Biology

Apr 20th, 2026 - An injured kea with just half a beak has used what's left as a weapon that gives him dominance over a captive colony of the birds In 2013, things were looking bleak for a malnourished, undersized parrot who was missing half his beak and struggling to survive in the wilds of Arthur's Pass in New Zealand's South Island. Then, says Ximena Nelson at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, one of her students came across the struggling kea ( Nestor notabilis ). The bird had lost the upper part of ... [Read More]

Apr 20th, 2026 - Kea parrot missing his upper beak "has rewritten what disability means for behaviorally complex species." Bruce the kea—a species of alpine parrot native to New Zealand—lost his upper beak in an accident as a young bird. But that hasn't stopped him from becoming the dominant male in his kea community (known as a "circus") at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve. According to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology, Bruce achieved his alpha status via a unique fighting ... [Read More]

Apr 20th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google A tiny termite from a South American rainforest is a new species with a head that recalls a sperm whale. Its strange outline briefly convinced researchers they had found a different branch of termite life, then sent them back through its family tree. That misidentification has now clarified how dramatically defensive body structures can diverge from deeper evolutionary relationships within this group. High in canopy Inside a dead standing tree in French Guiana, on South ... [Read More]

Apr 20th, 2026 - A simple fin became the ocean's most sophisticated hunting tool. Anglerfishes look almost too cartoonishly gruesome to be true, especially the famous rod bait dangling in front of the grim mouth with oversized teeth. But a new study describes how this tool (and many others that anglerfish use) came to be. It turns out they developed them gradually, over the years, and sometimes multiple times. Diverse and Dinosaur-Aged Imagine you are a small, hungry fish swimming in the shallow, sun-drenched ... [Read More]

Apr 19th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Africa's elephants were shaped by movement. For thousands of years, they crossed huge stretches of the continent, mixed with distant herds, and kept their populations genetically strong.  A major new study shows that this old freedom is fading, and in some places the damage is already visible in the elephants ' DNA. The study comes from an international team that analyzed 232 whole genomes from savanna and forest elephants across 17 African countries.  The ... [Read More]

Apr 19th, 2026 - Authors set out to correct under-representation of female sounds – and found some surprising revelations When we hear the beautiful call of a bird from a high bough, we're told it's likely to be a male – singing for territory, or belting out tunes to woo a female. But as the annual dawn chorus reaches a crescendo this spring, a new guidebook is urging us to think again – and turn our ears to the hidden world of female birdsong. The songs, sounds and sights of female birds have ... [Read More]

Apr 19th, 2026 - The latest research on a Neanderthal infant from Amud Cave in Israel is giving a clearer picture of how different early development may have been in our extinct relatives. The remains, dated to around 51,000 to 56,000 years ago, suggest something unusual, as reported by Current Biology. The baby was not small in the way modern human infants are at the same age. It shows how much faster it grows in its early months outside the womb. Scientists studying the skeleton think this could reflect a ... [Read More]

Apr 19th, 2026 - The new study highlights the importance of ongoing research on recovering whale populations. New research from the University of St Andrews shows that the role of age in male humpback whale ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) reproduction has changed as populations recover from centuries of exploitation.   There has been little research on the evolutionary consequences of whaling. This is despite ... [Read More]

Apr 17th, 2026 - Wolves and humans share the same eye trait that helped both species become the ultimate pack hunters. Lock eyes with a chimpanzee, and you will notice something is missing. The tissue surrounding their iris, called the sclera, is a deep brown or nearly black. You cannot easily tell where they are looking. Now, look at another human across the room. Within milliseconds, you know exactly what holds their attention. Most mammals' eyes are camouflaged with dark tissue, likely to stay hidden from ... [Read More]

Apr 16th, 2026 - As the Arctic's climate and ecology rapidly change, two researchers are calling for a paradigm shift in insect monitoring. Reading time 3 minutes Until recently, Iceland was considered the last Arctic nation without mosquitoes. That changed in October 2025, when insect enthusiast Björn Hjaltason discovered one male and two female specimens of Culiseta annulata in his garden in Kiðafell, Kjós. The arrival of this pest in Iceland is a warning, Arctic researchers Amanda Koltz and ... [Read More]

Apr 16th, 2026 - A newly identified Triassic predator shows crocodiles diversified long before they conquered the water. Sometime around 210 million years ago, in what is now the badlands of New Mexico, a mudslide froze an ancient ecosystem in stone. Two swift, land-dwelling predators—about the size of modern jackals—perished side-by-side in a sudden catastrophic surge, leaving their skeletons locked in the earth as the world moved on. Millions of years later, human hands dug up the now fossilized ... [Read More]

Apr 16th, 2026 - 10 best dinosaur books, according to a paleontologist I have one of the best jobs in the world: I am a paleontologist who digs up dinosaur bones for a living. I am also the paleontology consultant for the Jurassic World film series, and I teach courses at the University of Edinburgh about Earth history and evolution. I've written science books such as The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and The Rise and Reign of the Mammals. My latest book, The Story of Birds: A New History from Their Dinosaur ... [Read More]

Apr 15th, 2026 - While plenty of animals have developed a reputation for being intimidating, only one can reign supreme as the most dangerous. To be more specific, this animal kills the most humans. Hollywood films would have you believe that it's the toughest animals like lions and crocodiles that we need to watch out for. However, many animals are much less lethal than you'd expect – sharks, for instance, only kill 70 humans each year . Surprisingly, the most deadly creatures on Earth are often much ... [Read More]

Apr 15th, 2026 - Detailed imaging of a 250-million-year-old fossil has revealed the first proof that the ancestors of mammals laid eggs. The discovery answers a long-standing question about the reproductive biology of our ancient forerunners and hints at how they managed to flourish in the aftermath of the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history. Scientists have long assumed that the ancestors of mammals—a group known as the therapsids—laid eggs like today's platypuses and echidnas do. But they ... [Read More]

Apr 15th, 2026 - Researchers find increase in whale deaths in the bay, largely because of collisions with vessels on busy shipping route Gray whales have historically been a rare sight in the San Francisco Bay. They trek from the warm lagoons of Mexico's Baja California more than 10,000 miles (16,000km) north to the Arctic region to feast on shrimp-like animals during the summers, seldom stopping in the busy shipping corridor for prolonged periods. But in recent years, that story has changed in a dire way. A ... [Read More]

Apr 14th, 2026 - A New York Museum Honors Its Real-Life 'Indiana Jones' Dinosaur Hunters In a new and ongoing exhibition, the American Museum of Natural History highlights the findings of Mark Norell and other fossil hunters responsible for its most important discoveries. This article is part of our Museums special section about how institutions are commemorating the past as they move into the future. They went searching for human ancestors but instead came upon an abundance of dinosaur, mammal and reptile ... [Read More]