When Grandma Fish was just a tiny fry, the Titanic was yet to set sail. Humans had yet to reach the South Pole. The First World War wasn’t even a rumble on the horizon, the first public radio broadcast yet to spill its arias into New York City. As new dating techniques have revealed, one

The way bats use sound to locate their prey is even more clever than we thought. It turns out that leaf-nosed bats can even find insects that hide themselves from echolocation. In what’s known as acoustic camouflage, insects that sit motionless on leaves can be protected because the echo from the bat’s cry bounces off

Bottlenose dolphins are attentive and flexible parents: The very survival of their calves depends on it. And in some rare cases, their adopted offspring, too. For the first time ever, scientists have witnessed a mother dolphin caring for the orphan of another species as though it were hers. For more than three years, researchers in French

Baby jumping spiders have vision that’s almost as extraordinarily good as the grown-ups, scientists have discovered – despite the baby spiders being around a hundredth of the size. A new study reports on how this feat of biological engineering is achieved. The teeny tiny spiderlings pack the same number of light-capturing photoreceptors into their four pairs

Chase Dekker gripped his camera with anticipation. A couple hundred feet from his seat on a whale-watching boat, the waters of Monterey Bay in California teemed with activity. A group of California sea lions had just come up for air after feeding on a school of anchovies, and following close behind them was the main

Indian tiger numbers are up, according to one of the most detailed wildlife surveys ever conducted. Tiger populations have risen by 6 percent, to roughly 3,000 animals. The massive survey may set a new world standard in counting large carnivores. The encouraging results validate India’s impressive investments in tiger conservation. A mammoth effort Large, solitary

Many of us will have experienced that super friendly cat who seems to love being stroked one minute, only to bite or swipe at us the next. It might be easy at this point to blame it on the cat, but what’s likely happening here is that we’re just not stroking them right. To understand

There are some strange things down there, in the ocean depths, where crushing pressures and low light make for some bizarre adaptations. It’s not easy for humans to get down there, but remote-controlled submarines have, in recent years, been slowly revealing to us the strange wonders at the bottom of the sea. Like this: for

Sometimes all you need is a wild weekend in Las Vegas, amongst the lights, sounds, and attractions of the Sin City. And it seems like grasshoppers are no exception, descending on Las Vegas last week in such numbers that you can even see them on the weather radar. 🤓 Some of you have been asking

Thanks to a chance observation during a woodland ramble, scientists have found evidence that trees can keep each other alive by sharing water and other resources – forming a type of ‘superorganism’ that works together to keep individuals alive. In this way, a tree stump has been able to survive and cycle water, even without

Ever since humanity split into dog and cat people, we’ve been arguing over which one of our beloved companions is a smarter species. A study from 2017 mightn’t be the last word on the matter, but for those who think more neurons means more intelligence, it looks as if dogs stand out among carnivores for

Something peculiar has been found inside fossilised clams from the Tamiami Formation in Florida: dozens of tiny, silica-rich glass spheres, no more than a few millimetres in size. Such beads are forged by heat, and can be created by volcanic or industrial activity – but in this case, there’s one big problem. The Tamiami Formation

On a dry summer day in July, the last thing the United Kingdom weather service expected to see on their radar was rain. At first, it looked as though a light sun shower was falling on the south of England, but upon closer inspection, it was clear that these were not your average clouds. They were,

Unhatched bird embryos can not only hear the warning calls of adult birds – they can communicate that information to their unhatched brothers and sisters sharing the same nest, remaining safely tucked away in their shells until it is safe to hatch. It is a finding that reveals how birds can adapt to their environment

We all know sharks have had a bit of an undeserved bad rap (thanks Jaws!). But if you’re one of those people who find sharks scary, this newly identified species of pocket shark might just change your mind. First up, it’s only about 14 centimetres (5.5 inches) long and has its own pockets tucked in

More than 28,000 species around the world are threatened, according to the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The list, updated on Thursday night, has assessed the extinction risk of almost 106,000 species and found more than a quarter are in trouble. While recent headline-grabbing

When you put a tardigrade under a microscope, you never know what you’re going to get. These weird-looking ‘water bears’ are some of the strangest creatures on the planet, and they are constantly surprising us. Even once you see them with your own eyes, it can be hard to figure out what the heck is

