Unbelievable footage of a polar bear chasing a reindeer into the water, dragging it ashore and eating it was captured on video in the arctic. The young female bear drowned the sizable male reindeer in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, which lies about halfway between Norway and the North Pole. Rare events like these are […] More
Meet the olinguito, a tiny elusive mammal described by scientists as a cross between a teddy bear and a house cat. Olinguitos were misidentified for over a century, despite the fact that there are many specimens in museum collections and some have even resided at zoos. It wasn’t until 2013 that a team researching its […] More
When it comes to snakes, most of the attention goes to highly venomous varieties (like cobras and vipers) and constrictors (like boas and pythons.) This makes sense since many of these species are either quite dangerous to humans or, at least, perceived to be. But there’s a remarkable diversity of snakes and their lifestyles—and some […] More
The bearded vulture appears to be one of the most terrifying birds of prey, known for dyeing its feathers blood red and feasting on the bones of animals. The vulture, Gypaetus barbatus, is native to crags in high mountainous regions, including Southern Europe, Africa, Tibet, and the Caucasus. It is the only known animal whose diet is […] More
Believe it or not, Americans once considered importing hippos from Africa so we could raise them for meat. The idea was proposed back in 1910, while the United States was in the middle of a serious meat shortage. A massive population explosion combined with overgrazed farmland resulted in skyrocketing beef prices as farmers scrambled to […] More
Frogs have the incredible ability to entirely freeze their bodies during cold conditions and when it gets warm, thaw back to life and go on their way — without missing a hop. While all wild animals have means of managing the winter season, few perform a feat quite like the frog. Instead of migrating to […] More
All sorts of strange giant predators roamed the Earth thousands of years ago during the Ice Age. But new research is changing what scientists thought they knew about one of those animals — a giant saber-toothed cat with long, serrated steak-knife teeth that may have existed alongside early modern humans. Homotherium — or the scimitar […] More
Most of us are probably familiar with the occasional mid-night voyage to a drive-through window to quell the munchies. Well, one small species of bat takes the concept of long-distance moonlit foraging to whole other level. Lesser long-nosed bats (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) are native to a large swath of territory that takes up much of Mexico, […] More
Sharks, in turns out, are the kings of coexistence. Scientists have just discovered that the animals conserve resources and avoid one another by voluntarily hunting in shifts. The research out of Murdoch University’s Harry Butler Institute is the first example of marine predators dividing up resources in a shared foraging area. Drs. Karissa Lear and […] More
A marine biologist in Australia recently captured incredible cephalopod video footage — an octopus rolling a plastic pipe containing its eggs back into the ocean after it had washed ashore. Sheree Marris was walking along a beach in Melbourne when she happened upon a discarded plastic pipe. Picking it up to examine it, she noticed […] More
Tardigrades are phylum of aquatic, microscopic animals with segmented bodies and eight legs. Because they live in the water and walk much like bears, they are more commonly known as water bears. However, as boring as they may seem, they are anything but that. Water bears are practically invincible and indestructible. Water bears are fairly […] More
An estimated 70 orcas recently worked together to take down and devour a 50-foot juvenile blue whale off the coast of western Australia — a feat that has only been recorded a handful of times. The attack took place in Bremer Canyon, a thriving ecosystem where orcas are frequently spotted in the summer months. Multiple […] More
