Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 23, 2023

Pacific lamprey: The jawless fish that survived 4 mass extinctions and sucks prey dry of blood and body fluids

Name: Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus) Where it lives: Freshwater and marine ecosystems in the North Pacific, from California to Alaska, and across the Bering Sea to Russia and Japan What it eats: The blood and body fluids of other fish, including Pacific salmon, flatfish, rockfish and Pacific hake Why it's...

Sep 30, 2023

Why is fish so smelly?

Fish are notorious for their strong — and sometimes unpleasant — odor. But what causes that distinctly fishy smell, and is there a way to avoid it while cooking? Fish odor is the result of microbial and chemical reactions that occur as fish proteins and fats are exposed to heat...

Oct 25, 2023

Nightmarish deep-sea footballfish washes up on California beach in rare stranding

A ghoulish, pitch-black fish with a long stalk on its head recently washed up on a beach in Southern California — the second of its kind to end up onshore there in recent years, Crystal Cove State Park officials announced Oct. 17. Experts identified the bizarre-looking animal as a female...

Nov 15, 2023

Watch a super-rare dreamer anglerfish with ultra-black 'invisibility cloak' swim like a shadow in the deep sea

Scientists recently filmed a super-rare, ultra-black anglerfish lurking like a living shadow in the deep sea off the California coastline. Researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) spotted the unidentified species of dreamer anglerfish (genus Oneirodes) on Sept. 29. They filmed it 2,562 feet (781 meters) below the...

Nov 21, 2023

Watch rare footage of 2 mini mola swimming together off Canada's Pacific coast

A scuba diver has captured rare footage of two very young sunfish swimming in emerald waters off the coast of British Columbia in Canada. Experts identified the pair as ocean sunfish (Mola mola) and said their angular bellies and small size are telltale signs of their babyness in a Facebook...

Dec 2, 2023

Ocean pout: The fish with antifreeze blood

Name: Ocean pout (Zoarces americanus) Where it lives: Western Atlantic Ocean, ranging from Labrador in Canada to North Carolina, in waters from near the shore to depths of almost 1,300 feet (400 meters). What it eats: Crustaceans such as crabs and amphipods, echinoderms such as brittle stars, sand dollars and...

Jan 10, 2024

Bizarre incident of fish jumping out of water in Philippines caused by upwelling, not earthquake

A countless mass of sardines — likely numbering in the millions — recently beached themselves on an island in the Philippines, turning coastlines silver as tiny dead fish covered the shore. Around 48 hours later, the area was struck by a powerful earthquake, sparking speculation that the fish may have...

Mar 20, 2023

Extinct 'Lord of The Rings' eagles had a 10-foot wingspan and probably could have carried a hobbit

An ancient hulk of an eagle that once soared over Australia shares similarities with the fictional giant eagles from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, a new study on the extinct raptors shows. While the real-life giants weren't as enormous as their fictional counterparts (and...

Mar 23, 2023

Scientists want to clone an extinct bison unearthed from Siberian permafrost. Experts are skeptical.

Researchers in Russia recently completed a necropsy, or animal autopsy, on a stunningly intact extinct bison that was unearthed from Siberian permafrost. The tissues recovered during the dissection are so well preserved, the team believes the long-dead specimen could be cloned. But one expert told Live Science that it is...

Apr 10, 2023

25 of the strangest ancient sea monsters

From the creepiest Cambrian critters to massive marine reptiles, wonderfully weird sea creatures have inhabited our oceans for over half a billion years. We've put together a list of 25 of the strangest ancient sea monsters ever to have lived, all of which went extinct long before humans came along....

Apr 21, 2023

230 million-year-old bizarre-beaked reptile was a relative of modern-day crocodiles

During the late Triassic period roughly 230 million years ago, a squat reptile with a beak-like mouth lived in what is now Wyoming. Paleontologists identified the remains of the herbivorous reptile, which is a stem, or early archosaur and therefore a distant relative of modern-day birds and crocodiles, as a...

Apr 24, 2023

Mystery of prehistoric, alien-like tully monster deepens once more

Tully monsters haunted Earth's oceans 300 million years ago and left behind such bizarre fossils that researchers haven't even agreed on whether these strange creatures had backbones. Now, more than 60 years after the strange creature's discovery in 1958, a new investigation using 3D lasers finds that the Tully monster...

May 8, 2023

Mysterious 'golden' fossils from the Jurassic aren’t what they seem

It was long thought that pyrite — a shiny mineral also known as fool's gold — was the special ingredient that gave fossils embedded in Germany's Posidonia Shale their golden glow. But now scientists think something else is causing these fossils to shimmer. Earlier this year, a team of international...

May 12, 2023

Rhino-like 'thunder beasts' grew massive in the evolutionary blink of an eye after dinos died off

In the aftermath of the dinosaur-killing asteroid impact, a second explosion rocked the animal kingdom. This time, it was the mammals that blew up. Rhino-like horse relatives that had lived in the shadow of the dinosaurs became gigantic thunder beasts as suddenly as an evolutionary lightning strike, new research, published...

May 12, 2023

Long-extinct Tasmanian tiger may still be alive and prowling the wilderness, scientists claim

The completely unique, wolf-like Tasmanian tigers that thrived on the island of Tasmania before they went extinct in 1936 may have survived in the wilderness for far longer than previously thought, research suggests. There is also a small possibility they are still alive today, experts say. Tasmanian tigers, also known...