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Animals

Cool Finds

Droves of Elegant Blue Jellies Wash Up on Pacific Shores

Unusually strong winds have pushed Velella velellas, or “by-the-wind sailors,” onto West Coast beaches by the thousands

A student shares a loving gaze with a Labrador retriever.

New Research

Dog Gazes Hijack the Brain’s Maternal Bonding System

When a dog looks into your eyes, it’s bonding with you in the same way babies bond with their human moms

Cool Finds

Female Chimps More Likely Than Males to Hunt With Tools

A new study investigates the social and hunting behaviors of Fongoli chimpanzees

Cool Finds

Fish Can Adjust Gender Balance in Face of Rising Temperatures

Warmer waters mean fewer female reef fish. But, over generations, populations can restore the balance.

New Research

Changes in California’s Roadkill Linked to State’s Drought

The California Roadkill Observation System studies wildlife by mapping out crowd-sourced roadkill sightings

Cool Finds

Colorado Lake Teems with Feral Goldfish

Parks and Wildlife thinks a goldfish owner dumped his pets into a local lake. Now a few years later, the fish swarm the water in thousands

Trending Today

Court Rules Navy Noise Causes Too Much Harm to Marine Mammals

A federal judge declares the National Marine Fisheries Service did not do its job to protect dolphins and whales

Austria

How Did an Ottoman War Camel End Up in an Austrian Basement?

Archaeologists think they have solved the mystery

Who wouldn't love that face?

New Research

Lady Wolf Spiders Use Silk to Flirt

Counter to the common wisdom, it’s not just males that do the pursuing

None

Cool Finds

Meet a Hermit Crab Who Has Shacked Up in a Lego

Weird things can become home sweet home when you are a tiny soft crustacean

A female specimen of the newly discovered Alto Tambo woodlizard.

New Research

New Dwarf Dragons Have Been Found in the Andes

It seems that every time herpetologists wander into the Andean cloud forests, they emerge with colorful lizard species in tow

Trending Today

Urchins Could Be the Next Victim of Sea Star Wasting Disease

The virus that has struck out Pacific sea star populations could now be affecting their Echinoderm cousins

New Research

Male Mice Sing Sexy Songs to Woo Females

New research shows that mice can change their mating songs according to context

Cool Finds

NYC Has So Many Coyotes Living There, They’ve Started Going to Bars

New York’s urban coyote population is booming — this week, one even ended up on top of a Long Island bar.

Cool Finds

A Group of Endangered Orcas Has Gotten Busy Making Babies

Southern Resident killer whales have been on the decline, but new babies bring hope for the future

Scientists looked for the black-and-white colubus monkey in protected areas across the Ivory Coast but only found one population of the animals still living in a sacred grove.

Anthropocene

Illegal Cocoa Farms Are Driving Out Primates In Ivory Coast

Thirteen national parks and reserves have lost all their primates as people move in to protected regions to farm cacao

While Abe drinks, Willie approaches to place his trunk in Abe's mouth—a respectful ritual akin to kissing the ring of a Mafioso don.

Elephants Have Male Bonding Rituals, Too

In her new book, Caitlin O’Connell shows how the interactions of tight-knit bulls can be surprisingly similar to human relationships

New Research

Pandas Actually Hang Out Together

GPS tracking data sheds light on giant pandas secretive societies

A Cape fur seal digs in to a blue shark.

Fur Seals Caught Preying on Sharks Off South Africa

The seals only consume the viscera, though, which may be why this particular type of predation took ecologists by surprise

Illustration of Macrauchenia from the forthcoming book "Biggest, Fiercest, Strangest" W. Norton Publishers (in production)

New Research

Mystery Mammals’ Ancestry Was Revealed by Proteins, Not DNA

The huge rhino-like animal and trunked llama-like animal posed a mystery until now

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