This pipefish couple may seem the picture of romance, but the male may have something bigger and better in mind.

Pregnant Male Pipefish Are the Sea’s Swaggery Swingers

Male pipefish, which take on the burden of carrying eggs to term, can compromise their own pregnancies if they see a “huge, sexy female” swimming by

Young birds that grew up with added urban background noise showed signs of faster aging than birds without.

Noise Pollution Might Cut Birds’ Lives Short

Stressed out teen birds have enough to deal with—noise seems to be one factor that could seal their fate

These wrinkly rodents continually surprise researchers.

How Eating Poop Makes These Mole-Rats More Motherly

New research suggests a colony’s queen stimulates babysitters by transferring a type of estrogen through her feces

Sometimes, it's okay to skip leg day.

For Men, Gains in the Gym May Come at a Cost to Sperm

There might be a tradeoff between how strong men look and sperm count

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Smithsonian Voices

Biologists Say Chesapeake Bay Cownose Rays Travel to Florida and Back

While scientists have unraveled one mystery about cownose ray migrations, there are still many unknowns surrounding the animals. Read more: http://www.smi

How do animals think and feel?

Do Animals Experience Grief?

A growing body of evidence points to how animals are aware of death and will sometimes mourn for or ritualize their dead

New research shows that fish can tell the differences between quantities. What does that mean for our special human brains?

One Fish, Two Fish, Fish Can Count(ish?)

New research shows—again—that fish “count” like humans do. Are our cognitive evolutionary roots fishier than we thought?

Two-horned Diceratherium rhinos

When Rhinos Once Roamed in Washington State

Road-tripping through prehistoric times on the West Coast

A female lion prowls inside one of the temporary enclosures at Liwonde National Park. The lions spent a few weeks acclimating to their new homes before being released into the more than 200-square-mile preserve.

Lions Are Coming Back to Southern Malawi, Where They Haven’t Been Seen for Decades

The apex predators have been returned to Malawi’s Liwonde National Park in an effort to restore the ecosystem and boost tourism

Dinosaurs had some bad luck, but sooner or later extinction comes for all of us.

What Makes Some Species More Likely to Go Extinct?

With help from the fossil record, paleontologists are piecing together what might make one creature more vulnerable than another

Five Young Lion Brothers Mate With One Lioness

A group of five adolescent male lions - dubbed the Musketeers - are wandering the desert looking to find their own kingdom

Lothagam North Pillar Kenya, built by eastern Africa's earliest herders about 5000 years ago. Megaliths, stone circles, and cairns can be seen behind the platform mound, which upends what scientists believe about how and why early monuments were made.

Their World Was Crumbling, but These Ancient People Built a Lasting Memorial

A 5,000-year-old burial site near Kenya’s Lake Turkana likely served as a bonding place for a culture in flux

Hostile Lioness Withholds Food From Hungry Orphaned Cubs

A group of orphaned lion cubs are facing an uncertain future

Donated blood must be matched carefully with donors to prevent a negative immune reaction--but new research may make it possible to create more universal blood.

In the Quest for Universal Blood, Go With Your Gut

Scientists enlisted enzymes produced by gut bacteria to turn blood into type O

James Lendemer and doctoral student Jordan Hoffman search for rare lichen, some of the least studied organisms on earth.

On the Hunt for Unloved, Unstudied, Yet Super Important Lichen

James Lendemer is one of the few people taking stock of one of the world’s most peculiar lifeforms

A pair of Aedes albopticus mosquitoes mating. These mosquitoes are very closely related to the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes used in the WeRobotics/IAEA trials, and both can carry Zika, yellow fever and dengue. The female is much larger.

Do Not Fear the Drones Air-Dropping 50,000 Mosquitoes From Above

These horny buggers are actually here to help us fight the spread of disease

Svalbard has the densest population of surging glaciers in the world.

What the Surging Glaciers of Svalbard Tell Us About the Future of Rising Seas

Scientists look to the Norwegian archipelago’s fast-moving glaciers to better understand how other accelerating glaciers will behave

Throughout the mid-1800s, improvements on the spectroscope allowed physicists to more accurately measure the wavelengths of light and identify new elements—like helium.

How Scientists Discovered Helium, the First Alien Element, 150 Years Ago

First found only on the sun, scientists doubted the mysterious element even existed for more than a decade

Some of the ‘remarkable beetles’ Wallace collected in Borneo.

Tracing Alfred Russel Wallace’s Footsteps Through the Jungles of Borneo

A biologist treks to the site where the little-known naturalist penned a paper on evolution that would spur on a rivalrous Charles Darwin

How Accurate Is the Theory of Dog Domestication in ‘Alpha’?

The “boy and his dog” tale is a piece of prehistoric fiction, but scientists are uncovering the true origins of our incredible relationship with dogs

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