Biology

Oct 1st, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A small species of Japanese dogbane plant has learned a neat trick. Its flowers smell like ants that have been attacked and injured, then that odor attracts tiny flies that end up carrying its pollen out into the world to propagate the species. In a recent study, researchers pinpointed the scented signal to a tight set of chemicals that copy those released by injured ants . This is the first documented case of a plant using ant odor as a lure. Discovering the Japanese ... [Read More]

Oct 1st, 2025 - The fossilized skeleton of a Jurassic reptile that appears to be part lizard, part snake, has been unearthed on Scotland's Isle of Skye. This mysterious lizard had hooked, snake-like teeth for hunting down prey 167 million years ago, a new study has found. The newly discovered species is named Breugnathair elgolensis , which means "false snake of Elgol," honoring the creature's confusing anatomy and the Elgol area of southern Skye, where the fossil was found, according to the study published ... [Read More]

Oct 1st, 2025 - reading time 4 minutes Anyone proposing to offer a master class on changing the world for the better, without becoming negative, cynical, angry, or narrow-minded in the process, could model their advice on the life and work of pioneering animal behavior scholar Jane Goodall . Goodall's life journey stretches from marveling at the somewhat unremarkable creatures—though she would never call them that—in her English backyard as a wide-eyed little girl in the 1930s to challenging the ... [Read More]

Oct 1st, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A new dinosaur species from Patagonia, Joaquinraptor casali , steps out of the shadows with a telltale clue clenched in its jaws: the bone of an ancient crocodile relative. The animal belonged to the megaraptorans, a puzzling clan of fleet, sharp-clawed predators that prowled southern lands near the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. At an estimated 23 feet (seven meters) long, the newcomer helps explain how these hunters lived, what they ate, and how they evolved. In rocks ... [Read More]

Oct 1st, 2025 - Aedes aegypti, also known as the Egyptian mosquito, and Aedes albopictus, also known as the (Asian) tiger or forest mosquito, are known vectors of several diseases including yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, Zika and dirofilariasis. Two species of disease-carrying mosquitoes have been found in the UK - and are spreading as the climate warms, scientists have warned. Aedes aegypti, also known as the Egyptian mosquito, and Aedes albopictus, also known as the (Asian) tiger or forest mosquito, are ... [Read More]

Oct 1st, 2025 - You can now listen to Fox News articles! Scientists recently uncovered a new dinosaur — and its ancient leftovers – in a tourist hot spot in Argentina. The dinosaur, which measured 23 feet long, is called Joaquinraptor casali . Its discovery was publicized in the journal Nature Communications on Sept. 23. Joaquinraptor casali lived between 66 and 70 million years ago, around the time when the dinosaurs went extinct.  Scientists unearthed the bones at the Lago Colhué ... [Read More]

Sep 30th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google For years, divers off New Caledonia have watched male leopard sharks dash after females, only to miss the main event. Now we finally have it on film – and it wasn't just one pair. In a first for the species, two males sequentially mated with a single female in open water, offering a rare, unfiltered look at how these endangered sharks reproduce in the wild. The observation comes from University of the Sunshine Coast postdoctoral researcher Dr. Hugo Lassauce, working ... [Read More]

Sep 30th, 2025 - Some experts think a few sharks may be responsible for a disproportionate number of attacks. Should they be hunted down? F irst was the French tourist, killed while swimming off Saint-Martin in December 2020. The manager of a nearby water sports club raced out in a dinghy to help, only to find her lifeless body floating face down, a gaping wound where part of her right thigh should have been. Then, a month later, another victim. Several Caribbean islands away, a woman snorkelling off St Kitts ... [Read More]

Sep 30th, 2025 - "Can you see it?" My son and I were sat crouched under a tree in the sticky jungle of northern Madagascar's Lokobe National Park, scrutinizing a patch of dirt and fallen leaves. His nose was almost pressed to the ground when Juliano, our barefoot guide, lifted his hand. Perched on his palm, a chameleon no bigger than a clipped toenail jerked forward on pin-thin legs. One blink, and it was gone again, just another fleck in the mulch. Madagascar is full of these wild surprises. Torn off from the ... [Read More]

Sep 30th, 2025 - In a new study, scientists have shown that chemical receptors that plants use to recognize nitrogen-fixing bacteria have developed the same function independently on at least three separate occasions through a process called convergent evolution. "Beans are in other ways not a burdensome crop to the ground, they even seem to manure it… wherefore the people of Macedonia and Thessaly turn over the ground when it is in flower." The Greek philosopher Theophrastus, widely considered to be the ... [Read More]

Sep 30th, 2025 - Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. . I f a porkfish swims by and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. A new effort to monitor the seas by sound says, resoundingly, yes. The ocean—especially busy places such as coral reefs—can be noisy. Mantis shrimp snapping, damselfish whooping. (Listen to the music of a cacophonous reef here .) Other places have whales singing and oysters crackling . Not to mention all of that ... [Read More]

Sep 30th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A giant walking stick insect has stepped out of the treetops in north Queensland, and it is creating a stir for its size. It reaches about 15.75 inches (40 centimeters) in length, and weighs around 1.6 ounces (45 gra,s). Scientists have now given it a formal name, Acrophylla alta . The species was described in the taxonomic journal Zootaxa , in a peer-reviewed study that detailed its features and habitat. Why Acrophylla alta stands out The study's co-author Angus Emmott ... [Read More]

Sep 30th, 2025 - Now that we know what Denisovans looked like, they're turning up everywhere. A fossil skull from China that made headlines last week may or may not be a million years old, but it's probably closely related to Denisovans. The fossil skull, dubbed Yunxian 2, is one of three unearthed from a terrace alongside the Han River, in central China, in a layer of river sediment somewhere between 600,000 and 1 million years old. Archaeologists originally identified them as Homo erectus , but Hanjiang ... [Read More]

Sep 29th, 2025 - Late Cretaceous dinosaurs may have cut back vegetation, creating large floodplains. When the asteroid hit, those floodplains became forests. Dinosaurs' eating habits and, later, their extinction may have altered the course of rivers in ancient North America, according to a new paper published in  Communications Earth and Environment .  "Ecosystem engineer" is the term ecologists use for a species that significantly alters its environment. Beavers and their wetland-supporting dams ... [Read More]

Sep 29th, 2025 - A team of MIT geochemists has unearthed new evidence in very old rocks suggesting that some of the first animals on Earth were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge. In a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , the researchers report that they have identified "chemical fossils" that may have been left by ancient sponges in rocks that are more than 541 million years old. A chemical fossil is a remnant of a biomolecule that originated from a living organism that has ... [Read More]

Sep 29th, 2025 - The draw of the cables can become a problem. Undersea cables are the big arteries to our energy grid. But apparently, they can also affect marine life. According to a new study, the cables act as an irresistible lure for female shore crabs, while the males remain completely indifferent. This draw could derail their ancient reproductive migrations, creating an unforeseen ecological trap. Shore crabs ( Carcinus maenas ) are one of the most common species of crabs. They're native to the Atlantic ... [Read More]