Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Stories from Joshua Rapp Learn

Male wolf spiders may have eight eyes, but they still can't tell whether the female they're mating with is dead or alive.

Whoa: Polygamous Wolf Spiders Have a Natural Form of Birth Control

Females have figured out how to get rid of unwanted sperm, allowing them to reap the benefits of multiple mates

The olm, or cave dragon, is the largest cave-adapted animal in Europe. These strange creatures spend their entire lives in caves, and face threats from pollution runoff from agriculture and chemical plants on the surface.

Cave Dragons Exist—And Saving Them Could Be Key to Protecting Drinking Water

New DNA techniques are letting researchers track down the largest, strangest cave animals in the world

The Hidden Dangers of Road Salt

It clears our roads, but also spells danger for fish, moose—and sometimes humans

The lush, rugged landscape of Japan's island of Hokkaido is a major draw for amateur photographers—but do Flickr photos really represent the most important conservation sites?

Is #Hashtagging Your Environment on Instagram Enough to Save It?

Location-based data might help pinpoint key ecosystems—or make conservation a popularity contest

This Asiatic cheetah, caught on camera in the Naybandan Wildlife Refuge in Iran, is likely one of just dozens in the region.

Poaching Isn’t the Cheetah’s Only Problem

Humans isolate the rare cats with roads and fences—which can be as devastating as hunting them outright

In times of desperation, female sawtooth sharks have been known to reproduce sans males. For other species, solo reproduction is downright vanilla.

Meet Eight Species That Are Bending the Rules of Reproduction

Spice up your mating life with relationship tips from rock lizards, sharks and water fleas

Deciding when to get divorced is a difficult calculation—even for birds.

Birds Struggle to Keep Their Marriages in Rapidly Changing Urban Environments

Deciding whether to get divorced is a complex calculation, even for birds

The Experimental Lakes Area in Ontario is one of the world's leading long-term experiments tracking the effects of climate change, pollution and other factors on freshwater ecosystems.

Canadian Scientists Explain Exactly How Their Government Silenced Science

It wasn’t just climate research. Rock snot, sharks and polar bears: All were off-limits during the Harper administration

Smallmouth salamanders reproduce sexually, which may give them certain advantages.

When Is Sex Worth Going the Distance? When You’re a Salamander, Apparently

Asexual amphibians may be less equipped to handle modern threats than their sexual counterparts

An Inca skull from the Cuzco region of Peru, showing four healed trepanations. The new review focuses on the practice in ancient China.

Drilling Deep: How Ancient Chinese Surgeons Opened Skulls and Minds

A new review finds evidence that the Chinese performed trepanation more than 3,500 years ago

A black and white ruffed lemur in Madagascar's Vakona Forest Reserve. Worldwide, primates are particularly prone to overhunting, according to the first global assessment of bush meat hunting trends.

A New Report Says We’re Hunting the World’s Mammals to Death. What Can Be Done?

Solutions are multifaceted and region-specific, but conservation researchers have some ideas

Anthropologists have long debated the origins of human violence.

Can Resource Scarcity Really Explain a History of Human Violence?

Data from thousands of California burial sites suggests that a lack of resources causes violence. But that conclusion may be too simplistic

Just try and infect me.

No, I Don’t Need a Flu Shot: I’m an Alpha Female

For spotted hyenas, like humans, social wealth equals better health

A hammerhead caught on a longline.

Is It Too Late to Save Red Sea Sharks?

With anti-fishing laws virtually unenforced, sharks off the coast of Saudi Arabia are being fished to death

West acropolis at the Maya site of Yaxchilan, in Southern Mexico.

Ancient Maya Bloodletting Tools or Common Kitchen Knives? How Archaeologists Tell the Difference

New techniques for identifying the tools of sacrifice sharpen our understanding of the ritual

A male zebra finch.

Birds Sing to Their Eggs, and This Song Might Help Their Babies Survive Climate Change

Embryonic learning—things birds pick up from their parents while still in the egg—may play a bigger role than imagined.

Captive Bactrian deer at The Wilds, a conservation center in Cumberland, Ohio. Until recently, the deer was feared locally extinct in Afghanistan.

Rare Afghan Deer Endures Two Major Wars, Is Ultimate Survivor

Researchers feared the endangered ungulate had gone locally extinct. The Bactrian deer proved them wrong

A condor, tagged with a transmitter for tracking, perches on California's coast.

Mercury-Laden Sea Lion Carcasses Threaten California’s Coastal Condors

The new findings put a wrench in conservation of one of the world’s rarest birds

Leopard territory in Southeast Asia has been reduced by 94 percent.

The Indochinese Leopard Is Down to Just a Few Lives

These threatened cats now occupy just 8 percent of their historic range in Cambodia, new population estimate finds

Sperm whales, giant squid and humans all have a mitochondrial "Eve."

No, a Mitochondrial ‘Eve’ Is Not the First Female in a Species

The latest story about a sperm whale “Eve” shows how people misunderstand the evolutionary term. Fear not: We can clarify

Page 3 of 4