Living World / Unusual Organisms

What Is This... A Hi-Tech Pin Cushion?

Hint: There are a lot fewer of them now than there were a few years ago. 11.18.2009

Treating Disease With Nature’s Deadliest Toxins

Drug companies and scientists are turning nature’s weapons into life-saving treatments. 10.22.2009

Humans vs Animals: Our Fiercest Battles With Invasive Species

From Burmese pythons to Galapagos goats, these animals are threatening a hostile takeover—unless we can stop them. 09.24.2009

Earth's Own Underwater Aliens

Marine biologist Edie Widder's underwater spy camera finally gives humans a chance to see the freaky world of deep-ocean bioluminescent animals. 08.27.2009

Flash, Deception & Suicide: 10 Remarkable Tricks of Animal Mating

From strutting their stuff to committing suicide, some animals will stop at nothing to make sure they get a crack at reproducing. 07.23.2009

Why Ghost Hunters Is the Best Science Show on TV

No matter how silly and misguided, Ghost Hunters captures an element of science that Numb3rs, House, and even Mythbusters miss. 07.22.2009

Cool Killers: The Beauty of Deadly Pathogens

From swine flu to Ebola, you’ve never seen infectious agents quite like these. 06.11.2009

A Nearly Perfect Bloodsucker: The Tick

The tick's salivary proteins change daily, so if a victim produces antibodies against today's saliva, they're useless a few days later. 06.09.2009

The Plants That Eat Animals

The deadly lure of carnivorous plants has long captivated botanists. Today, researchers still puzzle over the bizarre members of nature’s Little Shop of Horrors. 05.12.2009

What Is This? A Piece of Rainbow Rock?

Hint: To forensic technicians it's a valuable timer; to medical doctors it's a defense against infection. 04.25.2009

Cannibalism: The Animal Kingdom's Dirty Little Secret

Throughout the animal kingdom, species sometimes get hungry for their own. 04.01.2009

Visual Science: A Close Look at the Original Information Superhighway

A detailed microscope image shows the complicated structure of a fish's nervous system. 03.05.2009

Visual Science: A Glow Below

Fluorescent coral captured on film 02.28.2009

Darwin's Dystopias: Ghastly Visions Inspired by Evolution

A new collection of art shows how one scientist shocked the world. 02.12.2009

Six Sites That Are the Galapagos For Modern Darwins

Researchers see amazing twists of evolution at the biological hot spots. 02.10.2009

What is This? A Windshield's Worst Nightmare Come True?

It may look like a worthless rock, but it can be encrusted with diamonds or used to find black gold. 02.05.2009

Think Animals Don't Think Like Us? Think Again

One extraordinary parrot helped shatter our preconceptions about animal intelligence. 01.20.2009

What is This? The Innards of a Daisy?

It's not a flower, but it does get its nice looks from photosynthesis. 12.23.2008

#33: The First Known Case of Virus-Attacks-Virus

Sputnik virus seems to have influenced evolution of the Mamavirus. 12.16.2008

#53: Bizarre Aquatic Creatures Are Secretly "Lesbian Necrophiliacs"

Asexual bdelloids aren't really asexual after all. 12.12.2008

#71: Slime Molds Show Surprising Degree of Intelligence

A creature with no brain can learn from and even anticipate events. 12.09.2008

#79: The Ancient Rat as Big as a Bull

This giant rodent weighed as much as a compact car. 12.09.2008

#88: Bacteria Can Control the Weather

The tiny organisms may play a big role in causing precipitation. 12.07.2008

#90: The Platypus Genome Is a Mash-Up of Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals

One animal, three completely different ancestors. 12.07.2008

#92: A 380-Million-Year-Old Fish Gives Birth

Paleontologists unearth a prehistoric pregnant skeleton. 12.05.2008

#98: You're More Like a Sponge Than a Comb Jelly

A gelatinous zooplankton can now trace its roots back to the world's first life. 12.04.2008

#100: This Animal Has the Strongest Bite on Earth

A bite from the biggest great white sharks leaves nearly every other species—both alive and extinct—in the dust. 12.04.2008

The Ocean's Last Remaining Secrets

Marine biologists in the world's only undersea lab find wonder hidden in the depths. 10.31.2008

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Blood-Suckers

From vampire bats to parasitic catfish, a new book spells out the secret lives of plasma-loving beasts. 10.29.2008

The Inner Life of Fish Revealed… by X-Rays

These stunning images offer a look inside the world's largest collection of fish. 09.24.2008

Wind Turbine That Imitates Flippers Could Increase Efficiency

The bumps on a humpback's flipper prevent the beast from stalling as it turns. 08.15.2008

Are Efforts to Save the Panda a Giant Waste of Money?

