Wildlife

Few animals appear to be able to communicate with a range as complex and intricate as humans. Those language skills may exist in a limited capacity in our nearest evolutionary neighbors, the great apes, many of whom have been trained to communicate via sign language by human researchers. Yet while sign language is communicated physically, researchers did not believe that great apes possessed their own comparable, complex spoken language.

A new species of invasive jumping worms has been discovered in at least 34 states, and scientists are concerned. CBS Minnesota's Erin Hassanzadeh reports from Minneapolis.

If you have never heard of a Dragonhunter, you're not alone. Before this morning, when my friend tagged me in a comment on Facebook, I had never heard of one either and despite the scary-looking creature in the photo my friend was drawing my attention to, it turns out it isn't quite so scary after all - at least not for humans.

We've been known to tell some true whoppers when it comes to fish stories involving the Mississippi River. One of the greatest of them all is the tale of the monster catfish that was so large it spit out a diver. Let's explore this legend and see how much truth lies down there.

Tales of dolphins coming to the rescue of drowning sailors and people being attacked by sharks have been circulating for years. In 2004, a British-born lifeguard named Rob Howes experienced firsthand how it is to be saved by dolphins.

Growing food in a hostile landscape is good practice for space stations and other planets. Deposit PhotosThe hostile, extreme and alien Antarctic is a convenient analog for space exploration, where nations can test space technologies and protocols, including plant production.

Wasps have always had a bad press. But Dr Seirian Sumner, who has spent her life studying them, argues they are sophisticated, socially complex and essential to the environment. In The Wasp Woman, a 1959 B-movie directed by Roger Corman, the owner of a failing cosmetics company becomes the test...

It feels a bit strange to publish a paper that we want proved wrong – we have identified the 63 Australian birds, mammals, fish, frogs and reptiles most likely to go extinct in the next 20 years. Australia’s extinction record is abysmal, and we felt the best way to stop it was to identify the species at greatest risk, as they require the most urgent action. Leading up to this paper, we worked with conservation biologists and managers from around the country to publish research on the species closest to extinction within each broad group of animals. Birds and mammals...

Georgia State University scientists were "really surprised" after a gene-editing experiment led to Syrian hamsters showing high levels of aggression.

A study using 10 years of citizen science data from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust's BeeWalk scheme has found that a variety of targeted conservation approaches are needed to protect UK bumblebee species. The findings are published the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology. Researchers at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust,...

Stonehenge builders and their dogs may have indirectly consumed parasitic worms, according to a new study. After finding the worms from ancient feces in the area, scientists asserted that the ancient builders feasted on raw or undercooked cattle organs of animals infected with the parasites. The research indicated that eating...

Sinosauropteryx were prominent in the Cretaceous and Jurassic periods. This post may contain affiliate links to our partners like Chewy, Amazon, and others. Purchasing through these helps us further the A-Z Animals mission to educate about the world's species.. Sinosauropteryx Pictures. View all of our Sinosauropteryx pictures in the gallery.

Some readers asked for help in determining the identity of some birds that they have encountered. I tried to offer some insight into each query. First, Lynda Carter in the Lamar community of Washington County emailed me recently with a question about a possible sighting of a red-headed woodpecker. “I...

Asian elephants, like their African cousins, seem to mourn their dead, sometimes even carrying their lost infants in their trunks for days or weeks, new research finds. Whether elephants understand death in the same way humans do is unknown — and probably unknowable. But Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are social creatures, and the new research adds to the evidence that they experience some sort of emotional response when they lose one of their own.

This post may contain affiliate links to our partners like Chewy, Amazon, and others. Purchasing through these helps us further the A-Z Animals mission to educate about the world's species.. Phorusrhacos Pictures. View all of our Phorusrhacos pictures in the gallery. Michael Rosskothen/Shutterstock.com. View all of the Phorusrhacos images!. Phorusrhacos...

The first fossil from the genus Arctotherium was discovered back in 1852. This post may contain affiliate links to our partners like Chewy, Amazon, and others. Purchasing through these helps us further the A-Z Animals mission to educate about the world's species.. View all of the Arctotherium images!. Arctotherium is...

Recently, there have been rare sightings of orcas swimming off Cape Cod, at the same time great white sharks-which they feast upon-begin arriving there.

Termites are a type of cockroach that split from other cockroaches around 150 million years ago and evolved to live socially in colonies. Today, there are many different kinds of termites. Some form large colonies with millions of individuals, which tend to live in connected tunnels in the soil. Others, including most species known as drywood termites, form much smaller colonies of less than 5,000 individuals, and live primarily in wood.

In 1988, a biologist at Michigan State University, Richard Lenski, set up 12 flasks of E. coli and his group has maintained and followed their evolution ever since. Periodically, subsamples are frozen, enabling scientists to compare the bacteria at different points in time by bringing them back to life. Over...

Scientists are now scouring YouTube videos to crowdsource the interactions of Asian elephants and their response to death. Elephants are emotionally intelligent animals known to display grief at the loss of herd mates, and scientists have previously documented wild African elephants taking interest in the bones of their deceased. However,...