50,000 Worms Tangled Up in a Ball Unravel in an Explosive Burst when a Predator Appears
California blackworms make a contribution to the math and physics of knot tying by demoing twisting motions that help them escape a tangled worm ball
How Do Birds Know When to Migrate?
Lengthening days set off a cascade of events in migratory birds that culminates in the birth of a clutch of chicks
Was the Tully Monster a Fish, a Worm, a Giant Slug with Fangs?
Researchers close in on a taxonomic home for one of paleontology’s weirdest wonders, the Tully Monster
How Bears Hibernate without Getting Blood Clots
Hibernating brown bears avoid the blood clots that can develop in even temporarily immobile people. Scientists now think they know how the animals do it
Why Are Killer Whales Ripping Livers Out of Their Shark Prey?
Killer whales rip open the bellies of sharks to snag the liver. Other predators also have dietary preferences for organs, brains and additional rich body parts
Deepest Fish Discovered More Than Five Miles below the Sea Surface
A small, bizarre-looking fish found more than five miles under the sea is considered the deepest fish ever recorded
No One Knows How the Biggest Animals on Earth—Baleen Whales—Find Their Food
How do giant filter-feeding whales find their tiny prey? The answer could be key to saving endangered species
Why Primates (Including Humans) Love to Spin Ourselves around until We All Fall Down
The menagerie that twirls and twirls includes gorillas, bonobos and, yes, us humans
The Strange Way a 12-Foot-Long Invasive Python Was Caught
In Key Largo, Fla., scientists are looking to protect endangered native rodents and slow the invasion of massive Burmese pythons
Tiny Spider Fells Prey Many Times Its Size
A spider that caught and devoured a much larger shrew for its meal adds to evidence that more spiders aren’t strangers to dining on vertebrates
Scientists Have ID’d the Worm in Your Mescal
A team of moth and butterfly scientists decided to go from a restaurant bar to the lab bench to understand mescal’s iconic “worm”
All of Humanity Weighs Six Times as Much as All Wild Mammals
A glaring disparity exists between the biomass of humans and that of both terrestrial and aquatic mammals