Sure, they're magnificent beasts, but they may be sucking eco-dollars from other, more critical species. 08.12.2008

10 Ways Genetically Engineered Microbes Could Help Humanity

Fighting cancer, producing renewable fuels, and making your clothing glow in the dark. 08.06.2008

Could Pandas Be an Evolutionary Mistake—or Proof of an Intelligent Designer?

They don’t seem to care for sex or proper nutrition, raising questions about whether the fittest have survived. 08.05.2008

Zombie Animals and the Parasites that Control Them

Parasitic wasps, worms, and other creepy-crawlies that take over the minds of their hosts. 08.04.2008

3 Robots That Move Just Like Animals

A wall-crawling gecko, a paperclip-size fly, and an 8-tentacled jellyfish. 07.04.2008

The World According to Fungi

From slimy to friendly, these invaders live in symbiosis with plants—and us. 06.18.2008

Do You See What Shrimp See?

The mantis shrimp can pick up on ultraviolet, infrared—and circular polarization. 06.13.2008

Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo

"When a Grayia strikes at her, she lets it bite—finally proving to her horrified guide that it isn’t poisonous." 05.07.2008

Each Grain of Sand a Tiny Work of Art

Microscopic photos of sand show that it's a lot more than just little tan rocks. 05.01.2008

Strange Molelike Animal Melts Ice Tunnels With Its Head

The hotheaded naked ice borer may have feasted on a polar explorer. 04.01.2008

One Woman’s Fight to Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird

An excerpt from The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw 03.07.2008

It’s Not Easy Being Seen

No need to dissect this see-through frog to learn how it works 02.05.2008

The Cruelty-Free Dissection

Hi-res X-rays can peer inside meteorites, cavemen, and cell phones. 02.05.2008

Animals as Architects

The first structure visible from space was made by wombats. 12.28.2007

Beetle of Many Colors

A golden beetle can turn itself brick red in under two minutes. 12.14.2007

Mapping the Mammal Takeover

A family tree illustrates the rise and diversification of furry animals. 11.23.2007

Stupid Science Word of the Month: Shmoo

Shmoos are essential: without them, we would have neither bread nor beer. 11.09.2007

Attack of the Giant (Extinct) Insects!

They just don't make two-foot dragonflies like they used to. Here's why. 11.02.2007

Halloween Science: Bacteria of the Living Dead

Chop up their DNA and the buggers still keep comin' back to life. 10.31.2007

Birds Navigate Using Magnetic Compass-Vision

Combined with a GPS beak, it leads them on marathon migrations. 10.30.2007

Amazing Tiny Photos

The best microphotography of the year brings the very small world into very sharp focus. 10.05.2007

The Last Unexplored Place on Earth

Scientists race to discover the secret world buried miles beneath Antarctica. 09.28.2007

Hearing the Footsteps of Extinct Animals

Researchers infer how animals moved by studying inner-ear gyroscopes. 09.20.2007

Eating Spiders Can Fix a Bird Brain

Blue tits raise smart, brave chicks by feeding them arachnids. 09.19.2007

Teflon-ized Frog Chemical Could Save You from Disease

The nonstick pan coating cooks up a mean antibiotic. 09.14.2007

Are Jellyfish Taking Over the World?

The brainless blobs are booming. All scientists know is it isn't good. 09.13.2007

Do Jellyfish Rule the World?

The brainless blobs are booming. All scientists know is it isn’t good. 09.13.2007

4 Robots That Are Saving the World

Smart machines help fix humanity's ecological screwups. 09.07.2007

Sage Grouse Bot

09.06.2007

Stupid Science Word of the Month

Montypythonoides riversleighensis, n., an extinct Australian snake 09.04.2007

Frigid Antarctic Seas Boil Over with Biodiversity

Researchers find 750 new species, including the carnivorous moonsnail. 08.09.2007

Earth Speaks in an Inaudible Voice

You can’t hear it, but our planet’s ultradeep hum could save your life. 08.02.2007

Stupid Science Word of the Month

Phthiria relativitae, n. Pronunciation: \theory o’relativity\ 07.26.2007

Jumbo Squid Invade California Coast

Human-caused environmental changes are a boon for the "red devil." 07.26.2007

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Mosquitoes

They use the signature buzz as a mating call. 07.23.2007

Aliens Among Us

Do we share Earth with alternative life forms? 06.27.2007

Against All Odds, Sex Has Returned

A mite reevolves sex after hundreds of millions of years without it. 06.19.2007

Your Body Is a Planet

90% of the cells within us are not ours but microbes'. 06.19.2007

Is Dirt the New Prozac?

