🐾 Creatures

🐾 Creatures

A tiny sea spider cleans its legs

📰 Full story: The sea spider that cleans its legs: Two new species map hidden life in the Salish Sea

Scientists found two new sea spiders. One uses tiny combs to clean itself.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Tiny bacteria in a fish’s gills?

📰 Full story: Fish gills may host bacteria that live without sunlight

Scientists found clues about tiny bacteria living on coral-reef fish gills.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

The Penguin Group That Became Four

📰 Full story: Gentoo Penguins Were One Group on Paper, but Four Lineages in Nature

These penguins looked alike, but their body information showed four different groups.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Cells know when to keep trying

📰 Full story: How stressed cells choose: A redox signal can shift survival into cell death

A cell may fix small problems. Huge problems can make it stop safely.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Two new sea spiders have names

📰 Full story: Two new sea spiders found in the Salish Sea—and one has hairy legs

Scientists found two new kinds of sea spiders in the Salish Sea.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Tiny cells showed their protein-making work

📰 Full story: A frozen 3D view shows how bacteria make, move, and shape proteins

Scientists looked inside a tiny bacterium.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Very Old Animal Got Its Own Name

📰 Full story: The Ancient Animal Named for Two Moms Was Once Filed as Something Else

Two students looked closely at a fossil and found a surprise.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

The twig bugs were really five kinds

📰 Full story: The egg lid that split one stick-insect story into five species

Scientists found new clues in the bugs and their eggs.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Computer Helper Finds Stronger Bacteria-Fighting Viruses

📰 Full story: AI Finds Phage Mutations That Made Bacteria-Infecting Viruses Up to 1 Million Times More Effective

Scientists found changes that helped special viruses attack bacteria.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A dinosaur bone kept a healing clue

📰 Full story: A broken T. rex rib preserved a record of healing

Scotty was a T. rex skeleton with a broken rib.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Where Did Bats Begin?

📰 Full story: Bats May Have Begun in Europe: DNA and Fossils Redraw Their Family Tree

Scientists think the first bats may have lived in Europe.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Fish Can Follow a Friend Away from Danger

📰 Full story: A Vanishing Neighbor Can Warn a Fish School of Danger

A tiny fish can notice trouble by watching another fish.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A tiny cat gets its own name

📰 Full story: A tiny Bolivian wild cat becomes a new species after DNA analysis

A little spotted cat in Bolivia is a separate kind.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

AI compares tiny cell jobs

📰 Full story: An AI tool compares cell jobs across 700 million years

A computer helper compares cells from different animals. It may help scientists learn about sickness.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A tiny forest cat gets a new name

📰 Full story: A DNA clue gives Bolivia’s tiny wild cat its own name

Scientists found that one little cat belongs to a new species.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Sea Whale Visits a River

📰 Full story: A Humpback Whale Swam 60 Miles Up a California River

A humpback whale, a big sea whale, came into a California river.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

An Old Fossil May Change the First Dinosaur Story

📰 Full story: A Museum Fossil May Change the Timeline of the First Dinosaurs

Scientists studied old bones and found a new clue about early dinosaurs.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Little Cat Gets a Brand-New Name

📰 Full story: A Tiny Bolivian Wild Cat Is a New Species After More Than 100 Years

A tiny wild cat in Bolivia was found to be a new kind of cat.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Dogs Helped Find the Hiding Weasels

📰 Full story: When No Photo Does Not Mean No Weasel: Dogs Guide Cameras in Georgia

The dogs helped cameras look in better places.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Very Old Crocodile Relative Had a Stripy Tail

📰 Full story: Ultraviolet Light Finds a Possible Striped Tail in a 125-Million-Year-Old Crocodile Relative

Special light helped scientists see hidden marks in its fossil.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Many Frog Name Places Need Help

📰 Full story: Most of Ecuador’s Amphibian Type Localities Are Outside Protected Areas

In Ecuador, a South American country, many places tied to frog names lack protection.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Coral Garden Was Alive Under Benin’s Sea

📰 Full story: A Coral Community Thought Dead for 60 Years Is Alive Off Benin

People thought the corals were gone. A camera found living corals instead.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Dinosaur’s Poop Hid a Feather

📰 Full story: The Fossil Poop That Preserved a Feather—and a Clue to Bird Survival

A very old poop-rock held a bird feather.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Very Chunky Sea Animal

📰 Full story: Two Rare Fossils Reveal a Surprisingly Chunky Jurassic Squid Relative

A very old sea animal left two unusual fossils.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

DNA closes a tiny zipper

📰 Full story: How can negatively charged DNA come together? A molecular mystery gets an image

Two tiny DNA pieces usually stay apart. Metal helpers brought them together.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Dinosaur Was Under the Building Work

📰 Full story: A New Dinosaur Found Beneath a Brazilian Construction Site

People found very old dinosaur bones under a building site in Brazil.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

The Little Black Flower That Hides

📰 Full story: Thailand’s Black Devil Flower Lives Beneath Fallen Leaves

A tiny new flower was found hiding under leaves in Thailand.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Why Do the Rats Come Back?

