Animals

Plants

Please do not touch the Australian stinging tree

Stinging-tree leaves look soft and inviting, but one touch delivers agony. Structurally, the plant's painful chemical looks a lot like spider venom.

Animals

The diabolical ironclad beetle is nearly unsquishable

The diabolical ironclad beetle is an incredibly tough little creature. A peek inside its exoskeleton reveals what makes it virtually uncrushable.

Animals

This snake rips open a living toad to feast on its organs

A particularly gruesome way to kill may help small-banded kukri snakes avoid a deadly poison secreted from the neck and backs of some toads.

Genetics

Scientists Say: Evolution

Evolution is how species change over time. Individuals in the group vary, and some will pass on their genes. Over time, the whole species changes.

Animals

Analyze This: Ropes restore a gibbon highway through a rainforest

When endangered Hainan gibbons started making risky leaps across an area mowed down by a landslide, researchers provided them a rope bridge.

Animals

Attack of the inner-cannibal mega-shark

The outsized megalodon was a fierce terror that chewed its way across the oceans. It learned to kill even before it was born.

Environment

Jumping ‘snake worms’ are invading U.S. forests

These bad-news invaders are spreading across the United States. As they turn forest debris into bare ground, soils and ecosystems are changing.

Health & Medicine

When physicians and veterinarians team up, all species benefit

When doctors for people and those for animals share their expertise, they can discover new ways to take better medical care of all species.

Animals

A whale’s nearly four-hour-long dive sets a new record

Cuvier’s beaked whales may rely on large stores of oxygen, a slow metabolism and the ability to tolerate lactic acid to go for hours without surfacing for air.

Environment

Polluting microplastics harm both animals and ecosystems

Researchers are beginning to uncover the real-world impacts of polluting microplastic bits on animals and the ecosystems they inhabit.

Animals

Learning what stresses queen bees could save their hives

Beehives often die off after the queen gets too stressed to make enough babies. New tests could identify what stressed her — and point to solutions.

Animals

Here’s what bats ‘see’ when they explore the world with sound

High-speed cameras, fancy microphones and slick software are helping scientists get the best look yet at what bats perceive through echolocation.