Injections of soil bacteria produce serotonin—and happiness—in mice. 06.14.2007

Sweeping The Ocean Floor

Strange sea creatures caught on film for the first time 06.13.2007

Message in a Bacterium

Researchers use DNA as a post-human time capsule. 06.04.2007

Air Force Ponders Bat-Planes

Nimble wings may inspire aircraft of the future. 05.15.2007

Ocean's Glowing

Most animals in the deep ocean have some kind of luminescence for communication or defense. 05.09.2007

How to Pinpoint a Pinniped

It's easy—stick a big radio transmitter on their heads. 05.04.2007

Darwin’s Lost World

Evolution is alive and swimming in Borneo. 04.26.2007

Review: Mysteries of the Deep

Amazing photos of animals living in the darkest, deepest ocean 04.24.2007

Review: Earth Puts on Its Sunday Best

Discovery Channel's Planet Earth series draws toward a close. 04.18.2007

Unstoppable Babies

Newborn dolphins and killer whales don't sleep. At all. 04.10.2007

Caught in the Hot Zone

Ebola drives gorillas toward extinction. 04.09.2007

Raw Data: Beacon Bird of Climate Change

Penguin poop reveals secrets of the Antarctic climate. 04.04.2007

Bondo Mystery Ape

Proves to be a chimpanzee with unusual habits. 03.15.2007

Natural Selections: Prairie Dogs of Death

Jungle viruses hitch a ride into the U.S. via exotic pets. 03.09.2007

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Bees

Undertaker bees, the queens who were called kings, how honey helps wounds... 03.08.2007

Speaking Songbird

A human speech gene is found in other sonically skilled animals: songbirds, hummingbirds, bats, and dolphins. 03.07.2007

Galapagos Reconsidered

A Harvard physicist finds that the "Enchanted Islands" are not always pretty. 02.24.2007

E.T.'s Arctic Cousins?

An unusual discovery in remote Canada may help us humans find the nearest extraterrestrial life. 02.23.2007

Natural Selections: Brazilian Rendezvous

Primatologists devise ways for critically threatened monkeys to meet and mate. 11.01.2006

Extinction—It's What's for Dinner

A tip-off from a taxi driver reveals how bush meat gets to Brooklyn. 10.20.2006

World's Smallest GPS System

Using pig hairs as stilts may give ants impressively long strides, but it throws off their step-counting navigational technique. 10.16.2006

Still Extinct?

Experts deny ivory-billed woodpecker find. 04.03.2006

Unintelligent Design

A monstrous discovery suggests that viruses, long regarded as lowly evolutionary latecomers, may have been the precursors of all life on Earth 03.15.2006

Antsy in Madagascar

A bushwhacking biologist unearths six-legged vampires, cannibals, and silk weavers in his quest to bring every ant on the planet into your home. 03.06.2006

A New Source of Terror: Drunk Birds

Avian flu or flying under the influence? 02.08.2006

The Year in Science: Biology

Giant squid sighting, mice that regenerate body parts, sweet-smelling parasites, and more. 01.09.2006

Biologists Find Life in Dark Frigid Trough

Biologists Find Life in Dark Frigid Trough 11.22.2005

Venomous Mouse Found

Is This a Job For Venomouse? 10.24.2005

Seafloor Food Source Identified

Seafloor Food Source Identified 10.24.2005

The Mother of Gardens

Countless plants Americans tend with pride all came from the wilds of China. 08.06.2005

Illuminated Life

Meet the true masters of optics: Animals that know a lot more about slicing, dicing, and twisting beams of light than we do 08.06.2005

The Biology of . . . Cryogenics

Wood frogs survive long periods in a deep freeze. Can people do the same? 02.06.2005

