A Komodo dragon walking across a dry Indonesian landscape repeatedly does something that looks almost snake-like. Its long yellow tongue shoots from its mouth, splits into two narrow tips, then …
An electric eel does not carry a miniature battery inside its body. Instead, electric eel voltage is produced by thousands of specialized biological cells working together with extraordinary precision. Each …
At first glance, a narwhal seems to be carrying a horn straight out of mythology. But that long spiral structure is neither a horn nor an antler. It is an …
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 …
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 dragonfly hovering over a pond can suddenly accelerate, bank into a tight turn, reverse direction, or intercept a flying insect with extraordinary precision. Behind those maneuvers is an unusual …
An owl gliding over a dark field may be hunting an animal it can barely see. In some highly specialized species, owl asymmetrical ears provide additional information about where faint …