The way bats use sound to locate their prey is even more clever than we thought. It turns out that leaf-nosed bats can even find insects that hide themselves from echolocation. In what’s known as acoustic camouflage, insects that sit motionless on leaves can be protected because the echo from the bat’s cry bounces off

Chase Dekker gripped his camera with anticipation. A couple hundred feet from his seat on a whale-watching boat, the waters of Monterey Bay in California teemed with activity. A group of California sea lions had just come up for air after feeding on a school of anchovies, and following close behind them was the main

Indian tiger numbers are up, according to one of the most detailed wildlife surveys ever conducted. Tiger populations have risen by 6 percent, to roughly 3,000 animals. The massive survey may set a new world standard in counting large carnivores. The encouraging results validate India’s impressive investments in tiger conservation. A mammoth effort Large, solitary

Many of us will have experienced that super friendly cat who seems to love being stroked one minute, only to bite or swipe at us the next. It might be easy at this point to blame it on the cat, but what’s likely happening here is that we’re just not stroking them right. To understand

Sometimes all you need is a wild weekend in Las Vegas, amongst the lights, sounds, and attractions of the Sin City. And it seems like grasshoppers are no exception, descending on Las Vegas last week in such numbers that you can even see them on the weather radar. 🤓 Some of you have been asking

On a dry summer day in July, the last thing the United Kingdom weather service expected to see on their radar was rain. At first, it looked as though a light sun shower was falling on the south of England, but upon closer inspection, it was clear that these were not your average clouds. They were,

Thanks to a chance observation during a woodland ramble, scientists have found evidence that trees can keep each other alive by sharing water and other resources – forming a type of ‘superorganism’ that works together to keep individuals alive. In this way, a tree stump has been able to survive and cycle water, even without

Ever since humanity split into dog and cat people, we’ve been arguing over which one of our beloved companions is a smarter species. A study from 2017 mightn’t be the last word on the matter, but for those who think more neurons means more intelligence, it looks as if dogs stand out among carnivores for

Something peculiar has been found inside fossilised clams from the Tamiami Formation in Florida: dozens of tiny, silica-rich glass spheres, no more than a few millimetres in size. Such beads are forged by heat, and can be created by volcanic or industrial activity – but in this case, there’s one big problem. The Tamiami Formation

Unhatched bird embryos can not only hear the warning calls of adult birds – they can communicate that information to their unhatched brothers and sisters sharing the same nest, remaining safely tucked away in their shells until it is safe to hatch. It is a finding that reveals how birds can adapt to their environment

We all know sharks have had a bit of an undeserved bad rap (thanks Jaws!). But if you’re one of those people who find sharks scary, this newly identified species of pocket shark might just change your mind. First up, it’s only about 14 centimetres (5.5 inches) long and has its own pockets tucked in

The question of how life first emerged here on Earth is a mystery that continues to elude scientists. Despite everything that scientists have learned from the fossil record and geological history, it is still not known how organic life emerged from inorganic elements (a process known as abiogenesis) billions of years ago. One of the

Just outside the northernmost city of Alaska, underneath an expanse of white tundra, researchers have found a rich community of microbes bathing in ancient seawater. According to a team from the University of Washington, this underground tomb of briny fluid, known as a cryopeg, has probably been here since at least the last ice age,

More than 28,000 species around the world are threatened, according to the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The list, updated on Thursday night, has assessed the extinction risk of almost 106,000 species and found more than a quarter are in trouble. While recent headline-grabbing

When you put a tardigrade under a microscope, you never know what you’re going to get. These weird-looking ‘water bears’ are some of the strangest creatures on the planet, and they are constantly surprising us. Even once you see them with your own eyes, it can be hard to figure out what the heck is

In 2015, David Hole was prospecting in Maryborough Regional Park near Melbourne, Australia. Armed with a metal detector, he discovered something out of the ordinary – a very heavy, reddish rock resting in some yellow clay. He took it home and tried everything to open it, sure that there was a gold nugget inside the

Lizzie Daly was diving Saturday off the coast of Cornwall in Britain when she saw something large in the distance and did a double take. Daly had seen a barrel jellyfish before but nothing of this size. Daly, a biologist and broadcaster, swam up to the peach-colored creature gliding through the water, as cameraman Dan

It’s not enough for humans to pump less carbon into the atmosphere. To address climate change, many experts say we’re going to need to find a way to remove some of the emissions already polluting our air. While some scientists are focusing on mechanical solutions to carbon capture, researchers at the Salk Institute’s Harnessing Plants

When you think of loud sounds you probably imagine earsplitting screams or whole-body-vibrating booms. Not necessarily the abrupt pop that belongs to a tiny 29-millimetre marine worm (Leocratides kimuraorum). But when marine biologist Ryutaro Goto from Kyoto University and colleagues measured the sounds made by these polychaete worms they came in at a whopping 157

Feasts are rare on the barren landscape of the ocean depths. So researchers couldn’t believe their luck when they recently stumbled on a feeding frenzy of deep-sea sharks chowing down on a fallen swordfish off the US coast. But they never imagined they would also capture footage of one of those sharks becoming the prey