In 2015, David Hole was prospecting in Maryborough Regional Park near Melbourne, Australia. Armed with a metal detector, he discovered something out of the ordinary – a very heavy, reddish rock resting in some yellow clay. He took it home and tried everything to open it, sure that there was a gold nugget inside the

Lizzie Daly was diving Saturday off the coast of Cornwall in Britain when she saw something large in the distance and did a double take. Daly had seen a barrel jellyfish before but nothing of this size. Daly, a biologist and broadcaster, swam up to the peach-colored creature gliding through the water, as cameraman Dan

Just outside the northernmost city of Alaska, underneath an expanse of white tundra, researchers have found a rich community of microbes bathing in ancient seawater. According to a team from the University of Washington, this underground tomb of briny fluid, known as a cryopeg, has probably been here since at least the last ice age,

It’s not enough for humans to pump less carbon into the atmosphere. To address climate change, many experts say we’re going to need to find a way to remove some of the emissions already polluting our air. While some scientists are focusing on mechanical solutions to carbon capture, researchers at the Salk Institute’s Harnessing Plants

The question of how life first emerged here on Earth is a mystery that continues to elude scientists. Despite everything that scientists have learned from the fossil record and geological history, it is still not known how organic life emerged from inorganic elements (a process known as abiogenesis) billions of years ago. One of the

When you think of loud sounds you probably imagine earsplitting screams or whole-body-vibrating booms. Not necessarily the abrupt pop that belongs to a tiny 29-millimetre marine worm (Leocratides kimuraorum). But when marine biologist Ryutaro Goto from Kyoto University and colleagues measured the sounds made by these polychaete worms they came in at a whopping 157

Feasts are rare on the barren landscape of the ocean depths. So researchers couldn’t believe their luck when they recently stumbled on a feeding frenzy of deep-sea sharks chowing down on a fallen swordfish off the US coast. But they never imagined they would also capture footage of one of those sharks becoming the prey

Earth’s magnetic field protects and makes our planet habitable by stopping harmful high-energy particles from space, including from the Sun. The source of this magnetic field is the core at the centre of our planet. But the core is very difficult to study, partly because it starts at a depth of about 2,900 kilometres (1,800

A weird-looking foot preserved in 99 million-year-old Burmese amber has revealed a new species of ancient bird with one insanely long middle toe. The newly-named Elektorornis chenguangi is a small bird distinct from all others, either extinct or living – simply because of its hindlimb. The third digit on its foot, researchers say, is twice

California is a land shaped by seismic activity. A history of earthquakes is written in its landscape in the form of rifts, folds, and cracks. But major tremors also tend to leave less dramatic fingerprints. While two of the most recent earthquakes to strike the state’s south damaged infrastructure and land, they also warped the crust

They’re one of the weirdest, most incongruous-looking natural phenomena you could ever see on Earth’s surface: massive dagger-shaped blades of vertically aligned ice, assembled in mysterious flocks in the middle of the desert. These strange ice spire formations – called ‘penitentes‘ due to their resemblance to penitent, praying folk – take shape at high altitudes

A sunburst-colored bird was stranded on a British highway when passersby spotted him, which wasn’t difficult. The Good Samaritans called an animal rescue hospital to report the bird, along with a strange description of his appearance: He was a vivid but uneven orange, like a winged Cheeto. Was he some exotic bird that escaped from

The diversity of life here on Earth is constantly in flux, but this universal pattern of evolution and extinction is not easily explained. Some scientists have reasoned that mass extinction events occur on our planet every 26 to 30 million years and that biodiversity changes every 62 million years. But the marine fossil record suggests

In the space of a decade, Snowball the dancing parrot has gone from internet sensation to scientific marvel. The medium sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita eleonora) is not only adorable to watch, the way he busts a move has caused us to stop and rethink the very nature of dance. ‘True dancing’, as scientists understand it,

In a post-apocalyptic future, what might happen to life if humans left the scene? After all, humans are very likely to disappear long before the sun expands into a red giant and exterminates all living things from the Earth. Assuming that we don’t extinguish all other life as we disappear (an unlikely feat in spite

