Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

May 22, 2023

All butterflies evolved from ancient moths in North America 100 million years ago

Scientists have painstakingly constructed the world's biggest butterfly tree of life and discovered that the first butterflies evolved 100 million years ago in what is now Central and North America, At this time, the supercontinent Pangaea was in the process of breaking apart, and North America was split in two...

Nov 25, 2023

Hercules beetle: The titan insect with giant horns for love and war

Name: Hercules beetle (Dynastes hercules) Where it lives: Rainforests of Central and South America, plus a few Caribbean islands What it eats: Rotting wood (as a larva), fruit and tree sap (as an adult) Why it's awesome: Hercules beetles are among the largest flying insects in the world, with males...

Dec 2, 2023

Watch ancient, giant millipede the size of a car brought back to life in remarkable reconstruction

A remarkable reconstruction shows a 300 million-year-old millipede the length of a small car crawling around a forest floor looking for love. The footage was created for Netflix's Life on Our Planet — a series that brings extinct creatures back to virtual life in video footage. The clip shows Arthropleura,...

Jan 19, 2024

A bizarre 'snake worm' has baffled scientists for over a decade, now they know what it is

Researchers have solved Alaska's snake worm mystery after discovering a new species of fungus-eating fly whose juveniles band together and slither around like a long, gray serpent. The snake worm mystery began more than 16 years ago in the summer of 2007, when Ester resident Maggie Billington spotted thousands of...

Jan 31, 2024

Why are insects attracted to artificial lights?

The classic summer cookout comes with chips, drinks and then, after the sun goes down, swarms of insects flitting around porch lights. But flying around artificial lights can have deadly consequences for critters such as moths, gnats and mosquitos; they can get trapped under lampshades and exposed to predators such...

Feb 6, 2024

A trillion cicadas will descend on the US this spring in rare event that could leave unforgettable stench

More than a trillion cicadas could emerge throughout the U.S. Midwest and Southeast this spring as the schedules of two separate broods align for the first time since 1803. Brood XIII and Brood XIX represent two distinct groups of periodical cicadas (Magicicada) that emerge according to 17- and 13-year life...

Feb 12, 2024

How do insects know which flowers have pollen?

When pollinators land on a flower, they're on a mission: They're looking for sweet nectar to eat and specks of nutritious pollen to bring back to their young. But how do insects know where to find pollen? In theory, the process is easy: A flower flaunts bits of tasty, aromatic...

Mar 16, 2024

Hummingbird hawk-moth: The bird-like insect with a giant sucking mouthpart

Name: Hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) Where it lives: Europe and North Africa, migrating north in summer and south in winter What it eats: Nectar Why it's awesome: — It's a bird! No, it's a hummingbird hawk-moth! This fascinating creature looks like a hummingbird, but it's actually a moth. It even...

Jan 16, 2024

Color-changing fish turns black with rage when provoked

Dominant males of an Indonesian species of fish turn black during periods of heightened aggression, scientists have discovered. Their blackened markings, which quickly emerge at the start of a conflict, appear to serve as a signal of dominance to other fish. Celebes medaka (Oryzias celebensis) males with these distinctive black...

Feb 1, 2024

365 million-year-old 'alien' fish had one of the most extreme underbites on record

Scientists recently discovered that an ancient fossilized fish may be one of the top contenders for nature's most extreme underbite. When a researcher first unearthed the first known fossil of this fish in Poland in 1957, he thought it had a long set of fin spines, leading to the alien-inspired...

Mar 13, 2024

Prehistoric fish with giant jaws filled with razor-sharp teeth are the ultimate living fossils

Gars are the ultimate living fossils, having changed at an incredibly slow pace since their ancestors emerged during the dinosaur age 150 million years ago, scientists have revealed. This leisurely rate of change means these prehistoric fish have the slowest rate of molecular evolution among all jawed vertebrates. The gar...

Nov 9, 2022

The Devils Hole pupfish is so inbred that it shouldn’t be alive

The Devils Hole pupfish is small, blue and incredibly endangered. It also may be the most inbred creature on Earth. All 263 wild Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) live in one location: a 10-foot by 20-foot (3 by 6 meters) cavern in the middle of Devils Hole in Nevada, a...

Nov 14, 2022

Where do eels come from?

Critically endangered European eels (Anguilla anguilla) spend their adult lives in fresh water in Europe, ranging from Norway to the Mediterranean. But you won't find any baby eels in the mix. So where do all the mature eels come from? Almost entirely across the Atlantic Ocean, as it turns out....

Nov 14, 2022

Fish moms that carry young in their mouths sometimes eat their babies for breakfast

Few sights in nature are more heartwarming than that of a mother caring for her young — unless that nurturing act ends with an episode of cannibalism. Female cichlids — fish in the family Cichlidae — are mouthbrooding fish, carrying their young in their mouths first as eggs and then...

Nov 24, 2022

Giant 67-pound goldfish reeled in from French lake may be one of the largest ever caught

A British angler has caught one of the world's largest goldfish on record after an epic battle with the fish in a French lake. The fisher landed the 67-pound (30 kilograms) fish, nicknamed The Carrot, after a 25-minute tug-of-war at Bluewater Lakes in France's northeast Champagne province. A hybrid between...