Ecology & Zoology

Studying the genetic variability of endangered species will be necessary for species conservation and monitoring but endangered species are difficult to observe and sample and typically have very…

BOSTON, MA—“The trees are certainly shorter out here,” said Luke. The East Coaster in me bristled instantly. “Well, sure, nothing’s going to measure up to a Redwood,” I said, “but these guys along…

The fossilized fangs of saber-toothed cats, a leopard-sized Promegantereon ogygia and a much larger, lion-sized Machairodus aphanistus, hold clues to how large, extinct mammals once shared space and…

Squid typically die after spawning. Their orphaned eggs are left alone in the cold brine to develop and hatch, never knowing a mother's tender caress.  But as in all of biology, there are…

1.8 million years ago, giant German hippopotamuses wallowed on the banks of the Elbe. Hippos were all over Europe then, along with other megafauna like woolly mammoths and giant cave bears.  …

In the African savannah can reach 149° Fahrenheit in the middle of the day, which leads to burning sand and an obvious problem for anything that lives there,  including small insects that spend…

Dogs are susceptible to contagious yawning just like people, says an article in Animal Cognition, but only after they get older. Dogs, like humans, show a gradual development of susceptibility to…

The best reasons to allow hunting in animal-heavy states are that they get hit by cars a lot and they starve. When it comes to cars, some areas are going to be a lot more dangerous than others and it…

Body hair in mammals is typically thought to have evolved to keep us warm in colder prehistoric periods but in elephants it may do the opposite.  A new study contends epidermal hair may have…

To celebrate International Cephalopod Awareness Days, I decided to comb through all the cephalopod news since last October (and there's been quite a bit of it) to bring you the top ten essential…