Non-verbal gestures are an integral part of how humans and some other organisms communicate, as with various sign languages and expressing emotions. A small-bird species called the Japanese tit (Parus minor) also may also use this more complex form of communication. In a study published March 25 Current Biology, a team from the University of […]
‘Spectacular’ new orchid species is pollinated by moths
Despite their reputation for being easy for aspiring plant parents to destroy, orchids can be found all over the planet. There are more than 25,000 known species of these plants, with more discovered every year. An international team of scientists have now found a new species of orchid in Madagascar with an impressive nectar spur […]
Sorry, Darwin: Most male mammals aren’t bigger than females
The idea that most biologically male members of a species are physically larger than the females goes back to Charles Darwin’s 1871 book The Descent of Man. While this is typically true for some species including gorillas, buffalo, and elephants, it is not necessarily a one size fits all fact. A study published March 12 […]
These extinct termites have been stuck in a mating position for 38 million years
It was a mosquito full of dinosaur blood and encased in amber that helped bring the fictional Jurassic Park to life. While real world bugs stuck in sticky substances don’t lead to dangerous dinosaur parks (yet), they do offer scientists a peek into their past shapes and behaviors. A pair of 38 million year-old termites […]
Take a look inside 13,000 animals–no scalpel required
If dissecting a frog in biology class had you begging to be sent home, new 3D scans of thousands of vertebrate species are here to help by letting you peek at animal insides without the mess. The newly completed openVertebrate (oVert) project took five years and brought together 18 natural history institutions to create the free online […]
Meet the new king of the ‘living fossils’
If you take a look at a horseshoe crab, you are essentially peering back in time millions of years. Animals like horseshoe crabs, coelacanths, and the duck-billed platypus are what Charles Darwin called “living fossils” since alive specimens show very few physical differences from their ancestors in the fossil record dating back millions of years. […]
Why we don’t have tails
It has been an enduring evolutionary mystery since the days of Charles Darwin: When did humans lose their tails? Apes–including humans and chimpanzees–are all primates who do not have long tails like lemurs and our other monkey relatives. Thanks to some advances in gene-editing technology, a new clue to ape tail loss has been uncovered. […]
Why are there so many snakes?
In a square-rectangle sort of way, snakes are technically lizards, but for semantics’ sake and because snakes are so distinctive, biologists separate snakes and lizards into different categories. Despite being nested within the same branch of the tree of life, legless, lengthy, and slithering snakes–capable of unhinging their jaws and delivering a venomous bite–stand out […]
You might have more in common with the sea lamprey than you realize
As the adage goes, you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your relatives. This even applies to your distant evolutionary cousins. In terms of a very specific genetic function, humans are a little bit more closely related to the sea lamprey than scientists once believed. According to a study published February 20 in […]
We finally know how baleen whales make noise
Baleen whales, including today’s blue, humpback, and fin whales rely on sounds to live in their watery world. Their songs must be able travel far in the murky, dark ocean so that they can find their kin and migrate hundreds of thousands of miles. In the more than 50 years that scientists have been studying […]