A sloth may look like a solitary animal hanging quietly in the rainforest canopy, but its coat tells a very different story. Scientists studying the sloth fur ecosystem algae community …
Gardeners spend a surprising amount of time moving organic matter around. We pull plants, carry them to a compost pile, wait for decomposition, then haul the finished compost back to …
An elephant standing quietly on an African savanna may be participating in a conversation that people nearby cannot even hear. Through elephant infrasound communication, these highly social animals produce deep, …
Imagine reaching adulthood and then, instead of continuing toward old age, reorganizing your body and returning to an earlier stage of life. A tiny marine animal called Turritopsis dohrnii can …
In the cold, dark waters of the Arctic and North Atlantic lives an animal whose lifetime may span several human centuries. The extraordinary Greenland shark lifespan has made Somniosus microcephalus …
A beaver dam can look surprisingly simple: branches, mud, stones, leaves, and pieces of vegetation arranged across moving water. Yet that structure can alter the physical behavior of an entire …
Every February, the groundhog becomes famous for supposedly predicting how much winter remains. Its real winter ability is far more remarkable. Groundhog true hibernation involves a profound, controlled reduction in …
Pangolins look almost as if nature covered a small mammal in pinecone-like armor. Their unusual appearance comes from overlapping keratin scales, and the pangolin scale defense becomes especially impressive when …
A turtle resting beneath the surface of a river or frozen pond may look completely cut off from the air. Yet some species possess remarkable ways of exchanging gases with …
A finished weaver bird nest can look almost too precise to have been made with a beak and two feet. Yet weaver bird nest building is a remarkable combination of …