Nature

Let’s turn back the hands of time. Before extinction knocked dinosaurs off their pillar, before the “Great Dying” extinction wiped out 95 percent of all organisms – we had the Paleozoic Era. During this age in Earth’s history, between 541 million and 252 million years ago, arthropods (animals with exoskeletons such as insects, crustaceans, scorpions,

Trapdoor spiders are an ingenious lot. They create hidden burrows with silk-hinged trapdoors from which they emerge to nab their unsuspecting prey. They’ve also proven rather slippery when it comes to naming conventions. The name ‘trapdoor spiders’ can refer to spiders from a wide range of taxonomic families across the world, and now a team

 A video of a bird of prey capturing a large, shark-like fish in its claws has gone viral on social media, evoking multiple references to the science-fiction cult movie phenomenon Sharknado. The video, which CBS reported was shot by Tennessee native Ashley White last week and shared by Tracking Sharks, shows what appears to be a large hawk-like

A new fossil discovery has revealed that New Zealand’s ancient monster penguins were not the only human-sized, flightless birds waddling around our planet tens of millions of years ago. Recent findings in North America and Japan suggest there were giant penguin-like creatures plodding across the Northern Hemisphere, too. And these birds may have been even

Whale sharks, the majestic creatures that also happen to be the world’s largest fish, are far more gentle than the name suggests. They swim lazily around tropical waters, filter-feeding on plankton. Now, biologists have discovered the enigmatic giants have a curious trick up their sleeve – teeth-like scales adorning their eyeballs. It appears to be

The conventional wisdom for working out how old your dog is in human terms is to multiple the dog’s age by seven – something experts have previously debunked. Now researchers think they’ve landed on an alternative method that’s much more accurate. Part of the problem with the multiply-by-seven rule is that canines and human beings

It seems almost certain that an asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs. But only almost. Another competing theory won’t completely go away: the extinction-by-volcano theory. A new study from the UK piles more evidence on the asteroid side of the debate, while adding a new volcanic twist. These researchers say that volcanic activity actually helped life recover

Disturbing reports of a mass elephant die-off have emerged from Botswana over the last two months, with more than 350 elephant carcasses spotted since May. Some of the elephants were found face down, suggesting a sudden collapse. Most of their bodies were located around water sources in the northern parts of the Okavango Delta, a

White-throated sparrows in British Columbia are whistling a new tune and it’s going viral across Canada. What started as a minor change to a common song has now morphed into a continent-wide phenomenon before our very ears.  “As far as we know, it’s unprecedented,” says biologist Ken Otter from the University of Northern British Columbia,

It has long been a mystery how some fish can colonise isolated lakes and ponds surrounded by inhospitably dry land. It’s not like fish can get out of the water, shake themselves off, and walk between far-flung pools to spread their spawn. Yet, from remote crater lakes to desert ponds, these fish are somehow there.

Snakes may not have any limbs, but it doesn’t stop them from getting around. By wiggling their bodies to-and-fro, these crafty creatures can easily dash across land or water without the need for feet or fins. Some can even fly. Jake Socha is an expert on the paradise tree snake (Chrysopelea paradisi), which lives in

Scientists have discovered four new species and two new genera inhabiting the deep, abyssal landscape that lines the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a vast, recessed fracture zone covering some 4.5 million square kilometres (1.7 million square miles) of the central Pacific, is considered something of a prize in the mining

When you think of the colour scheme sported by the prehistoric world of the dinosaurs, greens and browns typically spring to mind. But more and more research has shown that millions of years ago, vibrant, vivid colours were everywhere in nature, just like they are today. The latest evidence – 99-million-year-old insects caught in amber

Deep within the hearts of Neptune and Uranus, it could be raining diamonds. Now, scientists have produced new experimental evidence showing how this could be possible. The hypothesis goes that the intense heat and pressure thousands of kilometres below the surface of these ice giants should split apart hydrocarbon compounds, with the carbon compressing into

Deep in the cold, dark water, on the seafloor west of Greenland, a quiet ecosystem thrives. For the first time, a garden of soft corals and sponges has been found in these waters, sprawling across an area a little bigger than the City of San Jose. The discovery highlights not only how little we understand

As our planet’s permafrosts continue to melt in record-breaking heat, we can expect to find astonishing things from the ancient past. Like this huge wolf head, preserved since the last ice age and unearthed in incredible condition in Siberia in 2018, an estimated 40,000 years since being entombed in frozen wilderness. The giant head, discovered

The Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins of Shark Bay in Western Australia have an unusual way of obtaining food. They chivvy fish into a large, empty marine gastropod shell. Then they carry the shell and captured fish up to the surface, and shake it upside down. Slurp! go the fish, straight down into the dolphin’s belly. It’s

Scientists confirmed that the submerged land mass, named Zealandia, was its own continent in 2017. But they hadn’t been able to map its full breadth until now. On Monday, researchers from GNS Science in New Zealand announced that they’d mapped the shape and size of the continent in unprecedented detail. They put their maps on an interactive website so that

The current pandemic isn’t just affecting humans, it’s also impacting wildlife. As the world locks down to avoid further spread of the devastating coronavirus, there are suddenly far fewer cars on the road, planes in the sky and ships in the water. And nature has surely noticed. Recently, pumas have been spotted ambling down the

The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE triggered a nearly two-decade power struggle that led to the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. Historic records say the period was marked with strange sightings in the sky, unusually cold weather and widespread famine – and a new study suggests

With the help of 3D modelling and machine learning, scientists think they’ve solved the mystery of the tiny earthquakes that regularly rumbled under Cahuilla, California from early 2016 to late 2019 – a period of almost four years. Some sort of natural fluid, such as water or liquid carbon dioxide, is likely to be the

Somewhere out there in the deep lies a huge jellyfish, just waiting to unleash a complex cocktail of venom via its many long tentacles. Weighing up to 200 kilograms (440 pounds), the giant jellyfish Nemopilema nomurai, more commonly known as Nomura’s jellyfish, is one of the largest jellyfish species in the world, and it stings

Three-quarters of new and emerging infectious diseases in humans originate in wildlife. COVID-19, SARS and Ebola all started this way. The COVID-19 global pandemic has drawn new attention to how people think about wild animals, consume them and interact with them, and how those interactions can affect public health. Any activity that puts people in

Perhaps the most iconic dinosaur is Tyrannosaurus rex, a massive predator that lived in what is now North America. We have now discovered that carnivorous dinosaurs of a similar size existed in ancient Australia as well. Following the footprints We learned about these carnivores by studying fossils that were discovered up to 90 years ago.

Thunderstorms are common across North America, especially in warm weather months. About 10 percent of them become severe, meaning they produce hail 1 inch (2.5 centimeter) or greater in diameter, winds gusting in excess of 50 knots (57.5 miles per hour), or a tornado. The US recently has experienced two rarer events: organized lines of thunderstorms

Scientists have discovered an unprecedented system of underwater rivers flowing hidden from view along the continental shelf of Australia, on a scale unknown anywhere else in the world. This phenomenon – called Dense Shelf Water Cascades – appears to surround most of the country, according to new data recorded by ocean glider submersibles, which so

Scientists had nicknamed it “The Thing” – a mysterious football-sized fossil discovered in Antarctica that sat in a Chilean museum awaiting someone who could work out just what it was. Now, analysis has revealed that the mystery fossil is in fact a soft-shelled egg, the largest ever found, laid some 68 million years ago, possibly

The most severe extinction in Earth’s history looks to have been preceded and enabled by a colossal coal fire lit by volcanism over 250 million years ago, according to new research. The Permian-Triassic extinction, also known as the ‘Great Dying’, constitutes the deadliest of all our planet’s mass extinction events. When it took place, approximately

Diego the giant Galapagos tortoise whose tireless efforts are credited with almost single-handedly saving his once-threatened species, was put out to pasture Monday on his native island after decades of breeding in captivity, Ecuador’s environment minister said. Diego was shipped out from the Galapagos National Park’s breeding program on Santa Cruz to remote and uninhabited

Hummingbirds can perceive colours that the human eye cannot, thanks to the addition of an extra cone in the hummingbird’s eye that we don’t possess, new research reveals. The findings, demonstrated in experiments with wild broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) in Colorado, suggest that the ability to discriminate non-spectral colours (including ultraviolet wavelengths) could play a

For humans, getting whacked in the face by heavy raindrops is a mere annoyance. But for tiny and delicate organisms – like butterflies – drops of rainwater are the equivalent of a person being pummelled by bowling balls falling from the sky. Ouch. “[Getting hit with] raindrops is the most dangerous event for this kind

