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Animals

Cool Finds

A London Zoo Wants to Hypnotize Away Your Fear of Spiders

This program turns what phobics perceive as terrifying threats into fuzzy friends

There's a dinosaur in every chicken.

New Research

Genetic Tweaks Are Revealing the Dinosaur Traits in Living Chickens

A Yale paleontologist is blending fossil studies and bird genes to trace the ways dinosaurs transformed into today’s feathered flocks

New Research

Cougars Are Returning to the Midwest

A team of scientists predicts that the big cat could establish new breeding populations in Arkansas and Missouri in the next 25 years

Bees are not so picky when they stop for a snack.

New Research

Ancient Bees Were Voracious Snackers on Their Pollen-Gathering Treks

Fossils from Germany could help researchers better understand modern bee eating habits and better protect the beloved pollinators

Humans may have raided wild honeybees' nests during the Stone Age -- this hive in a hollow log hive from Cévennes (France) reveals the details of the circular comb architecture ancient humans would have discovered.

New Research

Our Ancient Ancestors Probably Loved Honey Too

Residue scraped from pottery shows humans used bee products as long as 8,500 years ago

That cockroach has a nasty bite.

New Research

A Cockroach Can Bite With a Force 50 Times Its Body Weight

Adding to their supervillain-esque powers, roaches can gnaw through tough materials with surprisingly strong jaws

A poster for Schönbrunn Zoo.

Austria

The World’s Oldest Zoo Is a Modern Attraction With a Storied Past

The Austrian destination has a lot more to offer than exotic animals

Trending Today

So Long Shamu Show

In the face of criticism, SeaWorld is retiring its controversial killer whale show

A large display case holds the fossil of a plesiosaur at the Natural History Museum in London.

New Research

A Long-Necked Marine Reptile Is the First Known to Filter Feed Like a Whale

The bizarre Mortuneria used sieve-like teeth to strain tasty morsels from the muddy Cretaceous seafloor

In the unregulated park, kids encountered alligators without fences, gates or grates.

Cool Finds

When Kids Played With Alligators in Los Angeles

Babies, dogs and onlookers mixed with snapping reptiles at California’s Alligator Farm

Saiga antelope with two calves at the Black Earth Nature Reserve in Kalmykia, Russia

Trending Today

The Culprits Behind Mysterious Mass Antelope Deaths Finally Exposed

More than half of the world’s endangered saiga antelopes died suddenly on the Central Asian steppes last spring

The weasel-like fisher, an already at-risk animal, faces threats of poison from pot farms.

New Research

Illegal Pot Farms Are Killing Rare Animals With Bacon-Scented Poison

Marijuana plots hidden in California’s forests are inadvertently poisoning protected mammals called fishers

Cool Finds

Coywolves Are Taking Over Eastern North America

Coywolves are not ‘shy wolves’—they are coyote-wolf hybrids (with some dog mixed in) and now number in the millions

Will Driverless Cars Mean Less Roadkill?

Avoiding wildlife could be a tough task for these super-smart cars

Hartsdale is the world's oldest operating pet cemetery.

Commune With Pets of the Past at These Five Pet Cemeteries

Far from scary, these burial sites can be relaxing, beautiful and even inspiring

Electric eels are really shocking biologists.

New Research

Electric Eels Curl Up to Double Their Shock Value

The predators take down difficult prey by curling up their bodies to create a powerful electric dipole field

New Research

Genetically Edited Hercules Dogs Can Pack on Extra Muscles

Scientists use a natural mutation that produces extra muscle to tweak dogs genes

Chelonoidis donfaustoi was named after Ecuador’s oldest park ranger.

New Research

New Species of Galapagos Tortoise Found on Santa Cruz Island

The newly recognized reptile was thought to be part of a more populous species of tortoise sharing the island

The black-footed ferret's tale of near-extinction is just one of many stories of endangered animals.

Age of Humans

How We Decide Which Animals Become Endangered

It wasn’t too long ago that the idea of “endangered animals” didn’t even exist.

The red-necked wallaby has a powerful nose, according to a new study.

Wallabies Can Sniff Out Danger in Poop

Like sommeliers of poop, the pint-sized marsupials can smell what species left it behind and what that creature last had for dinner

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