Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Science / Wildlife

A hermit thrush perches on a branch in the Pennsylvania woods. Its songs have long been compared to human musical scales.

This Bird’s Songs Share Mathematical Hallmarks With Human Music

The hermit thrush prefers to sing in harmonic series, a fundamental component of human music

A common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) isn't as scary as its name might suggest.

Halloween

Seven Vampires That Aren’t Bats (Or Bela Lugosi)

From flying frogs to deep-sea squid, meet some of the other nosferatu of the animal kingdom

Introducing Rana kauffeldi, a newly recognized New York City resident.

New Research

New Leopard Frog Found in New York City

The unique species, discovered near the Statue of Liberty, is the first amphibian found in the region in 150 years

A "Sea Devil" as depicted by Conrad Gessner in Historia Animalium, 2nd ed, 1604.

Halloween

Five “Real” Sea Monsters Brought to Life by Early Naturalists

From kraken to mermaids, some monsters are real—if you know how to look for them

A group of great tit birds (Parus major) perch on a dead tree stump during a snowfall in Poland.

Anthropocene

Ten Species That Are Evolving Due to the Changing Climate

From tropical corals to tawny owls, some species are already being pushed to evolve—but adaptation doesn’t guarantee survival

Geese lift off a lake in front of a sun pillar at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge near Mound City, Missouri.

American South

The Best Places in America to See Fall Bird Migrations

All across the country, birds are making the trek south for the winter—here are some of the best places to witness their journey

A chimp steals a glance at a photographer in Uganda's Kibale National Park.

Chimps Caught in First Known Nighttime Crop Raids

“The nightlife of chimpanzees has been neglected,” say researchers who filmed wild animals using a fallen tree as a bridge into protected cornfields

A pair of fuzzy alpaca.

New Research

Why the Alpaca Has No Humps

The camel cousin evolved fluff instead of fat because it was able to linger in an evolutionary slow lane, suggest newly sequenced genomes

Google's newest Street View collection takes users to Gombe Stream National Park, where Jane Goodall pioneered her chimpanzee behavioral research. "Don't forget to look up," a Google project manager says.

Exclusive: The Chimpanzees of Gombe National Park Make Their Street View Debut

For its latest collection, Google traveled to the African rainforest where Jane Goodall pioneered her groundbreaking chimp research

None

Art Meets Science

Gorgeous Portraits of Spineless Sea Creatures

In a new book, San Francisco-based photographer Susan Middleton captures the curious gestures and expressions of marine invertebrates

An Australian banded stilt in Victoria.

New Research

These Extreme Desert Nomads Set Records for Migrating Birds

Australian banded stilts use mysterious cues to know when to head toward ephemeral lakes in the country’s otherwise dry interior

There are more than 400 species of mantis shrimp, including some with claws that can strike with the speed of a bullet and crack glass. But it’s the animal's vision, sensitive to polarized light, that is helping scientists build a compact camera that can see cancer.

A Mantis Shrimp Inspires a New Camera for Detecting Cancer

The mantis shrimp’s eyes, which can see differences in polarized light, are informing researchers building a tiny, easy-to-use camera that can spot cancer

Monarch butterflies catching the sun on an oyamel tree in a Mexican overwintering site.

New Research

Five Surprises That Emerged From Monarch Butterfly Genomes

Sequencing 101 butterfly genomes has revealed a few of the monarch’s secrets, including some keys to its epic annual migration

New Research

Crabby Tenants Defend Corals From Marauding Predators

A diversity of coral guard-crabs is needed to fend off attacks by hungry snails and giant spiky sea stars

A bobtail squid hides on the ocean floor.

Research Into How Squid Camouflage Leads to An Ultra-Sharp Display for Televisions and Smartphones

Researchers at Rice University have created pixels 40 times smaller than those found in today’s LCD displays

Coho salmon, here in full vivid spawning colors, are one of many species of wild Pacific salmon in danger of extinction.

What Can Humans Do to Save the Pacific Northwest’s Iconic Salmon?

The fish is facing an upstream struggle to survive. Can human ingenuity find a solution?

The vast unknown deep sea floor

Why We Must Explore the Sea

Robert Ballard, the famed explorer who discovered the wreck of the Titanic, ponders what else is on the ocean floor

Buck moth caterpillars are the bane of the New Orleans spring.

New Research

Caterpillars Beware: Venom Won’t Protect You From Clueless Baby Birds

Young birds will dumbly peck at anything that crawls their way—even if it winds up teaching them a painful lesson

A shop sells nostalgic souvenirs, including a UK coat of arms, at the Portobello Road market in London.

Ten Unusual National Animals That Rival the Unicorn

Scotland doesn’t have the market cornered on exotic national symbols—check out the mouflon, the takin and the xoloitzcuintli

Art Meets Science

Secretive Victorian Artists Made These Intricate Patterns Out of Algae

A new documentary profiles Klaus Kemp, the sole practicioner of a quirky art form that is invisible to the naked eye

Page 85 of 143