Animals

Naked mole rats are likely contenders for the most hideously adorable creature on Earth - but also one of the longest lived.

The Secret to a Long Life: Be Cooperative and Live Underground

Naked mole rats enjoy exceptionally long, healthy lives, and there's more than good genes at work

The face of Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf

Fish Live Under Antarctica’s Ice Shelf, Where It Seems They Shouldn’t Survive

Biologists expected the seafloor under a glacier to be nearly barren, until life swam into view

The western tarsier, a rare primate species, has lost large amounts of its Borneo habitat to logging. More of that habitat is likely to disappear because of climate change.

Borneo's Mammals Face a Deadly Mix of Logging and Climate Change

But adding small amounts of land to already protected areas could help save the island's biodiversity

What Hibernation Teaches Us About Treating Alzheimer’s Disease

Scientists find that a brain-protecting protein produced when the body cools may have major implications for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders

A diverse array of trilobites ruled the seas for almost 300 million years, until they vanished at the end of the Permian period.

Vinegar-Like Acid Rain May Have Fallen During Earth’s Worst Extinction

Vanilla-flavored rocks hint at a planet scoured by intense acid rain during the Great Dying 252 million years ago

India's Tiger Population Grew Almost 60 Percent Since 2008

Could tigers be coming back from the brink? India now counts 2,226 of the big cats

Loggerhead sea turtle surfing the magnetic field

Earth’s Magnetic Field Draws Sea Turtles to Their Nests

Loggerhead turtles remember the magnetic fingerprint of the beach where they were born

Beavers Once Parachuted into Idaho’s Backcountry

Strange things can happen when you combine WWII military surplus, innovative thinking and a bunch of beavers in need of a new home

Toystory the Bull Fathered 500,000 Cows Before He Died

Toystory, a Wisconsin “dream bull,” had more than half a million offspring at last count and is the stuff of legend.

One Orangutan Has Learned to Sound Just Like Us

This defies scientists’ former assumption that great apes just couldn’t learn new calls

The Academy's live Lexias pardais with gynandromorphism

A Museum’s Butterfly Emerged Half Male, Half Female

The rarity is like a natural experiment that tells scientists how genes and hormones interact to produce different sexes

Monkeys Can Learn to Recognize Themselves in the Mirror

Generations of monkeys had tried and failed a classic test of intelligence, but the fault may have been in the way humans thought of the test

Fossils Show How Flying Fish Started to Glide

In the quest to avoid being eaten, some fish took a leap into the open air

The world's six known punked out snail species, which have mohawk-like spikes, acidic-dyed psychedelic colors and hardcore shells that are falling apart.

New Deep-Sea Snails Are Nature’s Own Punk Rockers

The spikes on one hardcore species inspired scientists to name it after Joe Strummer of the Clash, who was also an ardent environmentalist

L. larvaepartus (male, left, and female) from Indonesia is the only frog ever discovered to birth live tadpoles.

This Exotic Frog Skips the Eggs, Gives Birth to Live Tadpoles

The species is one of just a handful of frogs that use internal fertilization, and the only one found that births tadpoles

Where the Buffalo Roam: Illinois

American bison are back in Illinois for the first time in 200 years

Dumpling squid don't let danger stop them from mating.

Threat of Being Eaten Doesn’t Deter Dumpling Squid From Sex

The adorable cephalopods seem to rate mating higher on their list of priorities than survival

Our Answers to the Most Burning Questions of 2014

Here are the ten most popular installments of "Ask Smithsonian" this year

Arachnophobia, coral reefs, artificial cells and strange amphibians starred in some of this year's science finds you might have missed.

Ten Cool Science Stories You May Have Missed in 2014

ICYMI, there's a newfound coral reef in Iraq, the smallest force has been detected and more in this year's surprising science

Ants Usually Turn Left While Exploring

It's a sinister version of human's tendency towards right-handedness

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