Biology

Mar 9th, 2026 - By Carlos Bocos uploaded photographs of a small marsupial to iNaturalist. Those images helped scientists confirm a species that had been classified as extinct for thousands of years — and earned Bocos a co-authorship on the published study. Two marsupial species in New Guinea, previously known only from fossil evidence and believed extinct for more than 7,000 years, have been confirmed alive. According to The Bishop Museum in Honolulu , which announced the discovery on Tuesday, Bocos ... [Read More]

Mar 9th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google A tiny sting from a wasp can cause sharp pain. The skin of some frogs can irritate predators in seconds. Scientists now understand that both animals use a powerful chemical toxin that looks surprisingly similar to a molecule found in humans and other vertebrates. An international research team led by The University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience discovered that certain wasps and frogs produce a peptide that behaves like bradykinin. Bradykinin exists ... [Read More]

Mar 9th, 2026 - Researchers discovered that a 215-million-year-old reptile started life on four legs and switched to two as an adult. When you picture an ancient crocodile from millions of years ago, you probably imagine a low-slung, scaly water predator waiting patiently to ambush its prey. But the deep history of the crocodile family tree is far more bizarre and, frankly, interesting. Crocodiles are often called "living fossils" because of their lineage dating back over 200 million years and their ... [Read More]

Mar 9th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Most people think the story of human evolution begins on land. Images of animals crawling out of water often appear in books and documentaries. The real beginning, however, lies much deeper in ancient oceans. Long before animals walked on land, small fishes were already developing features that later helped life move onto land. Scientists have spent many years trying to understand how the first bony fishes appeared. These early fishes are important because many modern ... [Read More]

Mar 9th, 2026 - Birds of prey have always captured human curiosity, but few species have a story as dramatic and inspiring as the red kite. Recognized by its striking reddish feathers and distinctive forked tail, the red kite is not only visually impressive but also an important part of the natural ecosystem. Today, these birds can be seen gliding gracefully across parts of the United Kingdom and Europe, but their presence in the sky is the result of years of careful conservation and research. Understanding ... [Read More]

Mar 9th, 2026 - Early spring sightings show colourful insect is a resident species for first time in decades, says conservation charity The large tortoiseshell – an elusive and enigmatic butterfly that became extinct in Britain in the last century – is a UK resident species once again, with a flurry of early spring sightings. Britain's list of native butterflies has increased to 60 with the return of the insect after individuals emerged from hibernation in woodlands in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, ... [Read More]

Mar 9th, 2026 - Two severed killer whale fins found on a remote Russian island may point to a gruesome new behaviour never seen before: orcas actively hunting and eating their own kind. That's because each of the fins, a new study says, bears tooth marks from another killer whale. When Dr Olga Filatova , an associate professor at University of Southern Denmark, received the photos from her long-time collaborator Sergey Fomin, she was fairly certain what she was looking at. "When he found the first one, it was ... [Read More]

Mar 8th, 2026 - Small size seems to have come before a change in diet for a tiny dinosaur lineage. Alvarezsaurids were mostly small-bodied theropods that paleontologists originally misinterpreted as early flightless birds, only to later recognize them as an ant-eating lineage of non-avian dinosaurs. For years, we suspected that Alvarezsaurids underwent a rare process of evolutionary miniaturization directly coupled to a diet of social insects like ants and termites. It was a tidy hypothesis: They got smaller ... [Read More]

Mar 8th, 2026 - 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. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Get the Live Science Newsletter Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and ... [Read More]

Mar 7th, 2026 - A unique head spike and fish-eating jaws help make sense of these dinosaurs. The Spinosaurus is a sail-backed, crocodile-snouted dinosaur that Hollywood depicted as a giant terrestrial predator capable of taking down a T. rex in Jurassic Park 3 . Then they changed their mind and made it a fully aquatic diver in Jurassic World Rebirth —a rendering that was more in line with the latest paleontological knowledge. But now, deep in the Sahara Desert, a team of researchers led by Paul C. ... [Read More]

Mar 6th, 2026 - A bizarre ancient swamp creature just proved that evolution is much messier than we thought. Paleontologists surveying a dry riverbed in northeastern Brazil repeatedly encountered the same type of fossil: a lower jaw about six inches long, curved and thick, and twisted in an unexpected way. A single specimen could have been written off as a distortion. But after the team recovered nine jaws from the Pedra de Fogo Formation —all preserving the same pronounced rotation in three ... [Read More]

Mar 6th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google A 518-million-year-old fossil has revealed that some of the earliest vertebrates possessed four image-forming eyes instead of two. That configuration recasts a small brain structure humans still carry as the remnant of a once fully visual organ. Embedded in rock from southern China, the head of Myllokunmingia , an early jawless fish that lived more than 500 million years ago, preserves two large lateral eyes and two smaller organs aligned along the midline. Evidence in ... [Read More]

Mar 6th, 2026 - By A major new study finds the pace of species discovery is accelerating, not slowing, and suggests the true number of species on Earth could reach into the billions. It has been roughly 300 years since Carl Linnaeus began the project of naming and classifying life on Earth. A University of Arizona-led study published in Science Advances now reveals that scientists are discovering new species at a faster rate than at any point in human history, with more than 16,000 species added each year. The ... [Read More]

Mar 6th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes Field researchers call them "Lazarus taxa," species once presumed extinct that suddenly appear to have risen from the dead. And scientists have found one more—a marsupial thought to have disappeared over 6,000 years ago. Researchers with the Australian Museum and the University of Papua discovered this elusive marsupial—known as the pygmy long-fingered possum ( Dactylonax kambuayai )—still doing its thing within the remote rainforests of Indonesia's ... [Read More]

Mar 6th, 2026 - 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. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Get the Live Science Newsletter Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and ... [Read More]

Mar 6th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Mosquitoes have been feeding on human blood for a very long time – far longer than scientists once realized. A new genetic analysis from researchers at the University of Manchester shows that several Southeast Asian malaria mosquitoes began preferring human blood between 2.9 and 1.6 million years ago – long before modern humans existed. The timing lines up with the arrival of Homo erectus , one of our early human ancestors, hinting that mosquitoes may have ... [Read More]