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Animals

The larger Pacific striped octopus uses unique prankster shoulder-tapping techniques to lure shrimp prey within arms' reach.

New Research

Tropical Octopus Definitely Mates Beak-to-Beak

Larger Pacific striped octopus couples engage in a host of behaviors unheard of among other octopuses

Monique Hammerslag of the Dutch police force in Rotterdam with two of her recruits

Cool Finds

Inside a Dutch Police Academy…for Rats

Cigarette-sniffing rats are creating new job opportunities for their fellow rodents

What do this cat's pupils say about what it had for dinner?

New Research

How Do Animals Find Food? The Answer’s in Their Eyes

Pupil shape provides differing advantages to those who crave the hunt and those who hide

The Innovative Spirit

When a Trip to the Zoo Resulted in an Engineering Breakthrough

Megan Leftwich, an engineering professor at George Washington University, is building a robotic flipper based on her observations of sea lions

A wasp larva perches on its hapless spider host.

New Research

Parasitic Wasps Turn Spiders Into Zombie Weavers

Arachnids injected with a potent neurotoxin are forced to create shiny new web cradles for wasp larvae

Nabiré had a chronic problem with uterine cysts, and the one that killed her was inoperable.

Trending Today

Only Four Northern White Rhinos Are Left on Earth

One of the species’ last females died this week

Hamsters seem to have a more optimistic outlook when they have access to creature comforts.

New Research

Hamsters Are Optimists When They Live in Comfy Cages

Pet hamsters that enjoy habitats full of toys and fluffy bedding make more upbeat decisions than those in stark enclosures

Elephants are complex communicators.

Age of Humans

How Elephants and Songbirds Are Helping Humans Communicate

In this Generation Anthropocene podcast, social animals show scientists how to trace our evolution and improve interactions

Two black rhinos, a mother and her calf, explore a watering hole at Etosha National Park in Namibia.

Cool Finds

Researchers are Fitting Rhinos With Hidden Horn Cameras

One non-profit wants to outfit the animals with cameras and heart rate monitors to save them

Boa constrictors seem to deliver death not through suffocation, but by cutting off blood flow to the heart and brain.

New Research

Boa Constrictors Kill By Stopping Blood Circulation

The popular belief that boas and other constricting snakes deal death by suffocation seems to be a flawed assumption

Scientists Connect Monkey Brains and Boost Their Thinking Power

Researchers at Duke University have enhanced the mind power of monkeys and rats by linking their brains together

New Research

These Worms Hitchhike in the Belly of Slugs To Get Around

New study shows that worm their way into slug guts and feces to travel long distances

An Anopholes mosquito, the vector for malaria, taking a blood meal from a tasty human.

New Research

Mosquitoes Can Carry, and Deliver, a Double Dose of Malaria

Insects that are already carrying one strain are more likely to pick up a second infection and harbor higher numbers of parasites

Variegated squirrels, like the one pictured above in Costa Rica, may carry a virus that causes encephalitis in humans.

New Research

A Squirrel Virus May Have Killed Three Squirrel Breeders in Germany

A mysterious set of deaths seem to be linked to the rodents

A bontebok

Cool Finds

Ever Heard of the Bontebok? It’s an African Animal Humans Nearly Destroyed, Then Saved

Part of this conservation success story relies on the bontebok’s inability to jump

Does she look like she would enjoy being jabbed with a needle? Conservationists have used assassin bugs to test the blood female Iberian lynx, like the mother picture above with her cubs, for pregnancy.

Cool Finds

How Do You Give an Iberian Lynx a Pregnancy Test? Use an Assassin Bug

Researchers used the insects to keep tabs on population growth in the threatened species

Researchers have long debated whether shark repellants actually work.

Do Shark Repellents Really Work?

Mostly not, not even the one made by Julia Child

Unlike the tails of almost all other animals, seahorse tails are more like square prisms than cylinders.

New Research

Why Seahorses Have Square Tails

Engineers show that the animals’ prism-like tails are mechanically superior to cylindrical ones

For the first time, Florian Engert and his team mapped every firing neuron in a living animal.

How a Transparent Fish May Help Decode the Brain

An outspoken Harvard neuroscientist is tackling the wondrous challenge of understanding the workings of the brain

What Did Insects Evolve From and More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

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