Goats have lived among humans for thousands of years, to the extent that our civilization owes a great debt to them. Indeed, goats are more like us than one might think: incredibly inquisitive, intelligent,...
Animals of Earth
Unusual, exciting, and harrowing stories about the fauna of planet Earth, past and present.
A new study reveals that beluga whales have complex societies that include vast circles of hundreds of friends. Published in Scientific Reports, the study utilized field research and molecular genetic...
A new study reveals that male cicadas, when infected with a mind-controlling fungus that devours large parts of their bodies, will trick other male cicadas into being infested by the same horrifying parasite...
Sharks are renowned as some of the most robust creatures on Earth. Not only have they existed in a similar form for over 300 million years and survived multiple planet-wide extinction events, but sharks...
Polar bears could face extinction by the end of the century as a result of shrinking sea ice in the Arctic caused by climate change, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change....
In a potentially massive breakthrough for a number of scientific disciplines, a team of scientists report they were able to perform the first gene knockout in a cephalopod — that is, rendering a specific...
The idea that prehistoric animals may be trapped perfectly in amber, preserved for millions of years, isn't just a staple of dino-cloning sci-fi franchises like "Jurassic Park." On Thursday, scientists...
Human activity on Earth has led to a surge in extinctions, which is what makes it so exciting that the New Guinea Singing Dog, which scientists have thought for decades only survived in captivity, may...
A new study that examined five different types of seafood found that traces of plastic contaminants were present in every single sample — suggesting that humans ingest a large amount of plastic pollution...
Environmentalists and farmers were relieved to discover that the mysterious and sudden drop in bee populations in the past decade turned out to be linked to neonicotinoids, a class of insecticides that...
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, figured out a clever way to deduce which animals are susceptible to the novel coronavirus — without putting any of our animal friends at risk by intentionally...
This article originally appeared on Undark. When Ralph Fisher, a Texas cattle rancher, set eyes on one of the world's first cloned calves in August 1999, he didn't care what the scientists said: He knew...
This story originally appeared on Massive Science, an editorial partner site that publishes science stories by scientists. Subscribe to their newsletter to get even more science sent straight to you. has...
A new report reveals that large and "unprecedented" numbers of migratory birds are mysteriously dying in New Mexico, with ominous implications for the environment as a whole. This was the conclusion reached...