Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Science / Wildlife

An emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) teaching its baby how to preen.

New Research

Emperor Penguin Colonies Will Suffer As Climate Changes

Scientists project that two thirds of emperor penguin colonies will drop by 50 percent in the next century

University of Sao Paulo researcher Marcio Martins holds one snake while watching another, a deadly venomous snake living only on Queimada Grande Island, Atlantic Forest, Brazil.

This Terrifying Brazilian Island Has the Highest Concentration of Venomous Snakes Anywhere in the World

Brazil’s Ilha de Queimada Grande is the only home of one of the world’s deadliest, and most endangered, snakes

A serval kitten.

Ten Amazing Small Wild Cats

Forget the lions and tigers, these prowling felines have much more to tell us about the natural world

A fishing spider enjoying a tasty platyfish that it snatched from a garden pond in Australia.

New Research

Spiders All Over the World Have a Taste for Fish

Eight-legged predators probably prey on vertebrates much more often than arachnologists previously assumed

Madison Stewart, Shark Girl

The Girl Who Swims With Sharks

A new Smithsonian Channel documentary features “Shark Girl,” a fearless 20-year-old Aussie who has spent hundreds of hours swimming with the creatures

Two red panda cubs were born at the the Smithsonian's Conservation Biology Institute last week.

Squeee! Red Panda Cubs Born at Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

Last week, the facility welcomed two new balls of fur to their resident red panda community

"Get away from me, get away from me!" - an anxious crawfish freaking out.

New Research

Crawfish, Like Humans, Are Anxious Worrywarts

As the first invertebrates ever found to demonstrate anxiety, crawfish might help reveal the evolutionary origins of that stressful state of mind

A green turtle.

Why Do We Have Trouble Talking About Success In Ocean Conservation?

Despite what you’ve read in the news, there’s still hope for a future with a healthy ocean

A Japanese sea catfish, enjoying the light.

New Research

This Catfish’s Whiskers Are Like Ultra-Sensitive pH Strips

Japanese sea catfish seek out worms in the pitch dark by detecting minute changes in water chemistry caused by their prey’s breathing

This is the first pterosaur egg ever found that had not been flattened, discovered by paleontologists at the Turpan-Hami Basin in northwestern China.

Found: 120-Million-Year-Old Colony of Fossilized Flying Reptiles, Plus Their Eggs

The eggs were unearthed in the midst of a boneyard of pterosaurs, lending insight into the behaviors of ancient flying reptiles

Anatomically Correct Hibiscus; yarn; 2005; 45" x 45" x 32"

Art Meets Science

Sowing a Garden, One Knit Flower At a Time

Providence-based artist Tatyana Yanishevsky’s sculptures of various plant species are botanically accurate in almost everything but their scale

An oil tanker makes its way to Valdez, Alaska. The Arctic’s rich stores of oil and natural gas make it an attractive destination for future voyages.

Arctic Shipping: Good For Invasive Species, Bad For the Rest of Nature

A pair of Smithsonian marine biologists argue that a warming Arctic puts the area at risk for inviting invasive species

A Cyclosa ginnaga spider perched amid its silk web decoration looks strangely like the result of a bird relieved itself in the forest understory.

New Research

This Spider Web Was Deliberately Spun to Look Like Bird Poop

It’s not artistic license. The arachnid avoids predators by masquerading as bird droppings, say scientists

A chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) mother resting with her children in western Uganda.

New Research

Ebola Vaccine For Chimps Could Help Save Wild Populations

A trial of a chimp vaccine highlights debates over vaccinating wild populations and using chimps in medical research

Left to right: Kamala, Swarna, and Maharani at the Calgary Zoo in 2013.

The National Zoo May Be In For An Elephant Reunion

These three females will help the zoo develop a diverse elephant herd like those found in the wild

The American paddlefish, which makes spawning migrations up the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers.

Trending Today

This Weekend, Celebrate the World’s Weird and Wonderful Migratory Fishes

The first annual World Migratory Fish Day is making a splash with hundreds of outdoor, fish-centric events

Noc (in 1995) strongly “wanted to make a connection,” says former naval trainer Michelle Jeffries. “I think that was part of the thing behind him mimicking speech.”

The Story of One Whale Who Tried to Bridge the Linguistic Divide Between Animals and Humans

While captive in a Navy program, a beluga whale named Noc began to mimic human speech. What was behind his attempt to talk to us?

Tiktaalik roseae had fish-like fins, a flattened skull (similar to a crocodile), and is thought to have lived in shallow water, using its fins to prop itself up.

Did the Evolution of Animal Intelligence Begin With Tiktaalik?

How one marvelously preserved fossil sheds light on how the vertebrate invasion of land took place

The Clarion nightsnake, brought into the scientific light at last.

New Research

Written Off as a Figment, the Mysterious Clarión Nightsnake Reemerges after Nearly 80 Years

The snake was discovered on a remote Mexican island in the 1930s, but the notes of the famous naturalist who documented it were later called into question

A common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) stretches out on a reef environment beneath the sea.

Why Don’t Octopus Suckers Stick To Their Own Skin?

A chemical excreted by octopus skin tells their severed arms, “Don’t grab me or eat me!”

Page 88 of 143