Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Weird Animals

A Japanese sea catfish, enjoying the light.

New Research

This Catfish’s Whiskers Are Like Ultra-Sensitive pH Strips

Japanese sea catfish seek out worms in the pitch dark by detecting minute changes in water chemistry caused by their prey’s breathing

None

You Otter Believe These Zoo Animals Can Play the Piano, the Harmonica and the Xylophone

D.C.’s hottest summer concert is brought to us by an unlikely source: a bevy of animal musicians

The American paddlefish, which makes spawning migrations up the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers.

Trending Today

This Weekend, Celebrate the World’s Weird and Wonderful Migratory Fishes

The first annual World Migratory Fish Day is making a splash with hundreds of outdoor, fish-centric events

A common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) stretches out on a reef environment beneath the sea.

Why Don’t Octopus Suckers Stick To Their Own Skin?

A chemical excreted by octopus skin tells their severed arms, “Don’t grab me or eat me!”

In Mexico, parasitic corn fungus makes for a great tortilla filling.

Cool Finds

Five Parasitic Species People Love to Eat

From tapeworms to lampreys, some people don’t mind eating the bloodsuckers

Cool Finds

The Grasshopper Mouse Hunts Scorpions, Turns Scorpion Venom into Painkiller

Evolutionary adaptations let this little mouse hunt scorpions

Not the world's fastest mite, but a related species from the same Family.

Cool Finds

This Obscure Species of Mite Is the Fastest Animal on Earth

The mite just defeated the previous record-holder, the Australian tiger beetle

"Fellow hermit crab? I'll eat you up!"

New Research

Cannibalistic Hermit Crabs Salivate at the Smell of Their Dead

Instead of responding to the smell of a relative’s death as the sign that a predator could be about, hermit crabs interpret this cue as fresh dinner

Greater Rhea trio

Cool Finds

The U.K. Is Weirdly Obsessed With Rhea Birds—Which Keep Escaping Their Owners

A rhea went on the lam in the U.K.—and is far from the first giant, flightless bird to do so

You're next.

Cool Finds

This Poor Chicken Got Eaten by a Cow

Herbivores don’t always stick to their diet

A West Indian manatee calf nurses from its mother.

American South

14 Fun Facts About Manatees

These roly-poly herbivores just may be the teddy bears of the sea. But keep an eye out when boating; they don’t move so fast.

None

Cool Finds

There Are Hundreds of Examples of Mind-Controlling Parasites

Parasites that hijack other creatures’ minds are not at all rare

Cool Finds

Game Delayed Due to Bees

One can only assume that Oprah has something to do with this

Wisdom the Albatross with her newest chick.

Cool Finds

Wisdom the Albatross, the World’s Oldest Known Wild Bird, Has Yet Another Baby

Wisdom is 63, and this is thought to be her 35th-or-so chick

New Research

If You Think Climbing a Tree Will Save You From a Crocodile…

Crocodiles can climb trees

A spider monkey hangs out on the back of a capybara, via Animals Sitting on Capybaras

Cool Finds

Capybaras Are Basically Nature’s Chairs

The world’s largest rodent can’t get any respect

Kitty wants a snack.

Cool Finds

That Time Cats Attacked a NYC Butcher Shop

Cats are clearly untrustworthy creatures. Everybody knows that. But lest you forget, here’s a historical horror story.

A three-toed sloth.

New Research

What Drives a Sloth’s Ritualistic Trek to Poop?

Scientists trace the odd bathroom behavior to relationships with bacteria and moths that inhabit their fur

New Research

This Crazy Anemone Hangs Upside Down From the Antarctic Ice Shelf

Edwardsiella andrillae pop their tentacles out to feed

Smithsonian magazine staff writer Abigail Tucker recently ventured to Greenland to report on narwhal research.

Abigail Tucker on “In Search of the Mysterious Narwhal”

Page 42 of 42