Don’t you just hate it when you discover bits of yourself that seem to have a mind of their own? Like when you decide you really don’t want to like someone, but some other part of you does anyway. Well, bad news for all you fellow egg-bearers out there – turns out our ova make

Blobs of hot, dense material that curl around Earth’s core are much more widespread than previous research suggests. A new method of analysing earthquake data has found even more of the previously detected continent-sized zones at the boundary between the planet’s core and mantle. We still don’t know what these blobs are – they could be

It’s a process that can take billions of years, but mountains do indeed grow – and exactly what factors control that growth has been the subject of an ongoing debate between scientists. Now it looks as though we may finally have a definitive answer. According to a new study, tectonic forces underneath mountains – rather

A crater lake in India’s western Maharashtra state has turned pink overnight, delighting nature enthusiasts and surprising experts who attributed it to changing salinity levels and the presence of algae in the water. Lonar lake, formed some 50,000 years after a meteorite crashed into Earth, is located 500 kilometres (310 miles) from India’s financial capital

Scientists have developed a human embryo “blueprint” using human stem cells, in a breakthrough that could provide vital insight into the early stages of infant development, new research showed Thursday. Teams from the University of Cambridge and the Netherlands-based Hubrecht Institute said their model will allow them to observe never-before-seen processes underlying the formation of

Slithering through their subterranean aquarium, three “baby dragons” have gone on display in a Slovenian cave, where they hatched in 2016 in a rare successful breeding, officials said Thursday. Only 30 visitors per day will be allowed to visit the so-called baby dragons – ancient underwater predators that can live up to 100 years and

Two separate studies have identified the elusive brain ‘switches’ that send mice into a hibernation-like state of torpor. This discovery could lead us closer to figuring out how to put other animals – even humans – in the same suspended state, which can be incredibly useful for an organism to do. When an animal goes

An ancient giant crocodile may have once walked on only two legs, its tail held proudly in the air, its feet rolling heel-to-toe, not unlike our own. That scene is hard to imagine, especially since crocodiles have a misleading reputation for having gone relatively unchanged through millions of years of evolution. In fact, so ingrained

Some chimpanzees might be growing hard-hearted with age. A curious little bone has been found forming in the heart tissue of several chimpanzees, according to a newly published study. The size of this mineralised tissue, measuring no more than a few millimetres, appears to vary among individuals; but on the whole, researchers say it appears

Knowing more about what sharks eat is crucial in managing how we interact with them, and a new study looking at the diet of great white sharks off the east Australian coast has revealed some surprising findings. Based on a detailed analysis of shark stomach contents, these apex predators spend a lot more time than

It is often thought that humans are different from other animals in some fundamental way that makes us unique, or even more advanced than other species. These claims of human superiority are sometimes used to justify the ways we treat other animals, in the home, the lab or the factory farm. So, what is it

Two newly discovered super-eruptions have been found hidden in the geological history of Yellowstone National Park – including one that ranks in the fifth biggest volcanic eruption of all time. The good news is that these additions suggest activity at the magma-fuelled hotspot is actually on the wane, according to a new study. That’s despite

The hailstone is so massive it even stunned meteorologists. “It’s incredible,” said meteorologist Matthew Kumjian from Penn State University in the US. “This is the extreme upper end of what you’d expect from hail.” The hefty ice lump smashed down from a supercell thunderstorm in Argentina two years ago, in the heavily populated town Villa Carlos

A single tail from one of the largest and most enigmatic dinosaur species looks to have solved a longstanding mystery about these extinct creatures: whether they could swim. The discovery of a giant fossilised tail belonging to the theropod Spinosaurus aegyptiacus suggests these huge predators were aquatic animals after all, using tail-propelled locomotion to swim

The mata mata turtle of South America is known for its camouflage, blending in effortlessly with the plant detritus, rocks and algae of its freshwater homes. But little did we realise that it was also hiding an entire species. Yep – what we thought was a single species of turtle in the Chelus genus has

A long-known but under-studied deposit of Cretaceous rock on the edge of the Sahara desert was more than just an ancient stomping ground for dinosaurs, according to a comprehensive new paper. The Kem Kem Group in eastern Morocco might also represent a prime candidate for the most dangerous time and place to have been alive in

The glowing greenhouse of our dreams is still so very far away, but it just got a tantalising nudge closer. Scientists have genetically engineered a plant with not just a visible glow, but a self-sustaining glow that lasts for the duration of the plant’s life cycle. It’s a breathtaking improvement on previous glowing plants. It’s