Animals

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Hibernating Turtles Are Still Aware of What’s Going on Around Them

Researchers assumed they entered a coma-like condition during winter hibernation, but turtles are paying attention to the things that matter most

Cockroaches Stick to Different Neighborhoods Just Like New Yorkers Do

Cockroaches from the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side and nearby Roosevelt Island all have a distinctly different genetic makeup from one another

These Male Marsupials Put So Much Energy Into Mating, It Kills Them

Males with the largest testes, most fit sperm and longest endurance in the sack tended sired more offspring with promiscuous females

Artist Nickolay Lamm’s depiction of a polar-grizzly hybrid

What Would a Cross Between a Polar Bear and a Grizzly Really Look Like?

As climate changes and Arctic sea ice melts, species shift habitats and may interbreed. Lamm digitally manipulates photographs to imagine these hybrids

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Secret Cameras Caught an Endangered Sumatran Rhino Happily Hanging Around on Borneo

Only an estimated 220 to 275 Sumatran rhinos - the smallest species of rhino in the world at just 3.3 to 5 feet tall - still exist

Pufferfish Create Underwater Crop Circles When They Mate

There is a chance that it's only the fine sand the females are after, not the formations' intricate patterns or symmetry

Centipede Venom Is a More Potent Pain Killer Than Morphine

Of the nine possible sodium ion channels the centipede venom could have affected, it happened to correspond with just the right one for numbing pain

These Jellyfish-Mulching Robots Could Be the Savior of the Seas

These new robots can chew up nearly a ton of jellyfish per hour

How Do Canada Geese Get Ready to Fly?

In the movie Fly Away home that involved a goose shaped plane, but in the wild it's just a few flicks of the neck.

A calcified flamingo, preserved by the highly basic waters of Tanzania’s Lake Natron and photographed by Nick Brandt

This Alkaline African Lake Turns Animals into Stone

Photographer Nick Brandt captures haunting images of calcified animals, preserved by the extreme waters of Tanzania's Lake Natron

257,000 Years Ago, a Hyena Ate Some Human Hair (And Probably the Rest of the Person, Too)

The brown hyena who originally planted the evidence most likely ate the person, though it could have scavenged on a dead body

These Mice Sing to Mark Their Territory

A lot of things sing to mark their territory - birds, wolves, howler monkeys. But you can now add mice to that list

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Early Easter Islanders Ate Rats—Lots of Rats

Perhaps the lack of fish food even explains the orientation of Easter Island's famous statues, which face inwards toward the islanders' food source

What We Can Learn from Whale Breath

Researchers are trying to culture what comes out of blowholes from whales and dolphins, to see if they can use them as diagnostic tools

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The CIA’s Most Highly-Trained Spies Weren’t Even Human

As a former trainer reveals, the U.S. government deployed nonhuman operatives—ravens, pigeons, even cats—to spy on cold war adversaries

Giant Hornets Proliferated During China’s Heatwave, And Now Have Killed 28 People

Entomologists speculate that the exceptionally warm weather in China allowed the aggressive, deadly hornets to proliferate

Water submerged tracts of this Thai forest, cutting off one part from another and creating forest islands.

When a Dam Turned a Forest Into Tiny Islands, Only Rats Were Happy

Although the rate of extinction the researchers observed is startling, it's unfortunately not surprising

Coastal Animals Have Two Internal Clocks, One for the Sun And One for the Tide

When researchers tamped with sea lice's internal clocks, the crustaceans were unruffled by the unwinding of their circadian cycles

A green sea turtle

Sea Turtles Are Nesting in Record Numbers

Once pushed to endangerment, nesting sea turtle numbers are soaring

Osmia chalybea, Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia

Bee-utiful! The Stinging Insect Gets a Close-Up

Biologist Sam Droege's sharply-focused photographs of bees, used for identifying different species, make for fine art

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