Animals

Animals

Analyze This: How many insects are in the air?

Weather data have helped estimate the density of flying insects in U.S. skies. That could help track climate change’s impact on insects.

Animals

This tool-using cow stunned scientists with her smarts

Veronika the cow scratches hard-to-reach body parts using a brush. This feat is forcing scientists to rethink which animals can use tools.

Animals

Flat-faced dogs often struggle to breathe easy

Pugs and bulldogs aren’t the only dogs with breathing problems. Pekingese, Japanese chins and other squish-faced breeds have this issue, too.

Tech

Backyard leafhoppers inspire next-generation cloaking tech

Engineers are borrowing this insect’s trick, an "invisibility cloak" of anti-reflective spheres. It could lead to new clean energy tech or military gear.

Environment

Human-built ‘beaver’ dams help save struggling streams

To help restore streams, ecologists and other scientists are taking tips from the rodents — and hoping some beavers also join in.

Animals

Let’s learn about the platypus

Every new discovery about platypuses reveals them to be even odder than we thought.

Animals

Wind won’t keep hungry yellow jackets away from your picnic

Hungry yellow jackets are really good at tracking attractive odors. Even in windy and difficult conditions, they can find your barbecue.

Fossils

Fossil vomit shows what one 290-million-year-old predator dined on

Bones in the barfed-up material, which dates to a time before the dinosaurs, offer a rare peek into the diet of a prehistoric hunter.

Animals

Intricate silk helps net-casting spiders trap prey in webs

Rufous net-casting spiders can adjust the stiffness and stretchiness of their webs thanks to looping strands of silk.

Animals

A bonobo’s imaginary tea party hints that apes can pretend

Kanzi would sometimes play with imaginary juice and grapes, just as humans might. The bonobo's ability challenges old ideas about how animals think.

Animals

Let’s learn about animals that can regrow body parts

Animals that regenerate limbs, eyes and other body parts may hold clues to superhuman healing.

Animals

Analyze This: Primates may have evolved in the cold

Scientists thought the ancestor of humans and apes lived in the tropics. A new study points to a chilly location instead for primate evolution.