The book showcases the diverse sensory abilities of other creatures Emerald jewel wasps know what cockroach brains feel like. This comes in handy when a female wasp needs to turn a cockroach into an obedient zombie that will host her larvae and serve as dinner. First, the wasp plunges itsContinue Reading
Older than the dinosaurs and ecologically vital, sharks deserve more than our fear. Long portrayed in pop culture as remorseless people-killers, sharks in reality are no Hollywood monsters. Sharks are a diverse group of mostly predatory fish, including the largest living fish, with skeletons made of cartilage. They have pliedContinue Reading
Genetic sequences called transposons help regulate learning. Octopuses are brainy creatures with sophisticated smarts, and now scientists have uncovered a clue that may partly explain the cephalopods’ remarkable intelligence: Its genes have a genetic quirk that is also seen in humans, a new study finds. The clues that scientists uncoveredContinue Reading
Sleepy skeeters lagged behind well-rested ones when offered a researcher’s leg to feed on Turns out there is rest for the wicked: Sleepy mosquitoes are more likely to catch up on missed z’s than drink blood, a new study finds. Most people are familiar with the aftermath of a poorContinue Reading
Serenading with like voices may help male wood frogs woo females into their pool Loud sounds matter in both car design and frog flirting. So New Hampshire biologists lugged an acoustic camera used by car designers to springtime frog-mating pools to explore female preferences. Now researchers suspect that a male’sContinue Reading
Local authorities suggest the young humpback did it on purpose. Watching a gigantic whale fly through the air as it breaches the ocean’s surface is one of the most beautiful sights in the natural world. But for the crew of one boat in Mexico, that experience quickly turned intoContinue Reading
Most bears live in the Northern Hemisphere; polar bears are no exception. The Arctic and Antarctica, while similar habitats in some ways, are home to very different creatures. Both poles host a variety of seal and whale species, but only the Arctic is home to Earth’s largest bear, the polarContinue Reading
Web vibrations help them coordinate when to strike Pack hunting spiders exist in places other than your nightmares. While most spiders enjoy solitary lives, 20 of the roughly 50,000 known spider species live in colonies. One species, Anelosimus eximius, lives in extremely large colonies of up to 1,000 individual spidersContinue Reading
Do some ants smell like chocolate and blue cheese? Skunks are notoriously stinky. The musk ox, true to its name, emits a musky scent during mating season. And for some lucky owners, dog paws smell like corn chips. But these are not the only members of the animal kingdom thatContinue Reading
A local man took matters into his own hands to save the trapped croc. A 13-foot-long (4 meters) crocodile on an Indonesian island has been freed from an unflattering and potentially harmful motorbike tire that had been stuck around its neck for at least six years. A local man whoContinue Reading