Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Feb 28, 2011

Costa Rica Unveils Massive New Marine Park

Costa Rica this week announced the creation of a vast new marine park several hundred miles offshore. Officials said the move is aimed at protecting the rich diversity of life in this Pacific Ocean region, as well as a group of undersea mountains. The park, called Seamounts Marine Management Area,...

Feb 28, 2011

Oh My! This Monkey Acts Like a Cow

The first monkey that acts like a cow has been discovered — one that regurgitates to give its food another chew, just as cattle do. Cows, goats, sheep and other ruminants chew plants, let their meals soften in their stomachs, and then throw up the larger bits into their mouths...

Jan 31, 2011

Image Gallery: Life at the South Pole

Life at the South Pole (Image credit: © Jan Martin Will | Dreamstime.com)Despite being separated from other continents by oceans and having a reputation for harboring some of the coldest weather on Earth, some birds and sea life find the Antarctic a surprisingly hospitable place to live. Right whale (Image...

Dec 31, 2010

Image Gallery: Evolution's Most Extreme Mammals

Violent musk-ox (Image credit: © AMNH/R. Mickens)Bootherium bombifrons, an extinct musk-ox which lived 780,000–11,000 years ago, was one of at least four such species found in North America during the Pleistocene; only one still lives today. Both male and female musk-oxen have four-inch-thick horns, and the battles between males during...

Dec 31, 2010

Daring Duos: Unlikely Animal Friends

Animal Buds Album Elephant (Image credit: National Geographic Channel.) So an elephant and a sheep walk into a bar ... The setup is actually not so far-fetched, as the photo above reveals (OK, maybe the bar part.) You can see this strange and adorable duo in action, along with many...

Nov 30, 2012

Dinosaur with Giant Nose Discovered

A new dinosaur with a large, prominent nose has been discovered in northern Mexico. The duck-billed dinosaur, Latirhinus uitstlani (lati is Latin for wide and rhinus means nose in Greek), lived during the Late Cretaceous approximately 73 million years ago. Found in Coahuila state, it is described in the latest...

Nov 30, 2012

Elephant Relocation Scheme Fails to Prevent Deaths

An attempt to save the lives of both elephants and people by moving the pachyderms away from humans has failed in Sri Lanka, a new study finds. Instead of the relocated elephants living peacefully in their new homes, they wandered, researchers found. Relocated elephants died more often than problem elephants...

Nov 30, 2012

Christmas Carp Prefer to Float North-South

Live carp floating in tubs at traditional Czech Christmas markets like to align their bodies north-south, researchers say. The finding suggests the fish use the geomagnetic field to orient themselves and possibly even navigate through freshwater. For their study, a team of scientists photographed common carp being sold out of...

Nov 30, 2012

Extinct Mega-Piranha Could Outbite History's Largest Shark

The ancient carnivorous mega-piranha, which lived between 6 million and 10 million years ago, packed a fearsome bite with a force that was up to 50 times its weight, finds a new study. Pound for pound, the extinct predator beats out other mega-predators like an ancient, semi-truck-size shark called the...

Nov 30, 2012

Whale Whodunit: How Investigators Solve Marine Deaths

Sometimes the bodies show up floating in the ocean, other times they wash ashore. Then it's up to investigators to figure out what happened. Whales, like humans, can meet unnatural ends. The bodies they leave behind can tell a story about what killed them, sometimes revealing evidence of a prolonged,...

Nov 30, 2012

Dragonfly Shows Human-Like Power of Concentration

Dragonflies lack humans' big brains, but they still get the job done, according to new research that suggests that these insects have brain cells capable of feats previously seen only in primates. Specifically, the dragonflies can screen out useless visual information to focus on a target, a process called selective...

Nov 30, 2012

Dealer Pleads Guilty to Smuggling in Largest International Dino Case Ever

A fossil dealer's guilty plea has set the stage for what is most likely the largest dinosaur fossil repatriation in history, according to an attorney representing the President of Mongolia, the country that will receive most of the fossils that federal officials are seizing from fossil dealer and preparer Eric...

Oct 31, 2012

Weird-Looking, Meat-Eating Sponge Found In Deep Sea

A new carnivore shaped like a candelabra has been spotted in deep ocean waters off California's Monterey Bay. The meat-eating species was dubbed the harp sponge, so-called because its structure resembles a harp or lyre turned on its side. A team from the Monterey Bay Research Aquarium Institute in Moss...

Oct 31, 2012

Expedition to Count Endangered Chinese Porpoises

How many finless porpoises are left in China's Yangtze River? An expedition is under way to count how many of these endangered animals survive in the heavily polluted waterway. There are less than 1,800 of the animals in the wild, mainly in the central and lower reaches of the 3,915-mile...

Oct 31, 2012

Where Do Fruit Flies Come From?

Fruit flies need very little to call your kitchen their “home, sweet home.” All that they require is a moist area of fermenting stuff. That stuff can be ripened fruits or vegetables, as well as drains, garbage disposals, empty bottles and cans, trash bags, or cleaning rags and mops. Fruit...