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Animals

A rinkhals (Hemachatus haemachatus) in Hluhluwe, South Africa, performs a threat display. These snakes tend to live on the edges of human communities.

The High-Stakes Quest to Make Snakebites Survivable Took Leaps Forward This Year, With Promising New Avenues to Safer Antivenoms

A wave of fresh science is challenging a century-old treatment and offering hope to the people snakebites harm most—often far from hospitals and help

Orcas and dolphins might hang out together off the coast of British Columbia to hunt for food as a team, new research suggests.

Watch These Orcas Follow Dolphins to Snag a Salmon Feast. It Might Be the First Evidence of These Species Working Together

Off the coast of British Columbia, killer whales are tailing dolphins, and both seem to be rewarded with fishy meals. But not everyone is convinced it’s teamwork—and the behavior may hint at other ocean stressors

Owners and their golden retrievers gather in an attempt to break the world record in the Bosques de Palermo in Buenos Aires on December 8, 2025.

More Than 2,000 Golden Retrievers Gather in an Argentina Park in an Attempt to Break a World Record

The previous informal record had been set during an event in Vancouver last year, which brought together 1,685 goldens

Bao Li (pictured on January 4, 2025) and Qing Bao, who are both 4 years old, are still considered teenagers in panda years.

Pandamonium

See 14 of the National Zoo’s Most Adorable Giant Panda Photos From 2025

These snapshots of Bao Li and Qing Bao capture the pair’s cutest moments, from playing in the snow to celebrating their 4th birthdays

Spotted lanternflies have spread to nearly 20 states since 2014.

Bees Are Turning the Sticky-Sweet Secretions of Spotted Lanternflies Into Honey—and Some People Love the Smoky-Smelling Stuff

The invasive insects have been spreading across the United States for over a decade, leaving behind poop that bees are transforming into a less sweet, sometimes savory, honey

A Laysan albatross checks on its egg.

Stream the Beautiful Highs and Violent Lows of Albatross Life With This New 24-Hour Camera on Midway Atoll

You can see the large white seabirds dancing, preening, feeding and raising young—though the live feed might show a dark side of island living, too, with potential predation from invasive mice

Juvenile sunflower sea stars at the Sunflower Star Laboratory in Moss Landing, California. At this phase, each is less than an inch wide, but they can grow to be more than three feet across as adults.

A Deadly Pathogen Decimated Sunflower Sea Stars. Look Inside the Lab Working to Bring Them Back by Freezing and Thawing Their Larvae

For the first time, scientists have cryopreserved and revived the larvae of a sea star species. The breakthrough, made with the giant pink star, gives hope the technique could be repeated to save the imperiled predator

Excess weight can harm a cat's quality of life and exacerbate health conditions.

Can GLP-1s Help Fat Cats Lose Weight? The First Clinical Trial Testing the Drugs for Weight Loss in Felines Has Begun

San Francisco-based pharmaceutical company OKAVA is investigating an implant that slowly releases a GLP-1 medication for up to six months

An illustration of ancient sea cows

A Trove of Sea Cow Fossils in Qatar Reveals a New Species That Munched on Seagrass 21 Million Years Ago

The findings suggest that sea cows have been engineering ecosystems in the Persian Gulf for tens of millions of years

In a new study, 79 percent of black-spotted pond frogs successfully consumed the northern giant hornet.

‘Murder Hornets’ Might Strike Terror in Humans, but These Frogs Can Eat Them for Lunch

Watch a pond frog effortlessly devour the northern giant hornet, the largest hornet in the world, while sustaining stings that are deadly to many animals

Experts spent two days trying to save the whale, which weighed roughly 20,000 pounds.

When a Humpback Whale Got Stranded in Oregon, a Native Community Turned the Tragedy Into a Revival of a Traditional Practice

Members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians salvaged a beached whale’s remains, a practice that hadn’t been performed in generations

Adult male magnificent riflebirds have ultrablack feathers covering most of their bodies.

Inspired by Bird Feathers, This New ‘Ultrablack’ Fabric Absorbs Nearly All the Light That Hits It

Researchers took inspiration from the magnificent riflebird while developing a textile that reflects only about 0.13 percent of visible light, making it the darkest fabric ever reported

Claude lived at the California Academy of Sciences for 17 years and became a beloved celebrity.

Claude, San Francisco’s Beloved Albino Alligator and ‘Unofficial Mascot,’ Dies at Age 30

Veterinarians will conduct a full exam and necropsy to determine the cause of death, but Claude had been undergoing treatment for a suspected infection in recent weeks

For the study, the researchers worked with two adult male macaques that had previously been trained to tap in time with a metronome.

These Monkeys Learned to Tap to the Beat of the Backstreet Boys. Can They Teach Researchers About the Origins of Human Musicality?

Two macaques learned to keep time with various songs, which might point to how humans got their sense of rhythm. But some scientists doubt that the primates’ feat, which required extensive instruction, can give evolutionary clues

A gray seal mother feeding a pup

The Mammal With the Most Complex Milk Might Not Be Humans, After All. The Atlantic Gray Seal Could Take That Title

A new study found 332 types of complex sugar molecules in the seals’ milk, some of which help protect young from harmful bacteria. The discovery might one day help improve human health by boosting babies’ immune systems

The unfamiliar monk parakeets got to know each other slowly before moving on to behaviors like preening, pictured here.

Monk Parakeets Are Highly Social Birds, but They Slowly ‘Test the Waters’ When Making New Friends

The bright green parrots start with low-cost social behaviors—like sitting near each other without touching—when first interacting with unfamiliar birds within their species, possibly to avoid aggressive encounters, new research suggests

A male golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus) with its vision-obscuring head feathers. 

For Some Male Pheasants, Love Really Is Blind. Their Elaborate Feathers That Impress Females Also Obstruct Their Vision

The adornments on the heads of male Lady Amherst’s and golden pheasants partially block their sight, according to new research, marking the first known sex-based differences in field of vision within bird species

Previously, researchers assumed that much of modern dogs' diversity emerged during he past few centuries.

New Research

Dogs Have Been Surprisingly Diverse for More Than 10,000 Years, New Research Suggests

Two studies provide scientists with a more comprehensive understanding of how early dogs were domesticated as they migrated around the world alongside humans

European starlings were the best at imitating R2-D2's multphonic sounds because they can control both sides of both sides of the syrinx independently, the researchers say.

Birds Are Beeping and Booping like R2-D2. Their Mimicked Sounds Are Helping Unlock the Secrets of Avian Communication

European starlings were better than parrots at imitating R2-D2’s high-pitched chattering, possibly because of their special control over a vocal organ

A raccoon peers out from a tree. New research suggests urban raccoons in the United States have shorter snouts than rural raccoons do, a sign of potential domestication.

Urban Raccoons Are Showing Signs of Early Domestication, With Shorter Snouts Than Their Rural Cousins

The shorter faces of these city-dwelling trash bandits offer a telltale sign of domestication and line up with a leading hypothesis about animals that adapt to human-dominated environments, according to a new study

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