From about 1550 to 1850, a global cold snap called the Little Ice Age supersized glaciers throughout the Arctic. On Canada’s Ellesmere Island, Teardrop Glacier extended its frozen tongue across the landscape and swallowed a small tuft of moss. Since 1850, the plant lay frozen under a 100-foot-thick slab of ice as humans discovered antibiotics,

These days, it seems like everything’s coming up sloths. The tree-dwelling mammals are fodder for all sorts of loving memes and online jokes. And don’t be surprised if a visit to your favorite retailer includes tempting merchandise of sloths being, well, sloths: sleepy, slow-moving and cute. But meme makers aren’t the only people intrigued by

Seismologists in California have recorded more than 3,000 earthquakes since the Fourth of July, when a 6.4 magnitude temblor rattled the southern part of the state. Officials now believe that the initial jolt was a foreshock. Since Thursday morning, there have been 340 earthquakes with a magnitude stronger than 3, 54 with a magnitude stronger

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 magnitude hit Southern California Friday evening, just one day after another massive quake (6.4 magnitude) hit the region on the Fourth of July. According to United States Geological Survey, the quake, occurred around 8:19 p.m. local time, with the epicentre 11 miles away from Ridgecrest, California, approximately

Earth is full of bizarre landscapes. Some are land formations moulded over thousands of years, while others are human-made creations that have altered the planet in strange ways. From the bubbling lava lakes of Ethiopia, to a lake that has been nestled in the desert for 2,000 years, here are 29 landscapes that are so incredible,

Down in the deep ocean, where the Sun’s rays don’t penetrate, there dwells a beast so perfectly efficient it has remained practically unchanged for 200 million years. It’s called the bluntnose sixgill shark (Hexanchus griseus), and, like many deep-sea creatures, its lifestyle remains something of a mystery. Scientists have managed to bring them up to

For most animals, the structure of their day – and indeed their year – depends on the light-dark cycle. These regular and rhythmic cycles in the length of days tell animals when they should be foraging, when they should be asleep, when it’s time to migrate and when it’s time to breed. Animals can tell

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 rattled Southern California on Thursday and prompted a series of aftershocks that sprawled across the region. The quake centered near the California town of Ridgecrest, roughly 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles, according to the US Geological Survey. Ridgecrest has a population of roughly 29,000 people. The

Scientists working in the field of connectomics – the study of connections inside the nervous systems of organisms – have announced they’ve mapped out the complete nervous system of a tiny creature. The nervous system in question belongs to the Caenorhabditis elegans roundworm, which has a rich history as a model organism: a simple life

When we think about volcanoes, we tend to conjure visions of bubbling pools of molten lava ready to consume anything that ventures too close. The reality is a bit different. Such terrifying lava lakes do exist, but they’re a lot rarer than you might imagine. Only a handful of persistent lava lakes exist among the

A new report argues that the way plant cells signal isn’t something we can easily compare with nervous systems in animals, an idea that goes directly against the little-known discipline of plant neurobiology. If we’ve learned one thing about the chemistry of greenery over recent decades, it’s that plants are far more dynamic than we ever

In the centre of the South Pacific, there’s a place as far away from land as anyone on Earth could ever hope to get. The ocean is different there. These distant waters lie at the heart of the South Pacific Gyre, the centre of which holds the ‘oceanic pole of inaccessibility’: the ocean’s remotest extreme,

When it comes to survival, the denizens of the animal kingdom have a number of different strategies to stay safe. Some creatures use bright colours and get all puffed up to make themselves intimidating. Some disguise themselves as other, more dangerous creatures. And some make themselves invisible. Not by literally disappearing, of course. But by

At first, the scientists wondered whether it was a mistake. Just 21 days after leaving the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, an arctic fox had arrived in Greenland. And in less than three months, it made it to Canada. The fox averaged nearly 30 miles a day (50 kilometers) – some days, though, it walked almost

For thousands of years, humans have flocked to the Dead Sea to immerse themselves in one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world. Amazingly enough, the Dead Sea – which is actually a hypersaline lake cut off from the ocean waters of the Mediterranean Sea – is actually getting saltier with time, even

Crocodilians today are fearsome meat-eating reptiles, but new research shows that wasn’t always the case. Turns out some of the ancestors of crocodiles and alligators had a preference for a vegetarianism that was hard to shake. “Our work demonstrates that extinct crocodyliforms had an incredibly varied diet,” lead author of the new study, University of