Weird Animals

A trap-jaw ant opens its massive mandibles.

Watch These Ants Hurl Themselves Out of Death Traps With Their Mouths

At least one trap-jaw ant species has coopted its exceptionally strong mandibles to escape its nemesis, the ferocious antlion

A blood-sucker creeping around on a potential victim's pristine white sheets.

How Our Modern Lives Became Infested With Bed Bugs

After being bitten by the tiny pests, author Brooke Borel set out to learn all she could about her blood-sucking foes

A 1911 illustration of a vampire squid

Poop Eating Vampire Squids Aren't Actually Squids at All

The strange-looking animals have a very different reproductive strategy than other cephalopods

Droves of Elegant Blue Jellies Wash Up on Pacific Shores

Unusually strong winds have pushed Velella velellas, or "by-the-wind sailors," onto West Coast beaches by the thousands

Who wouldn't love that face?

Lady Wolf Spiders Use Silk to Flirt

Counter to the common wisdom, it’s not just males that do the pursuing

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Meet a Hermit Crab Who Has Shacked Up in a Lego

Weird things can become home sweet home when you are a tiny soft crustacean

A moth visits a male cone on Ephedra foeminea and feeds on a pollination droplet.

"Wereplant" Releases Its Pollen By the Light of the Full Moon

An unassuming shrub from the Mediterranean is the first documented case of a plant timing its reproduction to the lunar cycle

A panther chameleon.

We Finally Know How Chameleons Change Their Color

Chameleons' secret involves tiny crystals under their skin

Geckos have amazingly-structured feet, but new research indicates that the lizards' skin also possesses exceptional properties.

Water Drops Leap Off Gecko Skin Thanks to Tiny Spines

Specialized hydrophobic structures on gecko skin encourage dewdrops to be swept away by the wind or to collide and shoot off one another like pool balls

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How Praying Mantises Can Jump Faster Than the Blink of an Eye

Stunning slow-mo videos capture juvenile mantises as they corkscrew through the air and precisely land their target

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Mark World Pangolin Day With a New Video About the Quirky Creatures

Awareness about this animal underdog is climbing, yet an estimated 10,000 pangolins still fell victim to the illegal wildlife trade last year

Physarum polycephalum in the wild, sans piano

A Scientist And a Slime Mold Are Set To Play a Duet

The blob-like creatures’ movements inspired a composer to create a way for slime mold to play the piano

Illustration of the Elysia chlorotica by Mary Peart from "Report on the Invertebrata of Massachusetts" by Augustus A. Gould, W. G. Binney

A Green Sea Slug Steals Power From Algae

The discovery makes this a true plant-animal hybrid

The garden center spider combs and pulls on its silk to create electricostatically-charged threads

Spiders Spin Electrically Charged Silk To Make It Sticky

The garden center spider doesn’t put sticky glue on its web; it uses a complex spinning process to build prey-snaring silk threads

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 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

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

Get a good look at Sinea incognita, a newly recognized species of assassin bug.

Meet the Stealthiest Assassin Bug in the United States

The unique and secretive species has been living among us unrecognized for a century

Aspidoscelis neavesi, a species unlike any other.

This New Lizard Species Evolved in a Lab

The novel reptile shows that hybrids can indeed lead to viable species, but not by the normal reproductive route

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