Flesh-eating, hooked-mouth maggots have wriggled their way back into the United States. As of June 21, 15 cases of New World screwworm have been confirmed in Texas and New Mexico in cows, goats, sheep and even…
Category: Animals
Sea cucumbers harbor ‘zombie’ tissues that won’t die
There’s no such thing as Thing, the disembodied hand that loyally skitters around the fictional Addams Family in the popular television series Wednesday. But at least one species of sea…
A textbook assumption about early land vertebrates may be wrong
New fossil evidence is overturning a long-held assumption about how vertebrates first transitioned from water to land. The hatchlings of three different animals related to the earliest land-goers show that…
A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading
WASHINGTON — Microbiologists are used to looking at gross pictures and hearing scary statistics. So when a moderator of a session on emerging fungal infections at the ASM Microbe meeting…
How real is the Cyclops in ‘The Odyssey’?
The iconic one-eyed monster coming to movie screens in July in The Odyssey might have more in common with tiny water critters than with humans.
Songs prep the brains of finches yet to hatch for a hot world
Zebra finches sing their young into biological preparedness for hot weather, all before they even leave the egg. As the heat punishes sun-crisped Australian woodlands, the adult birds make a…
Frozen squirrel poop hints at sights and smells of Ice Age ecosystems
Ancient squirrel poo doesn’t stink. At least not at first. But that changes when you begin to break down the pellets. Melting them made it clear that they were not…
These birds clack their wing bones together to woo mates at night
A series of sharp cracks splits the nighttime air in a forest in the Andean foothills. But this isn’t the sound of boots snapping twigs underfoot. It’s a bird. Male…
Honeybees and shrimp are now getting vaccinated
A shrimp vaccine for commercial use could protect the environment and prove vaccines aren’t just for vertebrates.
This tiny, blue octopus is new to science
Nearly 1,800 meters beneath the surface of the Pacific, a remotely operated submersible was creeping along the slope of a Galápagos seamount when its camera caught a tiny, dark blue…
