Animals

Damming and dredging a California river for gold

The Gold Rush Left Behind Mercury That’s Still Contaminating California

Leftover mercury will continue to flush through the environment, eventually making its way into the San Francisco bay, for the next 10,000 years

Reindeer Eyes Change Color to Match the Season

Reindeers' wintery blue eyes are about 1,000 times more sensitive to light than their summery gold ones

Screenshot from Un Chien Andalou, the Surrealist film that Dalí collaborated on with Luis Buñuel

Salvador Dali Suffered From the Irrational Fear That Insects Were Crawling All Over His Skin

The condition is almost always accompanied by tactile hallucinations of crawling sensations and visual hallucinations of the non-existent insects

Our Brains Evolved to Recoil at the Sight of Snakes

Around 60 million years ago, our primate ancestors figured out that the sight of a snake meant trouble

Horseshoe crab

Animal Specimens, From Fish to Birds to Mammals, Get Inked

Inspired by Japanese fish rubbings, two University of Texas biologists make spectacular prints of a variety of species at different stages of decay

A fake mastodon fights for survival in a display at the La Brea tar pits.

Animals Trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits Would Take Months to Sink

New research shows that animals trapped in the tar would linger for months on end

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Hibernation Doesn’t Have to Be Cold

Hibernation tends to go hand-in-hand with cold temperatures, but the greater mouse-tailed bat hibernates at a comfortable 68-degrees Fahrenheit

Photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher uses a powerful scanning electron microscope to capture all of a bee’s microscopic structures in stunning detail. Above: a bee’s antennae sockets, magnified 43 times.

What Does A Bee Look Like When It’s Magnified 3000 Times?

Photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher uses a powerful microscope to capture all of a bee's microscopic structures and textures in stunning detail

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The Most Isolated Tree in the World Was Killed by a (Probably Drunk) Driver

The acacia was the only tree for 250 miles in Niger's Sahara desert and was used as a landmark by travelers and caravans

Coral Reefs Are Fighting Back Against Global Warming

When they get stressed by the heat, coral make their own shade by releasing a chemical that helps clouds form

The First Venomous Crustacean We’ve Ever Found Liquefies Its Prey

Whether or not the remipede venom would have any effect on a curious diver poking at the tiny creature, however, remains unknown

A High Schooler Discovered the Best Fossil Yet of a Baby Tube-Crested Dinosaur

The new fossil, nicknamed "Joe," sheds light on its species' characteristic tube-like head formation

Fire Is a Quickly Growing Threat to the Amazon Rainforest

If the Amazon continues to dry at just half the pace as it has over the past 30 years, yearly drought will become the new norm by the end of this century

Yellowstone Bears Actually Eat Moths for Food

It turns out that bears can eat 40,000 moths a day

Female Killer Whales Go Through Menopause

This life history pattern likely evolved as a way for the female whales to ensure their genetic mark in the world does indeed get passed on

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The Red Batfish Looks Like a Muppet-Clam And Should Be Your New Favorite Sea Creature

Part clam, part muppet, this is a great fish

There’s a Universal Law of Urination in Mammals

They all take an average of about 21 seconds to empty their bladders, nearly regardless of how big they are

Yetis Were Probably Just Polar Bears

A recently discovered "Yeti corpse" was likely nothing more than a poor polar bear who many years ago found itself at the wrong end of a spear or a sword

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Some Seemingly Harmless Snakes Possess a Secret Venom Gland

These attacks are extremely rare, however, and victims were probably doing things they should not have been doing

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Zombie Corals Can Come Back From the Dead

Killed by bleaching, this weird kind of coral can regrow from cryptic tissue

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