Biology

Oct 11th, 2025 - When a scientist ventures out into the icy waters of the Arctic and notices two narwhals crossing and clanging their long, spiraling tusks with each other, they instinctively know that they should step aside. A fierce competition is going on. Narwhals, the mottled silver-grey cousins of bottlenose dolphins, are elusive, mysterious residents of the Arctic. Dubbed "corpse whales," they are infamous for their protruding tooth-like tusks that they manipulate for a variety of behaviors. In a study ... [Read More]

Oct 11th, 2025 - In some parts of the world, seeing an otter is fairly common. These playful, active mammals are found near bodies of water, but even if you've never seen one in the wild, you may have seen one at the zoo, perhaps as part of a rehabilitation program for injured otters. (Though one infamous zoo otter was released into the wild and became  .) However, there is one species of otter, the smooth-coated otter, which has never been seen in a specific region of India despite the region having the ... [Read More]

Oct 11th, 2025 - As the world mourns Jane Goodall, the pioneering chimpanzee scientist and campaigner who died last week aged 91, it's worth asking what chimpanzees can still teach us about climate change. They not only have a few tricks for surviving a warming planet—they've also helped to cool it. Most of the world's 200,000 or so wild chimpanzees live in the huge rainforests of west and central Africa, the second largest in the world. As recently as 2,500 years ago, much of this rainforest had withered ... [Read More]

Oct 11th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Islands run on movement. Plants drop fruit, animals carry seeds, and forests rebuild themselves across valleys and slopes. When native animals vanish or newcomers take over, that conveyor belt stutters, and a quiet shift begins in what grows where. This is the conclusion of research by Donald Drake, an expert on Pacific island ecology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa ( UHM ). How seeds are spread on islands On islands, many plants rely on seed dispersal , the natural ... [Read More]

Oct 11th, 2025 - Number of endangered butterfly species also surging amid habitat destruction and global heating, finds study The number of wild bee species in Europe at risk of extinction has more than doubled over the past decade, while the number of endangered butterfly species has almost doubled. The jeopardy facing crucial pollinators was revealed by scientific studies for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of threatened species , which found that at least 172 bee species ... [Read More]

Oct 10th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google In a forest, death feeds life. A fallen tree doesn't end a story – it starts another. Beneath damp bark and soft moss, fungi grow, feed, and connect. Scientists at  Kobe University  discovered that these fungi don't just recycle wood; they also nourish orchid seeds so tiny they cannot feed themselves. This link between deadwood and new growth reveals how forests quietly move carbon from decay into life . Orchid seeds need fungi Orchid seeds are so small ... [Read More]

Oct 10th, 2025 - It's official: the only Australian shrew is no more. The latest edition of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List , the world's most comprehensive global inventory on extinction risk, has declared the Christmas Island shrew is extinct. The news may not seem momentous. After all, most Australians know nothing of shrews and would be unaware this one species counted among our native fauna. But the shrew's extinction increases the tally of Australian mammals extinct since ... [Read More]

Oct 10th, 2025 - The green turtle has been rescued from the brink of extinction in what scientists are calling a major conservation victory. Once hunted extensively for turtle soup, its eggs as a delicacy and decorative shells, the ancient mariner saw its numbers plummet and has been listed as endangered since the 1980s. Now, thanks to decades of global conservation efforts - from protecting eggs and releasing hatchlings on beaches to reducing accidental capture in fishing nets - new data shows green turtle ... [Read More]

Oct 10th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Twelve million years ago, a huge flightless predator known as a "terror bird" sprinted across tropical floodplains in what is now central Colombia. Archaeologists discovered a single broken leg bone – evidence that turns a fragment into a clear view of life in the Miocene. The study was led by Federico J. Degrange, a terror bird specialist, and included Siobhán Cooke, Ph.D., associate professor of functional anatomy and evolution at the Johns Hopkins ... [Read More]

Oct 10th, 2025 - Our robust Paranthropus cousins thrived in Africa for a million and a half years, making stone tools and sharing the landscape with different Homo species at the dawn of human cultural innovation. The first fossil hominins were discovered at the  beginning of the 20th century in South Africa , just over half a century after the publication of Darwin's milestone work  The Origin of Species  (published in 1859) set the foundation for evolutionary theory based on natural selection. ... [Read More]

Oct 10th, 2025 - Exclusive: Trial that has produced 13 hatchlings could help other threatened species avoid extinction The slow-motion pitter-patter of tiny giant tortoise feet has been worryingly rare in recent years, but that looks set to change thanks to the first successful hatching of the species with artificial incubation. One week after the intervention, the 13 babies are building up their strength on a diet of banana slices and leafy greens in Seychelles , which is home to one of the last remaining ... [Read More]

Oct 10th, 2025 - Arctic seals are being pushed closer to extinction by climate change and more than half of bird species around the world are declining under pressure from deforestation and agricultural expansion, according to an annual assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature. One bright spot is green sea turtles, which have recovered substantially thanks to decades of conservation efforts, the IUCN said Friday as it released its latest Red List of Threatened Species . While many ... [Read More]

Oct 9th, 2025 - A beautifully preserved skeleton found on the UK's Jurassic Coast has been identified as a new species of the marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs Meet the "Sword Dragon", a newly-named species of ichthyosaur – predatory prehistoric reptiles that dominated the oceans while dinosaurs ruled the land. The beautifully-preserved fossilised skeleton was found on the UK's Jurassic Coast near an area called Golden Cap back in 2001, and sat for years in the collections of the Royal Ontario Museum ... [Read More]

Oct 9th, 2025 - Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. . H ybrid species have long sparked the human imagination: lion-tigers, zebra-horses, minotaurs. Now, we have a brand new chimera to marvel at: the "grue jay," a dazzling bird that is half-blue jay, half-green jay. It is a harbinger of our future under climate change. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Graduate student Brian Stokes discovered the grue jay while completing his doctoral studies at the University of Texas. He was tracking ... [Read More]

Oct 8th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A new dumbo octopus species, Grimpoteuthis feitiana , was accidentally discovered in a scientific blind spot of the deep Pacific Ocean. It carries a name that nods to the flying figures in China's Dunhuang cave murals, tying a modern marine discovery to an ancient artistic tradition. The animal was collected on the Caroline Seamount in the Western Pacific during a 2017 expedition at about 1,240 meters, roughly 4,070 feet, where daylight cannot reach. The find is formally ... [Read More]

Oct 8th, 2025 - We have to rethink an important bit about early humans. For decades, small grooves on ancient human teeth were thought to be evidence of deliberate tool use – people cleaning their teeth with sticks or fibres, or easing gum pain with makeshift "toothpicks". Some researchers even called it the oldest human habit . But our new findings, published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology , challenge this long-held idea about human evolution. We found these grooves also appear ... [Read More]