Posted by It is without doubt one of the strangest things I have ever seen in my life, says zoologist Lucy Cooke. She’s describing her first sighting of the bizarre four-headed penis of the echidna, a spiny, termite-eating, egg-laying mammal found in Australia.
Posted by The giant extinct invertebrate Arthropleura resembled some modern millipedes, but could grow to be more than one-and-a-half feet wide, and may sometimes have been more than six feet long. Reconstruction of the giant millipede Arthropleura from the Pennsylvanian and earliest Permian of North America and Europe. The head capsule (marked by an asterisk) is shown…
Envy may be a deadly sin, but is it hard-coded into our genes? A Spanish economist thinks it may be part of our evolutionary inheritance. There are powerful evolutionary reasons for being envious, according to a Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) researcher who has tried to understand the economic causes and consequences of the envy.…
With more tigers in captivity in the U.S. than survive in the wild, the United States needs a centralized federal database to monitor the big cats, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said this week. “Weak U.S. regulations could be helping to fuel the multimillion dollar international black market for tiger parts,” WWF said in a statement…
For the first time in more than ten years, there has been a confirmed sighting of one of the rarest and most enigmatic animals in the world, the saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) from the Annamite Mountains of Laos and Vietnam, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said today. “The Government of the Lao People’s…
Two big sharks were fished out of the Potomac River this week. Is the U.S. capital swimming with predators? By David Braun The Potomac, fondly nicknamed the “Nation’s River” because it flows through Washington, D.C., is known for its hazards and treacherous currents. But if you can navigate those, and slip past the politicians, there…
Invisible shrimp could very well be living in every drop of water you drink–but that’s OK, they’re nothing to worry about. By Jeremy A. Kaplan (FOXNews.com) <strong><em>This post is part of a special <a href=”http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/clean_water_crisis.html”>news series</a> on global water issues.</em></strong> A photo posted to the online sharing site Reddit has the Internet abuzz. It shows…
It took ten days for Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) biologists to catch a black bear cub that was running around with a clear plastic jar stuck on its head. “They were ultimately successful, but it took extraordinary efforts from both FWC employees and local residents working together,” FWC said in a news statement…
Good news for seafood eaters–the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) not only endorses, it encourages the eating of lionfish, a tasty species apparently flourishing in the Atlantic Ocean. “A new study looking at how to curb the rapid growth of lionfish, an invasive species not native to the Atlantic Ocean, suggests that approximately 27…
The Jordan River, famous for the baptism of Jesus Christ and countless pilgrims since, is now so toxic that baptisms in its filthy water pose a health risk, according to a Middle East environmental group. Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) called on regional authorities last week to halt baptism in the Lower Jordan River…
World Cup fever has infected the animal world. Even the denizens of the ocean are weighing in on which team–Spain or the Netherlands–is going to win the final, in South Africa this weekend. Spain will defeat Netherlands in Sunday’s Football World Cup final, according to the latest prediction from Paul the psychic octopus, ESPN reported…
By Jeremy A. Kaplan (FOXNews.com) A submarine exploring the ocean’s depths recently returned with an unexpected visitor: a crablike critter called Bathynomus giganteus (commonly known as giant isopod) that has left many readers startled and horrified. This giant isopod (a crustacean related to shrimps and crabs) represents one of about nine species of large isopods in…
By genetically altering fruit flies so that the heads of their sperm were fluorescent green or red, scientists were able to observe “in striking detail what happens to live sperm inside the female”, Syracuse University reported today. “Our jaws hit the floor the first time we looked through a microscope and saw these glowing sperm.…
A new species of spider has been discovered in the dune of the Sands of Samar in the southern Arava region of Israel, scientists from from the department of biology at the University of Haifa-Oranim said this week. With a leg span of up to 5.5 inches (14 centimeters), the new spider is the largest of…
Female mosquitofish prefer males that have longer genitals, according to Australian research. “This is a relatively novel result, as selection on genitals is generally thought to occur during or after copulation,” say the authors of the study “Females prefer to associate with males with longer intromittent organs in mosquitofish,” published this month in the science…
I’ve heard of birds eating spiders and spiders eating birds–but who knew that praying mantises can catch hummingbirds! The photo here proves mantises can turn the tables on birds. It was submitted to National Geographic Magazine’s “Your Shot” feature and was picked as one of the “Daily Dozen” images featured on September 2. Photo by Sharon Fullingim, published…
We spend a third of our lives asleep, but sleep researchers still don’t know why. Some researchers regard sleep as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of science, even though all animals do it in one form or another. NGS photo by David Boyer “Theories range from brain ‘maintenance’–including memory consolidation…
The squirrel that crashed the family picture in Banff National Park, Canada, appears to have made a habit of this, showing up in a number of famous photographs of history. Photo of squirrel crashing Banff picture by Melissa Brandts It all started when Melissa Brandts and her husband were hiking in Banff and decided to…
Why is sex the dominant form of reproduction on the planet? Scientists think they know why–and it all has to do with evasion of parasites. NGS photo of elephants mating by Michael Nichols Sex may have evolved in part as a defense against parasites, an article published in the July issue of the academic journal…
Pacu fish, cousins to the piranha and known as “frugivores,” have human-like teeth that can crack nuts and fruits. They and many other kinds of species of fish with weird teeth are featured in “Hooked,” a new National Geographic Channel series that premieres on U.S. cable television tonight. Also known as the “Vampire Fish,” The…
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around “as high as a kite”, BBC News quoted an Australian government official said. NGS photo of wallabies by Bates Littlehales “We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in…
Photo of Naked Mole Rat in the IZW by Stefan Günther Life in a naked mole rat “palace” hums along just fine under the firm rule of the queen. But when she dies the succession can be a bloody contest that may end in death for those trying to claim her throne. Researchers at the Berlin…
The birds and the bees don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, of course, but some certainly have bizarre mating rituals. Some of the stories National Geographic News published about this over the years included pandas watching porn, damselfly mating games that turn males gay, spiders that glow with fluorescence in the presence of potential mates, gorillas mating in the…
We all know about the size of dinosaurs, of course, but how about a rodent the size of a bull, a sea scorpion bigger than a man, a frog as large as a beach ball, a penguin the size of a small adult human, a 1,000-pound ground-sloth-like marsupial, and a shark that may have grown longer than…
Photo of Brady Barr with giant salamander courtesy National Geographic Channel Brady Barr, we once reported in National Geographic News, is a man whose work bites. “I’ve had so many bumps, bruises, and broken bones, it’s sometimes hard to get out of bed in the morning,” he told me earlier today. He’s also been bitten…
