Tag archives for Weird & Wild
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Working with leeches doesn’t always suck—just ask Tom Gilbert, a biologist who has developed a method to detect DNA of threatened mammals in rain forest leeches.
How do dung beetles like their dung? Stinky, and from omnivores like us, a new study says.
No one’s likely to bug you if you vomit on them—just look at caterpillars of the large white butterfly Pieris brassicae.
Talk about the call of the wild—you can now track endangered North Atlantic right whales with a new iPhone and iPad app.
What could possibly be cuter than potbellied seahorses? Baby potbellied seahorses—a “herd” of which were recently born at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)’s New York Aquarium.
Think twice the next time you call someone as quiet as a mouse—the rodents are actually sophisticated singers, a new study says.
Here’s a discovery to raise your glass to—a new millipede named Scoterpes jackdanieli.
Learn how whales, seals, and other marine mammals handle the pressure of life in the deep.
Even lazy sperm can get the job done—at least if you’re a naked mole rat, a new study says.
Everybody poops, as the saying goes—and sometimes, it sticks around for millions of years. See what secrets coprolites—or fossilized dung—hold for scientists.
Pythons sometimes have eyes too big for their stomachs—read about some particularly epic snake meals that went bust.
Read about a white humpback whale calf spotted near Australia and see pictures of albino animals, including a gorilla named Snowflake.
To outwit predators, insects have evolved all sorts of defenses, from spraying noxious fluid to playing dead. A California millipede, as it turns out, just glows.
Fuzzy rodents of the Rocky Mountains are giving scientists a hint of how hormone-mimicking chemicals can mess with animals’ reproduction.
Barry White was definitely on to something. Male great tits that use low voices to sing to females keep their mates loyal—and more fertile, new research suggests.
Scientists have figured out how some species of millipedes can turn their legs into sex appendages, new research shows.
From an iguana-loving cat to a leopard’s tryst with a cow—see some of the most unusual animal bonds featured in Jennifer Holland’s new book Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom.
Sea squirts may not get a lot of respect in the animal kingdom, but at heart, they’re really a lot like us, a new study says.
When it comes to wooing females, male Euglossa natesi bees have their own version of sweet talk. The iridescent bee collects pollen from different flowers to create its own, tailor-made fragrance.
Mushrooms are poisonous, hallucinogenic, glowing, and now, thanks to a new study, named after a children’s cartoon character. The new species, Spongiforma squarepantsii— found in 2010 in Sarawak, Malaysia—has a spongy appearance that reminded scientists of TV’s Spongebob Squarepants. “It’s just like a sponge with these big hollow holes,” San Francisco State University’s Dennis Desjardin…
Think you live on caffeine? Four species of bacteria that thrive solely on the substance have you beat.
Freezing coral sperm might sound like a dirty job, but it’s a passion for marine biologist Mary Hagedorn.
Think you’re having a bad hair day? At least you’re not a penguin chick in the South Atlantic.
Workin’ 9 to 5 isn’t just for Dolly Parton and the rest of us humans–some wild critters also toil to eke out a living.
By Christine Dell’Amore In case you haven’t had your fill of genitalia news for the week, the Nature Conservancy is reporting the discovery of a new population of well-endowed frogs in California. The conservation nonprofit’s Larry Serpa, an aquatic ecologist, found the coastal tailed frog living in the Garcia River Forest (see map)–21 miles (34…
