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Wildebeest Migration Threatened
The annual wildebeest migration through Tanzania and Kenya is one of the world's greatest animal wonders. Some 1.2 million animals loop through the Serengeti and Masai Mara reserves, following the rain and the grass. Photographer Suzi Eszterhas documented the migration over a period of several year...
September 03, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
A Close Encounter With the Rarest Bird
Newfound negatives provide fresh views of the young ivory-billed woodpecker
September 2010 |
By Stephen Lyn Bales
The Sport of Camel Jumping
In the deserts of Yemen, Zaraniq tribesmen compete to leap camels in a single bound
September 2010 |
By Brandon Springer
Thinking Like a Chimpanzee
Tetsuro Matsuzawa has spent 30 years studying our closest primate relative to better understand the human mind
September 2010 |
By Jon Cohen
The Mimic Octopus
The mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) has some interesting ways to keep from being eaten. The brown-and-white stripes on its arms resemble the patterning on venomous sea snakes and the coloring of spiny lionfish. And it can vary its shape and positioning to look like a variety of different under...
August 27, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Catnip's Effect on Big (and Little) Cats
Though we may call catnip "kitty crack," the herb is non-addictive and isn't even a drug (so it's perfectly safe to give to your kitty, big or small). But how does it work? And why doesn't it have any effect on humans?Catnip comes from plants of the Nepeta genus. These plants are a type of mint and...
August 19, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Don't Get Strung Along by the "Ropen" Myth
Growing up, I often heard that there might still be dinosaurs living in some distant, tropical jungle. In television documentaries and some of the less-reputable "science" books carried by my elementary school library, rumors of long-lost prehistoric creatures abounded, and I could not help but hop...
August 16, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
What Monkeynomics Can Tell Us About Us
A couple of years ago, the magazine profiled Yale psychologist and primate researcher Laurie Santos and her work studying a colony of rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico (read "Thinking Like a Monkey").She has built a growing and impressive list of publications ...
August 12, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Name That Butterfly
Citizen scientists on a sharp learning curve are carrying out an important census in fields and gardens across the country
August 11, 2010 |
By Cristina Santiestevan
Jellyfish: The Next King of the Sea
As the world's oceans are degraded, will they be dominated by jellyfish?
August 2010 |
By Abigail Tucker
Rising Seas Endanger Wetland Wildlife
For scientists in a remote corner of coastal North Carolina, ignoring global warming is not an option
August 2010 |
By Abigail Tucker
Meet the New Species
From old-world primates to patch-nosed salamanders, new creatures are being discovered every day
August 2010 |
By Richard Conniff
Extreme Jellyfish
There are some 2,000 species of jellyfish. Some are tasty, others will kill you with the tap of a tentacle. Here are nine varieties that really stand out
August 01, 2010 |
By Abigail Tucker
Koalas and Kangaroos Have South American Roots
Many of the poster animals of Australia—kangaroos, koalas, wombats and wallabies, to name a few—are marsupials, animals best known for carrying around their young in a pouch. Marsupials can also be found in the Americas; in the United States, the Virginia opossum is the only one, but there are doze...
July 30, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
On the Trail of Elephants in Mali and Kenya
Most of us use our GPS to navigate the freeways and city streets. But in Mali and Kenya, zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton has put global positioning to a far more interesting use—tracking elephants.Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants, has weathered droughts, floods and even rhino attacks...
July 26, 2010 |
By Jess Righthand
Ants Use Velcro to Catch Large Prey
Think about how you might try to catch King Kong: large numbers of people might help, but it takes coordination and a technological advantage—guns on planes—to bring the big guy down. Ants don't have guns or planes (not yet, anyway), so how can they capture something thousands of times bigger than ...
July 23, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
50 Years of Chimpanzee Discoveries at Gombe
Fifty years ago today, Jane Goodall arrived at Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve (now Gombe National Park) in Tanzania and began documenting the lives of the chimpanzees that lived there. When Goodall ended her fieldwork to advocate for the chimps and the environment in general, other researchers too...
July 14, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Animal Hybrids: Ligers and Tigons and Pizzly Bears, Oh My!
Let's face it. Centaurs, chimeras, griffins, the Little Mermaid, the Thunder Cats and all those cool hybrid creatures from Avatar: The Last Airbender are just legends and fantasies. And Peter Parker remains the only human, as of yet, to gain super-powers from a radioactive spider. Sigh.But human fa...
July 07, 2010 |
By Brandon Springer
Is That Man a Bonobo or a Chimp?
Bonobos and chimpanzees may look alike, but behaviorally they are very different. Chimps are aggressive and warlike, and males dominate. Bonobos are more peaceful and tolerant and females rule. These two primate species are our closest living relatives (we share nearly 99 percent of our DNA), and h...
June 30, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Dolphins Are Efficient Eaters
If you had to catch all of your food, would you go after anything and everything that came across your path? Or would you wait for the bigger payoff? Squirrels and bunnies or deer and bear?Dolphins go for the marine version of option B, preferring to eat only high-energy fish, according to a new st...
June 28, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
