Biology

Nov 16th, 2025 - In southeast Queensland, roughly 250 kilometers from Brisbane, lies the tiny town of Murgon. Located on Wakka Wakka Country, it's home to about 2,000 people—and one of the in the world. From the 55 million-year-old clays there, paleontologists have unearthed a range of precious fossils over several decades. These include the world's oldest fossil songbirds, the only known fossils of salamanders in Australia and the oldest fossil marsupial remains in Australia. And the site continues to ... [Read More]

Nov 16th, 2025 - Fighting poison with poison: A deep-sea worm uses toxins as armor At the bottom of the ocean, where metal-rich hydrothermal vents exhale poison, a bright yellow worm has mastered an impossible art: turning lethal elements into armor. Meet Paralvinella hessleri , the deep-sea super-worm that detoxifies arsenic by turning it into crystal. A new study published in PLOS Biology has uncovered evolution's wildest chemistry experiment yet. Scientist Chaolun Li at the Institute of Oceanology in China, ... [Read More]

Nov 16th, 2025 - In a new study in Horticulture Research , a team of researchers from the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has demonstrated that designed synthetic microbial communities (SynComs) can significantly boost crop growth and curb soil-borne diseases, revealing a promising biocontrol strategy. Plant endophytes, which live symbiotically within plant tissues , play a critical role in host health, nutrient uptake , and disease resistance. Using these microbes offers ... [Read More]

Nov 15th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A bright blue, six-eyed springtail found on Tsushima Island in Japan turned out to be a new species. According to researchers, the springtail is about 0.06 to 0.07 inches long and carries six eyes in two neat rows. The work was led by Hiro Kasai of Kindai University in Nara, Japan. His research focuses on collembola, small six-legged soil animals that often jump. Springtails are tiny hexapods that are common in soils worldwide. They feed on fungi and decaying matter and ... [Read More]

Nov 15th, 2025 - Endangered Species Day has been around since 2006, focusing on education and conservation regarding species that have had a population decline. It is a lovely coincidence that it was on Endangered Species Day that the conservation organization known as the Orangutan Foundation spotted something rare on one of its forest camera traps. It was not an orangutan, but a Bornean clouded leopard. Three to be exact. A mother and two babies. . The video was taken in the Tanjung Puting National Park in ... [Read More]

Nov 15th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Two small upper jaws pulled from Morocco's phosphate mines reveal a new duck-billed dinosaur, Taleta taleta , that lived about 66 million years ago. The find is formally described in a peer-reviewed paper. Taleta joins a short list of late surviving plant eaters in North Africa near the end of the dinosaur era. The discovery points to busy evolution in a corner of the world far from the famous North American sites. What the fossils show The work was led by Nicholas R. ... [Read More]

Nov 15th, 2025 - Exquisitely preserved fossils come from a single site in Wyoming. Edmontosaurus annectens , a large herbivore duck-billed dinosaur that lived toward the end of the Cretaceous period, was discovered back in 1908 in east-central Wyoming by C.H. Sternberg, a fossil collector. The skeleton, later housed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and nicknamed the "AMNH mummy," was covered by scaly skin imprinted in the surrounding sediment that gave us the first approximate idea of what ... [Read More]

Nov 15th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Two newly described pterosaur species from Mongolia's Gobi Desert are reshaping how scientists picture the Late Cretaceous skies. Found in the same rock layer, the pair represents strikingly different size classes – one with an estimated wingspan of about 11 feet, the other likely under 6.5 feet. Both pterosaurs lived roughly 96 to 90 million years ago, yet their coexistence hints at a more finely divided airborne ecosystem than previously recognized. Pterosaurs in ... [Read More]

Nov 14th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. Giant North American "hell pigs" may have munched on bones around 30 million years ago, while their smaller counterparts ripped through softer material, like flesh, new research finds. The "hell pigs," scientifically known as Archaeotherium ("ancient beast" in Greek), were a group of pig-like ... [Read More]

Nov 14th, 2025 - Reading time 2 minutes Partula snails are a family of fingernail-sized mollusks native to French Polynesia. For a long time, these critters were both scientifically and culturally significant to researchers and the native (human) population—the reason their near extinction in the late 20th century set off a global, systematic project to bring them back. So far, 2025 has been a great year for Partula snails. In spring, a subspecies of the family was reclassified from Extinct-in-the-Wild to ... [Read More]

Nov 14th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A palm-sized jaw tip from north of Uberaba, Minas Gerais, has been identified as a new species of pterosaur, Galgadraco zephyrius . The paper reports the first confirmed Brazilian azhdarchid and links it to a Romanian cousin. The animal lived near the end of the Cretaceous, between 70 and 67 million years ago. It likely spanned about 13 to 16 feet (4 to 5 meters) across the wings. Thus, it is considered a medium-to-large-sized azhdarchid, which is a pterosaur family with ... [Read More]

Nov 14th, 2025 - Reading time 3 minutes Extraction and sequencing of ancient DNA has revolutionized scientists' understanding of numerous extinct species, but DNA can only tell us so much. RNA, however, can tell us which genes were actually "turned on," offering unprecedented insight into the final moments of a deceased animal's life. The recent recovery of surprisingly ancient mammoth RNA does exactly that. The long-held belief that RNA is too fragile to survive even a few hours after death has discouraged ... [Read More]

Nov 13th, 2025 - Researchers found that mouse behavior can evolve through microbes alone, not just DNA. When scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen set out to study how traits pass from one generation to another, they expected to find answers in genes. Instead, they found them in the gut. In a new study published in Nature Communications , Ruth Ley and her colleagues demonstrated that behavior—in this case, how "lazy" a mouse is—can be passed down through generations by the ... [Read More]

Nov 13th, 2025 - Reading time 3 minutes Here's some important life advice: do not try to challenge a short-finned pilot whale ( Globicephala macrorhynchus) to a squid-eating contest. Research out today shows that these marine mammals can pack away hundreds of live calamari a day. For the first time ever, a large international team of researchers has quantified the diets of short-finned pilot whales living in the waters near Hawaii. They found that a single whale can consume up to 200 squid a day, while whales ... [Read More]

Nov 13th, 2025 - Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. . T his is no dinosaur—this big, meat-eating lizard came before the dinos dominated. The latter half of the name of this newly designated species, Tainrakuasuchus bellator , translates from Latin to "warrior." It's a fitting name, given that T. bellator proved a fierce predator some 240 million years ago. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. This creature belonged to a branch of the tree of life that included other ancient precursors ... [Read More]

Nov 12th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. Researchers have unearthed a giant "warrior" lizard that stalked Brazil 240 million years ago in the Triassic period, just before the dawn of the dinosaurs. The discovery fills in gaps in our understanding of the time before the dinosaurs dominated Earth, and further highlights the links ... [Read More]