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Drone photographer Jess Wohling captured a most unusual image off the coast of Western Australia last week: an adult southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) swimming alongside a juvenile humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).
Scientists are deploying all manner of tech to listen to (and even interpret) the sounds of wildlife. Will drones, artificial intelligence, and digital recorders lead us to “a zoological version of Google Translate”?
Ornithorhynchus anatinus is one odd duck. With a tail like a beaver’s, webbed feet, nostrils that can clamp shut for underwater foraging, this egg-laying mammal seeks prey by detecting electrical fields using receptors on their bills. Having no nipples doesn’t stop them from nursing their young, which feed through pores in mama’s skin.
A barred owl in Hansville, Washington has a territorial feud ongoing with a local woman. The aggressive bird has attacked her twice – silent swoops from above that result in painful smacks to the back of her head – and biologists say such avian sorties will become more common.
When neuroscientist Margaret Livingstone published “Triggers for a mother’s love,” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in September, there wasn’t much of a reaction in scientific circles. Then social media began discussing the details of the study and a backlash began, leading to a damning letter to PNAS, co-signed by 250 scientists calling for retraction.
In the past couple of weeks, local news outlets across the US (to the extent they still exist) have published articles on dangerous chemicals polluting our waterways. That’s because the Waterkeeper Alliance just published an exhaustive report on “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances,” more handily known as PFAS.
Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have taught bumblebees to roll little wooden balls around for no discernible reason, which makes bumblebees the first insects known to engage in “play.”
It’s that time of year when humans foist Halloween upon their pets by making them wear costumes – dogs dressed as pumpkins or hotdogs or even as cats, the final indignity.
Observing the natural world every day is a task that is always educational, often wondrous, and sometimes a little gross. Case in point, an article published this week in the Journal of Zoology: “A review of nose picking in primates with new evidence of its occurrence in Daubentonia madagascariensis.”
Joaquin Phoenix turns 48 on Friday (October 28), which means the Academy Award-winning actor has been an advocate for animal rights for a solid 45 years.
A female African lion named Zuri has raised eyebrows (and other bodily hair) at the Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center. For the past two years the 18-year-old has been growing a mane, just like a dude.
The African giant pouched rat, also called the Gambian pouched rat, is a large, nocturnal rodent with terrible eyesight. It is also intelligent and fairly easy to train – mostly to seek out landmines, but its skill set is expanding.
In March, a new species of fish was discovered off the coast of the Maldives. More specifically, a misidentified fish discovered in the 1990s has been properly identified as a new species.
When you hear birds sing, it’s always a good idea to stop and listen. New research published in Scientific Reports demonstrates that birdsong reduces both anxiety and irrational thoughts.
When the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition rolls around, there’s always (at least) one image of a species we had never seen before. In this year’s competition – the 58th by the UK’s Natural History Museum – that animal is the houbara of the Canary Islands.
For the first time, Alaska has canceled its winter snow crab season in the Bering Sea because of a shocking decline in the crab population. There were an estimated eight billion snow crabs in 2018, a number that dropped off a cliff to a mere one billion last year.
The only real surprise in a new report on wildlife populations, compiled by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, is that climate change is not the main villain (yet). After analyzing years of data on thousands of wildlife populations across the world, the authors of “Living Planet Report 2022” find that animal populations declined by an average of 69% between 1970 and 2018.
Dogue, which is French for “mastiff,” is the brainchild of Rahmi Massarweh and wife Alejandra. At this posh new restaurant in San Francisco’s cool Mission District you can watch your dog wolf down a three course meal for $75.
Fat Bear Week is over at Katmai National Park and the winner is … this big boy. Bear 747 took the honors!
Two animal-rights activists were acquitted this week of felony burglary and theft charges, five years after breaking into one of Smithfield Foods’ factory farms in Utah. After taking damning video footage of the farm’s horrendous conditions the pair departed with two piglets.
