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  • Hummingbirds Use Complex Brains to Power Their Impressive Movements

    Hummingbirds may have tiny brains, but they’re unusually powerful. A new study, published in Current Biology, says the way the tiny birds fly — flitting abruptly in every direction and using rapidly-beating wings to hover — requires a lot of brain power. Hummingbirds are the only species of bird that’s able to truly hover, and to do […] More

  • What These Real-Life Dragons Can Teach Us About Flying Dinosaurs

    If you think dragons are just the epic imaginary creatures of fantasy books and movies, you’ve never been to a Southeast Asian jungle. There, dragons are very real … albeit a bit smaller than the Game of Thrones version. Draco lizards are abundant in forests and jungles in Asia and Southern India, and their range […] More

  • These Ancient Crocodiles Had a Taste for Human Flesh

    Millions of years ago in East Africa, gruesome predators hunted our human ancestors on land and in the water. A new study published by researchers at the University of Iowa announced the discovery of two ancient species of giant dwarf crocodile that roamed the African continent between 15 and 18 million years ago. “Giant dwarf” […] More

  • Secret Super Colony of Penguins Spotted from Space

    The number of Adélie Penguins, the species most common on the Antarctic Peninsula, has been steadily declining for several decades. At least, that’s what scientists thought, until researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and NASA discovered something interesting in satellite imagery of the Danger Islands, off the peninsula’s northern coast. The images revealed guano (bird […] More

  • World’s Tiniest Monkeys are the Size of a Large Tomato

    The world’s tiniest monkeys are actually not one, but two separate species, researchers using the latest genomics techniques learned recently. First discovered by a German researcher named Johann Spix in 1823, the itty bitty creatures, which average 0.2 pounds in weight, were named Cebuella pygmaea. Now, researchers have discovered there are actually two tiny species of marmoset […] More

  • These Falcons Imprison Other Birds Before Eating Them

    It turns out falcons in Morocco could be the ultimate bad guys. On the Essaouira archipelago, researchers witnessed a species of bird called the Eleonora’s falcon capturing smaller birds and holding them captive for days before killing them. In Alauda, a French ornithology journal, Abdeljebbar Qninba of Mohammed V University reported the predatory behavior he […] More

  • Sea Turtles Are Surprisingly Good at Using Their Flippers Like Hands

    Sea turtles are specially designed for swimming: their flippers are incredibly good at dispersing water, propelling them through the water for miles at a time. However, those fingerless limbs typically don’t help much when it comes to handling their food … or so scientists thought until now. While they typically rely on just their mouths, […] More

  • 500 Million-Year-Old Fossilized Brains Discovered

    Scientists have gained new insight into the evolutionary development of brain and nervous system tissue, after examining fossilized brain tissue from a Cambrian sea creature that lived in modern-day Greenland half a billion years ago. The extinct species, Kerygmachela kierkegaardi, was a predator with a long, spiny tail and front appendages used to grab prey. At […] More

  • Ancient “Spider With a Tail” Arachnid Discovered Preserved in Amber

    Researchers in Myanmar have discovered specimens of Chimerarachne yingi, an ancient arachnid and cousin of the modern spider, perfectly preserved in amber. The little critters look a lot like spiders we’re familiar with today, with one big difference. The Chimerarachne yingi has a long tail, like an early version of the tail on modern scorpions. According to the research […] More

  • These Megabats Are in Jeopardy Thanks to the Value of Their Teeth

    Paper money does exist on Makira, a small island in the eastern Solomon Islands. But the people there don’t always count their fortunes in bills and change; on Makira, bat teeth are more valuable than money, and people hunt the creatures – mostly for food, but often, for their teeth. There are two species of […] More

  • These Venomous Fish Have Retractable Blades in Their Faces

    Researchers at the University of Kansas discovered that stonefish — a group of fish common in Indo-Pacific coastal waters — have a horrifying defense mechanism: a retractable switchblade in either cheek. Called “lachrymal sabers,” the blades are controlled by overdeveloped bones and muscles below the eyes and extend outwards from the cheek when activated. Though […] More

  • Endangered Shark Spotted for the First Time in a Decade — in a Fish Market

    The Ganges river shark (scientific name Glyphis gangeticus) hasn’t been spotted for more than 10 years. In fact, the critically endangered freshwater carnivore is so elusive, researchers’ knowledge of it is limited to what they’ve been able to learn from three museum specimens preserved in the 1800s. But recently, the shark was rediscovered in the last place […] More

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