📰 Full story: Why Do the Predators Come Back? New Zealand Study Finds Timing Matters

Rats can return after poison bait makes them fewer.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

The Mud at the Bottom Remembers

📰 Full story: Lake-Bottom DNA Reconstructs 1,000 Years of Human and Wild Life

Tiny clues in lake mud told a very old story.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Let’s Find the Tiny Bugs in Tropical Forests

📰 Full story: Tropical Insects Are Being Missed. Conservation Needs a New Approach

Many tiny bugs live in warm forests. People have not found them all yet.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

When people come near, animals may change places

📰 Full story: Animals Notice More Than Roads: People Nearby Can Change Where They Live

Animals notice people nearby. They may change where they go.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Computer Finds Changes in Flower Seasons

📰 Full story: Eight Million Plant Specimens Show That Flowering Times Are Drifting

A computer found small changes in when flowers open.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Two tiny cave-water animals

📰 Full story: Two New Eyeless Crustaceans Found in Cave Waters of Japan’s Ryukyu Islands

Two new little animals were found in dark water in Japan.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Tiny Food Store in Nature

📰 Full story: Animals May Have Been Eating Nature’s Own Plastic for Hundreds of Millions of Years

Animals may use a small food store made by microbes.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A clue that helps wheat fight a bug

📰 Full story: A wheat gene that resists Hessian fly larvae is found after 50 years

Scientists found a tiny instruction inside wheat.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A tiny dinosaur-bone clue

📰 Full story: Traces of collagen reported in a 66-million-year-old dinosaur bone

A very old dinosaur bone may have kept a tiny body piece.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A little lizard with a dragon name

📰 Full story: New ‘horned dragon’ lizard named after a TV fantasy dragon

A new lizard was found in Thailand’s mountain forest.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

The little coffee frog

📰 Full story: A Tiny Night Frog Found Living Among Costa Rica’s Coffee Plants

A new frog was found near coffee plants.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Plant Found Again After 90 Years

📰 Full story: A Plant Found Nowhere Else on Earth Reappears After 90 Years

A plant from one island was found again after 90 years.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

The Fossil That Shows Who Ate Whom

📰 Full story: A 100-Million-Year-Old Fossil Captures a Three-Level Sea Food Chain

Scientists found a very old bone.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Zoo Lions Get a Whole Animal to Eat

📰 Full story: Zoo Lions Show More Wild-Like Behavior When Fed Whole Carcasses

Zoo lions got to eat a whole animal.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Birds and Whales Sing Like Us

📰 Full story: Birdsong and Whale Song Share Patterns Found in Human Language

Birds and whales sing songs. Their songs are a bit like our words.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Toad From Long Ago, Found in Sticky Tar

📰 Full story: New Ice Age Toad Species Found in La Brea Tar Pits Fossils

A little toad got stuck in gooey tar long, long ago.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Teeth Marks on Old Dinosaur Bones

📰 Full story: Bite Marks on 66-Million-Year-Old Bones May Point to T. rex

Scientists found bite marks on very old dinosaur bones.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Super Old Rocks Show Where Animals Began

📰 Full story: 567-Million-Year-Old Fossils Push Back the Dawn of Animal Life by Up to 10 Million Years

Old rocks in Canada show some of the very first animals.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

The Beavers Who Fell From the Sky

📰 Full story: In 1948, Beavers Parachuted Out of Airplanes Over Idaho — and the Forest Still Shows It

Long ago, beavers floated down from airplanes.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

An Old Pangolin Turns Out to Be Brand New

📰 Full story: A 190-Year-Old Museum Specimen Turns Out to Be a New Species

A very old pangolin was actually a brand new kind.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

The Oyster Puzzle Is Solved

📰 Full story: A 176-Year Oyster Mystery Is Finally Solved

A very old question about oysters got its answer.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Tiny Threads Under the Ground Help Trees Make Friends

📰 Full story: Scientists Capture 3D Images of Underground Fungal Networks Without Disturbing Roots

Under the dirt, tiny fungus threads help plants get water.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A snake ate a spiky animal and died

📰 Full story: A Python Died After Swallowing a Porcupine Whole, Quills and All

A big snake ate a spiky porcupine. The spikes hurt the snake so much it died.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Secret Ancestors Hiding Inside You

📰 Full story: Two Mysterious 'Ghost' Ancestors Found Hidden in Human DNA

Long ago, there were people with no name at all.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

A Fish Hiding in a Dark Cave

📰 Full story: New Fish Species Found in an Alabama Cave, Believed to Be Among the World's Rarest

People found a new fish in a cave. Nobody knew it was there.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

Same Flower, Different Trick to Beat the Heat

📰 Full story: 150 Years After Darwin's Finches, Galápagos Plants Reveal Evolution Repeating Itself

Flowers on faraway islands found different ways to stay cool.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels

🐾 Creatures

The Bone Box Had a Secret

📰 Full story: A Fossil Forgotten for 80 Years Turns Out to Be a New Predator

An old bone was a brand-new animal all along.

1 min read🐣💡 3 reading levels