Off the coast of Liberia lies an island inhabited solely by chimpanzees that were infected with a barrage of diseases and abandoned there by a testing lab. It sounds like the beginning of a movie, but there’s nothing fictional about this place. New visitors to “Monkey Island”—as it’s called by locals—are unwelcome. Apart from a […] More
Forget the reindeer decorations — folks in some parts of the world adorn their Christmas trees with spider ornaments, instead. The unusual arachnid ornaments are part of a centuries-old Eastern European Christmas tradition. The legend of the Christmas spider is believed to have originated in Ukraine, and according to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, […] More
Christmas Island, a tiny Australian territory in the middle of the Indian Ocean, has a bit of a crab problem. An estimated 40 to 50 million Christmas Island crabs reside on this 52 square mile island. In comparison, the human population there is only about 2,000. Each year, these fire-engine red crustaceans make their way […] More
Early humans roamed the planet with a colossal shaggy rhinoceros that scientists have dubbed the “Siberian unicorn.” The so-called unicorn, officially known as Elasmotherium sibericum, was a large rhinoceros that wandered Eastern Europe and Central Asia from 2.6 million years ago until just around 39,000 years ago. The animals weighed a staggering 4 tons and were adorned […] More
The iconic tusked elephant may soon be a thing of the past, say researchers. Male African elephants’ tusks are smaller than in the past, and many females are missing them altogether due to years of intense poaching pressure. Because individuals with the largest tusks have been targeted by poachers for so long, their genetics are […] More
Sperm whales are so loud that their clicks are capable of killing a human within their vicinity, says one science and adventure journalist. James Nestor, an avid ocean-goer and author, claimed in a recent presentation that a fellow diver was swimming alongside a pod of sperm whales when one approached him out of curiosity. He put […] More
If you thought crocodiles were intimidating, you might be horrified to know that an aggressive, 9-ft-long crocodilian predator once patrolled its North American hunting grounds on hind legs, snacking on small mammals and reptiles. Carnufex carolinensis — also known as the “Carolina Butcher” — existed long before the dinosaurs rose to dominance, roughly 230 million years ago. The […] More
Wombats may have the most uniquely-shaped poo in the animal kingdom, and scientists have finally figured out why. Wombats, cousins of the koala, are the only animals to produce cube-shaped scat. They use their feces to communicate with each other through scent and mark territory by piling the pieces next to burrows or on logs […] More
Human activity is killing wildlife on an unprecedented scale — and mammals will need millions of years to recover, according to a recent report. Researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark have concluded that if we don’t improve current conservation efforts, so many large mammal species will go extinct in the next 50 years that it will […] More
In an extremely rare find, researchers have discovered the fossil of an extinct animal—considered to be an early relative of mammals—lying next to her 38 babies. The fossils, unearthed from sediments in the Kayenta Formation, are the only known fossils of babies from a mammal precursor. The extraordinary number of offspring (more than twice the […] More
In a controversial move, China has made it legal to use rhino horn and tiger bone for “medicinal purposes,” lifting a ban that had been in place to protect both species since 1993. According to a statement by the State Council, rhino horns and tiger bones can now be sold and used for “medical research” […] More
Researchers recently happened upon an unprecedented sighting — more than 1,000 female octopuses huddled close together in what they describe as an “octopus garden” two miles beneath the waves in the Pacific. The team was exploring the Southeast Davidson Seamount off the coast of California with Explorer Vessel Nautilus when they came across the incredible […] More