Bzzzzzzzz

Why insects are vital to human survival 06.26.2004

Where Penguins Soar

06.17.2004

Splendor in the Dark

Scientists have discovered that fish in the ocean glow, gleam, spark, and light up like neon signs. Now they want to know how 05.29.2004

20,000 Microbes Under the Sea

Scientists have discovered that nearly a third of all the life on this planet consists of microbes living under the seafloor in a dark world without oxygen. Many of these tiny creatures make so much methane gas that if even a small proportion of it is released, we might be overwhelmed by huge tsunamis, runaway global warming, and extinctions 03.28.2004

Blast from the Vast

What's the purpose of nature's most powerful sound? 12.03.2003

The Secret Life of Ants

A myrmecologist captures the delicate subterranean mansions of the insect world's master architects 11.07.2003

In the Octopus's Kindergarten

Scientists discover that even deep-sea creatures dote on their kids. 10.18.2003

The Virus, the Manatee, and the Biologist

For once, saving an endangered species could save us too 08.01.2003

Pumped-up Sharks

07.01.2003

The Genetics of . . . Dogs

Biologists say our champion purebreds could use some reverse engineering 04.01.2003

Squid Sensitivity

The more electrophysiologist William Gilly learns about these mysterious denizens of the deep, the more they seem like an alien intelligence 04.01.2003

Transsexual Frogs

A popular weed killer makes some frogs grow the wrong sex organs. Your drinking water may have 30 times the dose they're getting 02.01.2003

The Chemistry of . . . Glue

Biochemists turn to mussels for a real bonding experience 02.01.2003

If All The Trees Fall in the Forest

Two sleuthing scientists track down the cause of sudden oak death, a new disease that threatens every oak, redwood, and Douglas fir in the country 12.01.2002

Kingdom of the Panda

Can these threatened creatures thrive in freedom? Studies in the wild find reason for hope 11.01.2002

Eau d'Oiseau

11.01.2002

Blue Revolution

Fish farming is rapidly becoming a bigger enterprise than beef ranching. Critics contend it is also destroying land along coasts and hastening the demise of wild fish 09.01.2002

Wilding America

Connect our last parcels of wilderness, like pearls on a necklace, and mountain lions, bobcats, and wolves might once again roam their ancestral ranges 09.01.2002

Cetacean Scatology

08.01.2002

Like Alaska, Like Europa

Could Jupiter's frozen moon support some arctic-like microbes? 05.01.2002

Talking Plants

Plants have more than thorns and thistles to protect themselves—they can cry for help 04.01.2002

When Life Was Hell

03.01.2002

Bloodsuckers

When modern medicine needs some help, surgeons call in mother nature's little helper—the leech 12.01.2001

The Biology of . . . Spider Silk

The race to synthesize the world's strongest fiber 09.01.2001

The Whale that Goes

09.01.2001

The Physics of . . . Deep-sea Animals

Evolution isn't pretty at 15,000 pounds per square inch 08.01.2001

Works in Progress

Chemists concoct a bait more tantalizing than human flesh 08.01.2001

Tuxedo Junction

Half a million penguins pull up to this bleak shore in Patagonia every year, after one of the most astonishing migrations in all of nature. One woman is trying to keep it that way. 07.01.2001

Is That a Mountain Lion in Your Backyard?

For two centuries these majestic cats have stayed as far from civilization as possible. But recently they seem to be developing a taste for suburban life 06.01.2001

High Life

03.01.2001

The Cold Zone

Testing a new theory of mammoth extinction in 02.01.2001

Sea Sick

Killer whales that live near Seattle are dying too soon and too often. Are they harbingers of an oceanic collapse—and are we next? 02.01.2001

One Marsupial Too Many

Australians face the same problem with koalas as Americans do with deer. The pesky critters seem too cute to kill but are destroying a lot of precious habitat 12.01.2000

New Life in a Death Trap

Will algae blooming in an acidic, poisonous Montana mine lead us to an answer for Superfund sites? 12.01.2000

Do Parasites Rule the World?

New evidence indicates our idea of how nature really works could be wrong 08.01.2000

Wolves at the Door

Can We Learn to Dance with Wild Things Again? 06.01.2000

The Deadliest Carnivore

Half mongoose, half clouded leopard, Madagascar's fossa is rarely seen and barely understood yet essential to the natural balance of this threatened Eden 04.01.2000

The Physics of. . . Insect Flight

Insects have long been the best fliers around, but no one knew what kept them in the air--until now 04.01.2000

Bubbling Under

03.01.2000

Hanging by a Thread

With all but a quarter of Hawaii's native birds extinct or endangered, and its other species dying off faster than the dinosaurs, some island ecologists are risking their lives to save what's left 02.01.2000

Polly Wanna Ph.D.?

