species

By Laura Baisas

Cod fish heads
Environment

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.
Environment

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
Environment

Who caught the first bluefin tuna?

By Karen Pinchin

A green sea turtle swims in the ocean.
Environment

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

By Laura Baisas

Bull elk in the wilderness
Environment

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.
Environment

Extinct snub-nosed gator had big teeth for crushing snails

By Laura Baisas

Ocean waves crashing.
Environment

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.
Environment

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

By Laura Baisas

Group of Chinook salmon.
Environment

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.
Environment

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
Environment

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

By Maddi Langweil

best solar birdbaths
Environment

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
Science

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
Environment

Are ‘mother trees’ real?

By Zayna Syed

Jars of animal and plant specimen.
Science

Why preserving museum specimens is so vital for science

By Darren Incorvaia/Undark

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

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

By Laura Baisas

hiking in the mountains
Environment

Human noises make animals in the woods nervous

By Christine Peterson/High Country News

Crotalus helleri snake
Environment

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.
Environment

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

By Laura Baisas

wall of taxidermy animals and skeletons
Environment

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
Environment

The birds of summer patrolling Ocean City’s boardwalk

By Laura Baisas, Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet

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

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.
Environment

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.
Environment

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.
Science

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.
Environment

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.
Science

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

By Laura Baisas

Animals and AI help scientists study pandemics
Environment

Animals and AI help scientists study pandemics

By Bethany Brookshire/Undark

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

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.
Environment

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

By Laura Baisas

A cockscomb pearl mussel.
Science

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.
Environment

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.
Environment

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

By Maddi Langweil

Bumblebee pollinator over red and orange flowers
Environment

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
Environment

‘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
Environment

Clouds of wildfire smoke are toxic to humans and animals alike

By Carla Delgado