WEIRD ANIMALS
By David Szondy – Artistic reconstruction of Callichimaera perplexa. (Credit: Elissa Martin/Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History). An international team of scientists under Yale paleontologist Javier Luque has discovered a 95 million year-old “platypus crab” that may throw into question how you define …
Not everything was destroyed in the fire. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Gilbert Bochenek. – Three hives containing a population of over 180,000 bees were left unscathed by the devastating fire. – Despite the roof of the historic Parisian cathedral being shrouded …
By Rich Haridy – In a new study, low-intensity ultrasound has been used to disrupt a cognitive process known as counterfactual thinking in macaques monkeys. (Credit: hecke06/Depositphotos). An incredible new study suggests that low-intensity ultrasound can be used to target very specific brain …
By Michael Irving – – An artist’s rendition of Peregocetus pacificus, a newly described species of amphibious, four-limbed whale. (Credit: A. Gennari). Whales weren’t always the giants of the sea that we know today – their ancestors plodded around on land before …
By Nick Lavars – – Scientists are hailing the mucus that coats fish as a potential goldmine of antibiotics. (Credit: magone/Depositphotos). The growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is seeing scientists get more and more creative in their search for new drugs that might …
By Ben Coxworth – – Researchers put a zebra-pattern coat on a domestic horse, as part of the study. (Credit: Tim Caro/UC Davis). It was just last month that we heard about a study which indicated that fewer horseflies landed on mannequins with …
A team of Japanese and Russian scientists has successfully “reawakened” cells from a 28,000-year-old woolly mammoth, according to a study published recently in Scientific Reports. The cells came from an extraordinarily well-preserved woolly mammoth discovered in Siberian permafrost in 2012 and nicknamed “Yuka”. Using …
By Ben Coxworth – – Autonomouse is claimed to be able run for over a year, with little human intervention. (Credit: Andrew Erskine). If you want to study a mouse’s natural behaviour, then perhaps it isn’t best to grab the animal and place …
Forty percent of the world’s insect species could go extinct over the next few decades. By Stuart Reynolds, The Conversation – There are an awful lot of insects. It’s hard to say exactly how many because 80 percent haven’t yet been described by …
When insects go extinct, other species follow. By Brian Resnick @B_resnickbrian@vox.com – “Help.” Brice Nihiser/Barcroft Images/Barcroft Media via Getty Images. Insects are the most abundant animals on planet Earth. If you were to put them all together into one creepy-crawly mass, they’d …
