Wildlife News & Features | Smithsonian Magazine

A type of coral trout called the leopard trout (Plectropomus leopardus) swims on the Great Barrier Reef.

Fishing Bans Create a Glimmer of Hope on the Great Barrier Reef

No-take reserves have helped commercially important species bounce back, but the reef still faces some serious threats

March 26, 2015

Unfortunately, you can't have your ballot delivered by barn owl.

Cast Your Vote for Britain’s National Bird

An online campaign is asking the public to choose from a list of ten finalists whittled down by birders and conservationists

March 26, 2015

Workers with the Nigiri Project head out to test pens in the flooded rice fields near Sacramento.

Anthropocene

Rice Can Help Save Salmon If Farms Are Allowed to Flood

The Nigiri Project aims to restore the beloved fish by cutting a notch in a California levee and letting some floodplains return to nature

March 23, 2015

The natural habitats of many bumblebees are nearly gone and restoring floral diversity is vital to promote their survival.

Can Returning Farmland to the Wild Help Bumblebees in Crisis?

Even if only a small percentage of current farmland became wild meadows, it could bring populations back to previous levels

April 2015

A large colony of Mexican free-tailed bats can consume an estimated 250 tons of insects in a single night.

These Bats Use Sonar to Jam the Signals of Their Rivals

How hungry Mexican free-tails sabotage the competition

April 2015

American South

Best Places to See Nature After Dark

The sun may power most of our world—but some things come alive only at night

March 19, 2015

Terrifying. An ancestor of the modern-day croc stood nine feet tall and walked on its hind legs. It's been lovingly christened the "Carolina Butcher."

Before There Were Crocodiles, There Was the “Carolina Butcher”

A newly discovered crocodilian ancestor was a nine-foot-tall predator that stood on its hind legs

March 19, 2015

A blue whale specimen, dating from 1936, from the Gulf of Mexico is part of a rare Smithsonian collection of whale fetuses.

New Research

Rare Collection of Whale Fetuses Reveals the Evolution of Cetacean Hearing

Smithsonian researchers offer up an unprecedented glimpse at the development of the “acoustic funnel,” an ear area found exclusively in whales

March 11, 2015

New Research

Water Drops Leap Off Gecko Skin Thanks to Tiny Spines

Specialized hydrophobic structures on gecko skin encourage dewdrops to be swept away by the wind or to collide and shoot off one another like pool balls

March 10, 2015

Scanning electron micrograph of a greenfly eye. Greenflies (aphid) have a pair of compound eyes. The small protrusion coming from the side of the eye is called an ocular tubercle, and it is made up of three lenses.

Art Meets Science

A Goat’s Stomach Never Looked So Good

Eleven venues worldwide will exhibit these 20 striking micrographs, MRI scans and illustrations—all winners of this year’s Wellcome Image Awards

March 9, 2015

Dragonfly wings have a complex, rigid surface that is maintained by a network of veins. The subtle colors of this immature Black Meadowhawk are caused by sunlight reflecting off the not-quite transparent wings.

Think Big

These Dragonflies Helped an Astronomer Find Ghostly New Galaxies

A Yale scientist set out to capture the insect’s full lifecycle and ended up discovering hidden wonders of the cosmos

March 6, 2015

New Research

After Menopause, Killer Whale Moms Become Pod Leaders

When their reproductive years are done, females take on new roles as wise survival guides

March 5, 2015

New Research

How Praying Mantises Can Jump Faster Than the Blink of an Eye

Stunning slow-mo videos capture juvenile mantises as they corkscrew through the air and precisely land their target

March 5, 2015

Announcing the Finalists of the 12th Annual Smithsonian.com Photo Contest

See the finalists of our 2014 photo contest and vote for the Readers’ Choice winner

March 4, 2015

Wildlife photographer Christophe Courteau, 46, was taking snaps of a group of silverback gorillas in the forest of Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda when the alpha male of the family began to charge at him.

Can a Gorilla Really Get Drunk From Bamboo?

A photographer was punched by an allegedly drunk gorilla—but wildlife biologists are crying foul

March 3, 2015

Awareness about this animal underdog is climbing, yet an estimated 10,000 pangolins still fell victim to the illegal wildlife trade last year

February 20, 2015

Hargrove greets Takara at SeaWorld of Texas in 2012.

Why Killer Whales Belong in the Ocean, Not SeaWorld

A former orca trainer makes the case against the theme park

March 2015

One hundred wood bison will be reintroduced to the Alaskan wilderness later this month, somewhere they have not lived in the wild for over a century.

Bringing the Wood Bison Back to Alaska

Once nearly extinct, the subspecies is set to return to the United States

March 2015

Science / Wildlife