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Famous Animal Gravesites Around the World
It's not just Kentucky Derby winners that are buried with great honor
April 28, 2010 |
By Robin T. Reid
The Animals, Vegetables and Minerals of the States
Wisconsin legislators last week voted on a new state symbol; the official state microbe is now Lactococcus lactis, the bacterium used to make cheddar, Colby and Monterey Jack cheeses. As far as I can tell, Wisconsin will be the first state to declare an official state microbe. Plenty of states have...
April 19, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Cute Quolls Taught to Dislike Toads
The northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus) is an adorable little nocturnal marsupial about the size of a cat. It lives in northern Australia and eats fruit, insects, lizards, small mammals and toads. But the quoll's toad-loving habits are driving the species towards extinction.Cane toads (Bufo marinu...
April 14, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Mammoths and Mastodons: All American Monsters
A mammoth discovery in 1705 sparked a fossil craze and gave the young United States a symbol of national might
April 2010 |
By Richard Conniff
Saving the Silky Sifaka
In Madagascar, an American researcher races to protect one of the world's rarest mammals, a white lemur known as the silky sifaka
April 2010 |
By Erica R. Hendry
Breeding the Perfect Bull
A Texas cattleman used genetic science to breed his masterpiece – a near-perfect Red Angus bull. Then nature took its course
April 2010 |
By Jeanne Marie Laskas
Bringing a Dryptosaurus Back to Life
In reaction to my post about Dryptosaurus the other week, paleo-artist Michael Skrepnick told me about the efforts of his colleague Tyler Keillor to create a fleshed-out restoration of the dinosaur. I immediately e-mailed Tyler about the project, and he was kind enough to answer a few of my questio...
March 22, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Another Endangered Kitty You May Not Know
Last year, I introduced you to seven threatened cats you may not have heard of. Now here's one more:Flat-headed cat (Prionailurus planiceps)Lives in: Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and ThailandHabitat: tropical forest near rivers, lakes and swampsEats: small mammals, birds, amphibians, fishPhysical fe...
March 22, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Photo Contest Finalist—A Chorus of Mackerel
Can fish sing? Yes, they can, though I'm not sure about mackerel like the ones above. And they probably don't sound like anything you'd put on your iPod. But that wasn't what Alex Tattersall of Charminster, England, was searching for when we went on a dive last September in the Red Sea off Egypt. H...
March 19, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Beavers: The Engineers of the Forest
Back from the brink of extinction, the beavers of Massachusetts are a crucial component of a healthy ecosystem
March 16, 2010 |
By Jennifer Weeks
Reindeer Lack an Internal Clock
Humans—like many other animals, plants, fungi and even bacteria—have an internal biological clock that keeps our bodies on schedule. It helps us to know when to eat, when to sleep and when to wake. It's the reason many of us are feeling a bit off today, just two days after daylight saving time went...
March 15, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Photo Contest Finalist: Spider in the Light of Daybreak
This photo, Spider in the light of daybreak, is a finalist in the Natural World category of Smithsonian magazine's 7th Annual Photo Contest. The image was taken by Csaba Meszaros of Budapest, Hungary. He writes:Velence is the second largest lake in Hungary and Sukoro is a village closely. I went o...
March 12, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Odd Malaria Risk Factor: Drinking Beer
Here in the United States, we rarely have to worry that a mosquito bite will cause malaria. Like Canada, Australia, much of Europe and a few other places, we've been designated "malaria-free" by World Health Organization. Other places aren't so lucky. Nearly one million people died from the disease...
March 11, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
"Bird" Wrists Evolved Among Dinosaurs
If there is one persistent gripe that paleontologists have with dinosaurs on screen, it is that their hands are usually wrong. From Tyrannosaurus to Velociraptor, predatory dinosaurs are time and again shown with their hands in a palms-down position, something that would have been anatomically impo...
March 03, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
A Whale of a Carbon Sink
Living organisms are a great place to store carbon. Trees are the most common organisms to be used as carbon sinks, but other things might be even better. Whales are particularly good for this because they are large—blue whales are the largest animals on Earth—and when they die, they sink to the bo...
March 01, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Mustang Mystique
Descended from animals brought by Spanish conquistadors centuries ago, wild horses roam the West. But are they running out of room?
March 2010 |
By Abigail Tucker
A New Use for Blacklights: Finding Dinosaur Feathers
Since 1996 paleontologists have found so many feathered dinosaurs that it has been impossible to keep up with them all. There are scores of exceptionally preserved specimens that have yet to be fully studied and published upon, but, according to a new study in PLoS One, there is still plenty to le...
February 24, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
An Egyptian Fruit Bat Pinpoints a Meal
The Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) pinpoints its meal with its sonar not by aiming in front but by "looking" off from side to side, according to a study in a recent issue of Science.With sonar, a bat (or whale or submarine) will emit a sound that is reflected off nearby objects. Those s...
February 19, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Bonobos Share Their Food and a Human Trait
Sharing may seem like a small thing---we do it all the time. There's the neighbor who bakes you cookies or the co-worker who makes an extra cup of coffee for you. But sharing has been thought to be a uniquely human trait, not to be found in the animal world. For example, chimpanzees, our closest re...
February 18, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Not Everyone is Happy With Feathered Dinosaurs
Time and again I have used this blog to describe what I think is one of the most fascinating recent discoveries in paleontology: that birds are dinosaurs.Not everyone is happy with this fact, though. The blog io9 recently posted sample images from a feathered dinosaur protest group who prefer their...
February 18, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
