While writing of their 19th-century voyages to document the world’s biodiversity, European naturalists like Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace were struck by the appearance of the plants and animals they encountered in the tropics. “The new organisms that they were observing were, to their eyes at least, incredibly rich and varied in color,” says
Movies like Jurassic Park may give the impression that we know everything about dinosaurs, including how they used to walk or run. But it’s actually incredibly difficult to figure out how extinct creatures moved their bodies. Now, a fruitful combination of computational biomechanics and so-called “predictive simulation” are helping fill in these locomotive knowledge gaps.
YOU’VE LIKELY BEEN TOLD that a packrat is a thief. A selfish collector. A taker of things in the night. Common wisdom holds that this long-tailed rodent will snatch your diamond rings and gold watches, your loose change and car keys, and hoard them in glistening stockpiles like some miniature, beady-eyed dragon. Some of that
Vampire bats are pretty unusual creatures, even by bat standards. They’re the only mammals to dine exclusively on blood, which means their bodies have needed to adapt in many ways to this challenging diet. Vampire bats also boast very advanced social skills, says Michael Hiller, a professor of comparative genomics at the LOEWE Centre for
Did your school dining hall offer a universally beloved dish? One that attracted long, meandering lines, one that people would immediately line up for without finding a table? (At my school it was hash brown triangles and sweet potato fries.) Maybe you couldn’t possibly get there early enough to get yourself a plate—so a contingency
The vampire squid has long carried a reputation for being a nightmarish creature of the deep. When disturbed, this cephalopod is known to wrap its red body with its unique webbed arms, forming a black coat that might startle predators. And with a Latin name that translates to “vampire squid from hell,” it’s difficult to
At first glance, the 5-inch-long wandering salamander doesn’t appear particularly suited for a life of aerial acrobatics. The amphibians, which can spend their entire lives in the crowns of California’s redwood trees, don’t have the membranes or skin flaps seen in gliding lizards, frogs, or mammals. But when disturbed, wandering salamanders will launch themselves into
From Maine to Florida, springtime ocean currents always bring hordes of horseshoe crabs to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, ready to mate. After swimming upside-down, they flip themselves over with their tails and begin the process of finding arthropod love. The male crabs use their pincers to hook a ride to shore on the
Countless movies, TV shows, and even comics depict the age-old tradition of feeding bread products to ducks at the park. But don’t be fooled: this stereotype is actually an unhealthy practice that could lead to malnourishment and other health problems for these epicurean waterfowl. But if you’re an animal lover determined to feed your local
For some octopuses, motherhood almost certainly means a tragic death. After laying its eggs, a female octopus undergoes a dramatic mental shift—from living a normal den life and gently caring for its embryos to no longer eating, dropping muscle tone, and changing color. Worse, it might engage in acts of self harm, like scarring itself