How smart can an animal get? Ask Irene Pepperberg's parrots. They'll be glad to discuss the subject with you 01.01.2000

Purple Passion

Most botanists in this country want to kill every single one of those gorgeous plants. Could they be wrong? 08.01.1999

To Hell and Back

In the hot, radioactive world miles below us, microbe hunters encounter bizarre bugs that eat and breathe geologic ingredients like iron, manganese, and sulfur and, gasp, maybe our ancestors 07.01.1999

Skin Breathers

06.01.1999

In Search of Megaplumes

Imagine volcanoes that erupt with giant spinning plumes filled with microbes and other life that spin like a discus for months. Welcome to the strange, almost completely unknown life of undersea eruptions. 03.01.1999

Whole Lotta Bugs

12.01.1998

Octoplay

11.01.1998

Dry as a Dust Mite

09.01.1998

Turtle Tears

08.01.1998

Ocean Watch: Bringing Tube Worms Back Alive

Until James Childress built his unique aquarium, you could find live tube worms only on the ocean floor, at depths of two miles or more. 05.01.1998

Coils of Time

It's not easy studying the nautilus, a creature that lurks in the depths of the ocean and emerges only at night to prowl the coral reefs. But the rewards are great: discovering just how old a living fossil can be. 03.01.1998

Light Elements: In the Nose of Jaws

Some parasitic copepods have seizedon a unique piece of ocean real estate. 03.01.1998

The Year in Science: Animals 1997

White Penguin Spotted 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Animals 1997

Scarce Sharks Netted 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Environment 1997

The Jaws You Can't See 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Plants 1997

An Ancient Convenience 01.01.1998

Bat Spit

09.01.1997

Deep Sea Rebirth

07.01.1997

Looking for Life in All the Wrong Places

Microbes from the least hospitable places on Earth, could seed the universe with life. 05.01.1997

Bacterial Cement

Limestone-building bacteria could mend cracks in concrete. 04.01.1997

Fiber-optic Sponges

03.01.1997

Whirlybird

03.01.1997

The Dolphin Strategy

By all rights, life in the sea should leave a dolphin baked, crushed, and sterile. This graceful mammal avoids such a fate only by slipping through loopholes in the laws of physiology. 03.01.1997

Archae Tells All

Genetic testing reveals our long-lost cousins thriving in some of the most extreme environments on Earth. 01.01.1997

Subtle Cuttle

12.01.1996

Superant

11.01.1996

The Light at the Bottom of the Sea

Two miles below the surface of the sea, a mysterious glow emerges from cracks in the Earth. In that glow, the first steps to photosynthesis may have taken place, 3.8 billion years ago. 11.01.1996

Home on the Bone

10.01.1996

Beetle of Burden

04.01.1996

Rock-Eating Slime

03.01.1996

The Fake Smell of Death

Novel chemicals may help teach dogs to sniff out corpses, drugs, and bombs. 03.01.1996

Hypersea Invasion

Why is life on land such a spectacular success? Because, say Dianna and Mark McMenamin, 450 million years ago life created Hypersea--a vast new ocean of interconnected tissues whose ways are chartered by pioneering fungi and parasites. 10.01.1995

The Processing Plant

Bugs that fall into a purple pitcher plant get drowned in acid. Their carcasses are then ground up by a microscopic disassembly line: a chain of insect larvae that thrive in the pitcher pool, cooperating to feed themselves--and the plant. 09.01.1995

The Trembling Giant

The quaking aspen, one of this country's most beautiful trees, also makes up the world's most massive organism. 10.01.1993

Jurassic Sea Monsters

Extinction comes to species on land and in the sea but not in the same way. As the tales of some remarkable creatures from many millions of years ago show who goes first is a matter of ecology. 09.01.1993

Killer Algae

A horrific predatory little plant is beating up on fish around the world. 04.01.1993

Time Zero

12.01.1992

The Evolution of the Dragon

In the jungles of Indonesia, those giant, cold-blooded, man-eating monsters of Yore have not only survived, they've climbed to the top of the carnivore heap. 12.01.1992

Go Fish

03.01.1992