Identifying spider webs by their overall shape is one of the easiest ways to learn more about the spiders living around your home. Web architecture can often point you toward …
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 …
One of the easiest ways to struggle with an indoor orchid is to treat it like an ordinary houseplant. For many commonly grown orchids, especially Phalaenopsis, the roots are adapted …
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 …