4+ hour, 3+ min ago  (906+ words) Researchers tracking pollution in wildlife usually turn to living animals. Blood, feathers, and tissue samples can reveal which chemicals are moving through an ecosystem and where they are accumulating. A team in Spain found another source of evidence hidden in…...

10+ hour, 57+ min ago  (889+ words) A bird song is more than just a pretty sound. For it to survive, one bird must pass it on to the next. Some songs catch on and spread across a whole group of birds. Others almost die out, and…...

12+ hour, 40+ min ago  (892+ words) Migrating cranes hunting for a place to spend the night have plain requirements. They want flat, bare ground and shallow water to stand in, somewhere quiet enough that nothing can sneak up on them after dark. That dull, open ground…...

1+ day, 3+ hour ago  (983+ words) Seafloor mud suggests otherwise. Tracing ocean chemistry back 10, 000 years through layers of seafloor sediment, researchers found that oxygen has been draining away far longer than any instrument record captures " and the culprit is the same weakening monsoon that scientists are…...

1+ day, 7+ hour ago  (754+ words) Every year on June 11, International Lynx Day is dedicated to one of the world's most elusive wild cats. With their tufted ears and oversized paws, lynx have fascinated people for centuries." Despite their reputation as skilled predators, many lynx populations…...

1+ day, 9+ hour ago  (867+ words) A gorilla that has watched its family threatened by hunters does not forget the experience. That memory can linger for years, long after the danger itself has passed, and it shapes how the animal reacts to any person who steps…...

1+ day, 12+ hour ago  (726+ words) For decades, the story of the koala's decline seemed simple. Humans arrived in Australia, forests were cleared, and koala populations began to fall. A new study of koala DNA changes that order. It shows koalas were already in deep trouble…...

1+ day, 11+ hour ago  (769+ words) Few performers in the animal world commit to their craft like manakins. These small tropical birds live across the forests of Central and South America, where males clear little dance courts and spend much of their lives rehearsing. They snap…...

1+ day, 21+ hour ago  (637+ words) A giraffe can stretch its tongue toward leaves almost 20 feet (6 meters) above the savanna, yet it cannot climb a modest hill. The tallest animal on Earth is held in place by its architecture, and that limit is quietly shrinking the…...

2+ day, 1+ hour ago  (674+ words) For half a century, ecologists have puzzled over a deceptively simple question. How does a single patch of rainforest support hundreds of tree species without a few fast growers crowding out the rest? A study from the University of Queensland…...