Rare Kitty Caught on Film

Biologists aren't certain how many African golden cats (Profelis aurata) remain in central Africa. The IUCN Red List places the the cat in the "Near Threatened" category, saying that there are probably around 10,000 or so left, though that is little more than an educated guess. People are more like...
September 21, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

A Swim Through the Ocean's Future

Can a remote, geologically weird island in the South Pacific forecast the fate of coral reefs?
September 17, 2009 | By Christopher Pala

Gorillas Hunted for Bushmeat in Congo

About two western lowland gorillas are killed and sold in local markets as bushmeat each week in the region of Kouilou in Congo, according to an undercover investigation. It may not sound like much, but it represents about 4 percent of the local population each month, and half of the population eac...
September 16, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

Is Yawning Contagious for Chimpanzees Too?

Watch the video above. Did you yawn? Contagious yawning occurs when someone around you yawns and you yawn in response. It's an involuntary response. Humans do it, and so do chimpanzees. In chimps, researchers have linked the behavior with empathy, so researchers studying empathy in chimps sometimes...
September 15, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

The Curse of the Labrador Duck

You have never seen a live Labrador Duck (Camptorhynchus labradorius); the species went extinct in the late 1800s. The rather plain-looking bird isn't found on display in many museums, and other extinct birds like auks and moas get more attention, all of which might explain why I had never heard of...
September 08, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

Morocco's Extraordinary Donkeys

The author returns to Fez to explore the stubborn animal's central role in the life of this desert kingdom
September 2009 | By Susan Orlean

Seven Threatened Cats You May Not Know

The big cats get all the attention, it seems. Lions, tigers and cheetahs are all threatened, but they are not the only cat species whose populations are in danger. Here are seven small cat species under threat:Black-footed cat (Felis nigripes)Lives in: the steppes and savannas of southern AfricaEat...
August 17, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

Mad About Seashells

Collectors have long prized mollusks for their beautiful exteriors, but for scientists, it’s what inside that matters
August 2009 | By Richard Conniff

Five Favorite Penguins Outside Antarctica

Of all the species of penguins, more than half can be found only outside Antarctica. One of our favorites is in the Galapagos
August 10, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

Picture of the Week — Ancient Spider in 3-D

Eophrynus prestivicii (left) and Cryptomartus hindi are species of spiders that lived about 300 million years ago. Discovering the details of their biology from fossils isn't easy, especially since these arachnids were only about an inch long. So scientists from England and Germany took more than 3...
August 07, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

Orangutans Use Leaves to Sound Bigger

An orangutan will produce an alarm call known as a "kiss squeak" when it encounters a predator like a snake or a human. The kiss squeak is produced by drawing a sharp intake of air through pursed lips (see this video for an example). Sometimes, though, an orangutan will take a branch, strip the lea...
August 06, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

Georgia Elementary School Trades One Dinosaur for Another

If the principal of Thomson Elementary School in Thomson, Georgia, thinks she has rid her school of dinosaurs, the joke's on her. According to the McDuffie Mirror, principal Anita Cummings recently decided to paint over a dinosaur mural and remove dinosaur tracks from the school because: The dinosa...
August 04, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Oversized Beak Keeps Toucan Cool

It turns out there’s more to a toucan’s bill than pretty colors and a penchant for Fruit Loops.Originally described as “grossly monstrous” by the Comte de Buffon, the toucan's beak was theorized by Charles Darwin to be related to sexual selection. The toucans with the biggest bills were thought to ...
July 30, 2009 | By Ashley Luthern

Humans Steal Food From Lions

Stealing a meal from a lion, on first thought, seems like a bad idea. Lions kill people. But this might not be such a bad strategy, and it could have been one that helped early humans to obtain protein and survive. It might also be a practice that continues in Africa today, according to biologists ...
July 28, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

Is My Cat Right- or Left-Handed?

I tried an experiment this weekend, inspired by a new study about the handedness of cats. Psychologists from Queen's University Belfast in North Ireland, in a study published in Animal Behaviour, conducted a series of experiments on 42 kitties to discover if they are left- or right-pawed.In two of ...
July 27, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

Hominids’ African Origins, 50 Years Later

Before Mary Leakey’s discovery of hominid fossils in East Africa, many experts thought that human ancestors evolved in Asia
July 23, 2009 | By Laura Helmuth

Stopping Sharks by Blasting Their Senses

Chemist and businessman Eric Stroud develops shark repellents to protect sharks from being ensnared in commercial fisheries
July 17, 2009 | By Joseph Caputo

Did Dinosaurs Roar?

I will never forget seeing Jurassic Park for the first time in the summer of 1993. Not only did the dinosaurs look real, but they sounded real, each dinosaur having its own array of chirps, bellows, hoots, and roars. According to paleontologist Phil Senter, however, dinosaurs may not have been able...
July 13, 2009 | By Brian Switek

What Color Was That Moa?

Moas have been extinct for hundreds of years. The entire family—ten species of flightless birds, some as tall as 12 feet—was wiped out shortly after humans occupied New Zealand around 1280. Now a team of scientists in Australia and New Zealand has painstakingly analyzed 2,500-year-old feather fragm...
July 07, 2009 | By Laura Helmuth

Lion Prides and Street Gangs

Unlike every other species of cat, lions are social animals that live in groups. They gather in prides that consist of 1 to 21 females and their offspring and 1 to 9 males. But why they do so has been a mystery. One popular hypothesis has been that the female lions come together to hunt cooperative...
July 01, 2009 | By Sarah Zielinski

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