With their pillowy bodies and proclivity for damp or wet environments, tardigrades have earned the nickname “water bears.” The microscopic eight-legged animals are resilient and adaptable, able to navigate and survive in almost any habitat. And while scientists have known about these unique little creatures since the 18th century, new research finally provides a closer
Tyrannosaurus rex, whose name translates to the tyrant lizard king, has long charmed the public as the star dinosaur in the Jurassic Park series. But the scene-stealing dino is stealing the spotlight again—this time, in a drama over how it should be classified. A controversial new study published in the journal Evolutionary Biology suggests that
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
