Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 31, 2008

Huge Cave Bears: When and Why They Disappeared

Enormous cave bears that once inhabited Europe were the first of the mega-mammals to die out, going extinct around 13 millennia earlier than was previously thought, according to a new estimate. Why'd they go? In part because they were vegetarians. The new extinction date, 27,800 years ago, coincides with a...

Oct 31, 2008

Unraveling the Wonders of Spider Silk

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. Spiders have fascinated Cheryl Hayashi since her undergraduate days at Yale, where one day a professor offered her an opportunity that changed her life. Hayashi had to hand-feed the professor’s laboratory colony of tropical...

Sep 30, 2008

Tiny Skull Sheds Light on Strange Dinosaur Diets

A juvenile dinosaur weighing less than two sticks of butter was a toothy hodgepodge equipped with fang-like canines to tear into small mammals, reptiles and insects, as well as flat molars for plant munching. Researchers recently found the skull of this dinosaur called Heterodontosaurus tucki in a drawer at the...

Sep 30, 2008

Ancient Sea Predators Shed Skin Secrets

Predatory reptiles called ichthyosaurs cruised the oceans between 230 million and 90 million years ago. In a classic case of convergent evolution, their body and fin shapes resembled those of today's dolphins, tunas, and great white sharks—the fastest swimmers in the sea. A new study shows that the convergence even...

Sep 30, 2008

Wise Elephants Fear Roads

Endangered forest elephants are avoiding roads at all costs, having learned to associate roads with danger due to rampant poaching in Central Africa. Forest elephants are basically living in fear of their lives in prisons created by roads, lead researcher of a new study on the elephants Stephen Blake, now...

Aug 31, 2008

Ancient Amphibian Had Enormous Teeth

A prehistoric predator that looked like a big crocodile paddled around the Antarctic region 240 million years ago, sporting sizable fangs not only along the edge of its mouth but also halfway down the roof of its mouth. The newly described freshwater species, Kryostega collinsoni, is a temnospondyl, a once-diverse...

Aug 31, 2008

New Rules Advised for Hunting Gorillas, 'Bushmeat'

Bushmeat, or wild-animal game, has long been a food source for people who live in African forests and hunt apes, antelopes and other animals for subsistence. But in recent decades, commercial hunters have started to empty out the forests, especially of primates. So the bushmeat issue has become a vexing...

Aug 31, 2008

100 New Sharks and Rays Named

More than 100 species of sharks and rays have been classified and named as new species, including some that had been discovered as far back as the early 1990s. The new namings and classifications are the result of an 18-month Australian project using DNA analysis to clarify the identity of...

Aug 31, 2008

Fish Fingers: Your Digits Used to Be Fins

An ancient fish sported something like fingers that were the precursors to our own digits, according to an analysis of a new fossil skeleton. It's really the last piece of evidence to say fingers are not new. They were really present in fish, said lead researcher Catherine Boisvert, an evolutionary...

Aug 31, 2008

Extinct Giant Tortoise Could Be Revived

An extinct giant tortoise could make a comeback now that living turtles in the Galapagos Islands have been confirmed as hybrid descendents. Researchers had previously scratched their heads over the group of mixed-ancestry tortoises living on the island of Isabela in the Galapagos. But the connection to the extinct species...

Aug 31, 2008

Bees Can Count

Honeybees are clever little creatures. They can form abstract concepts, such as symmetry versus asymmetry, and they use symbolic language — the celebrated waggle dance — to direct their hivemates to flower patches. New reports suggest that they can also communicate across species, and can count — up to a...

Aug 31, 2008

Bug's Incredible Leaps Explained

Lickety-split, insects called froghoppers can leap a distance of 100 times their body length. Now, scientists have found the bugs' secret: They sport bow-like structures that work like catapults. Froghoppers are also called spittlebugs because the nymph stage of these insects produces a frothy sap for protection. The adults store...

Aug 31, 2008

City Bears Get Fat, Die Young

As bears spend more time near cities, the animals gain weight, get pregnant at a younger age and die young, violent deaths. A new study of black bears near the populated Lake Tahoe, Nev., area found an alarming percentage are hit by cars. Urban areas are becoming the ultimate bear...

Jul 31, 2008

World's Smallest Snake Discovered on Barbados

As slim as a spaghetti noodle and able to fit snugly on a U.S. quarter, a new species of snake has been found hiding out in a forest on Barbados. The reptilian runt is now the world's smallest snake. Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State, discovered the snake,...

Jul 31, 2008

Ancient Shark's Bite More Powerful Than T. Rex's

The most powerful bite of all time has been found — that of the prehistoric giant shark Megalodon, which makes that of T. rex look puny. The giant shark Megalodon, which means Big Tooth in Greek, may have grown to more than 50 feet long and weighed up to 110...