Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Jan 29, 2020

Acid in the Pacific Ocean is literally eating away crabs' shells

Humans have pumped about 2 trillion tons (1.8 trillion metric tons) of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and the ocean has absorbed about 25% of it. This glut of greenhouse gases not only warms the ocean (contributing to more-frequent heat waves and...

Feb 25, 2020

Seabird-eating 'monster' crabs are chatty during sex

Coconut crabs, Earth's biggest land crabs, are internet famous from images in which they dwarf trash bins and tear birds limb from limb. But when these crabs aren't devouring seabirds, they're chatting to each other in vibrating clicks, and scientists recently discovered that the crabs' weird clicking calls are unexpectedly...

Jun 16, 2020

Ancient Cambrian shrimp with dozens of dagger legs looked unlike anything alive today

About 518 million years ago, a fierce shrimp-like creature didn't brandish just one knife, it flashed more than 800 of them; each of its 54 legs had up to 15 dagger-like spines on it, a new study finds. The name of this newly discovered Cambrian period scavenger, Xiaocaris luoi, literally...

Nov 3, 2020

Mantis shrimp punch down, pick on smaller rivals to steal their homes

A perfect home is hard to find, and some mantis shrimp called smashers for their clublike arm work hard to locate one that's just right. If the home already has an owner, the invader will fight fiercely to evict it. To find out how aggressively this tiny crustacean will fight...

Apr 29, 2021

Baby mantis shrimp throw knockout punches at 9 days old

Mantis shrimp wield a spring-loaded appendage that punches through water with explosive force — and their babies can start swinging just nine days after they hatch. In a new study, published Thursday (April 29) in the Journal of Experimental Biology, scientists studied larval Philippine mantis shrimp (Gonodactylaceus falcatus) originally collected...

Oct 5, 2021

Hundreds of three-eyed 'dinosaur shrimp' emerge after Arizona monsoon

Following a torrential summer downpour in northern Arizona, hundreds of bizarre, prehistoric-looking critters emerged from tiny eggs and began swimming around a temporary lake on the desert landscape, according to officials at Wupatki National Monument. These tadpole-size creatures, called Triops look like little mini-horseshoe crabs with three eyes, Lauren Carter,...

Nov 7, 2021

Ferocious 'penis worms' were the hermit crabs of the ancient seas

The Cambrian period (543 million to 490 million years ago) brought the first great explosion of biodiversity to Earth, with the ancestors of practically all modern animals first appearing. One of the most feared among them was the penis worm. Technically known as priapulids — named for Priapus, the well-endowed...

Nov 12, 2021

Rare 'cotton candy' lobster was a 1-in-100 million catch

A Maine lobsterman recently made a one-in-a-hundred-million catch when he pulled up a rare lobster with a bright blue, speckled shell, the color of fairground cotton candy. The lobsterman, Bill Coppersmith, caught the so-called cotton candy lobster on Nov. 5 in Casco Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Maine....

Nov 26, 2021

Octopuses, squids and lobsters could become 'sentient beings' in the UK

A number of marine animals — including octopuses, squids, crabs and lobsters — will be recognized as sentient beings as part of a new law proposed by the U.K. government. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill was first proposed in May and is currently under review. The proposed law originally included...

Jul 13, 2022

Scientists Put Shrimp on a Treadmill

A sluggish, sick human is easy to spot. But it's harder to tell when a shrimp is under the weather. So one scientist put the little crustaceans on a tiny treadmill to examine how diseases impact their performance. Humans fighting an infection typically sleep more and are not at top...

Aug 17, 2022

Tiny 'immortal' crab entombed in amber discovered in a first of its kind

For the first time ever, scientists have discovered an immortal crab fossilized in amber. Dating back to the Cretaceous period, this perfectly-preserved crustacean might be among the earliest examples of a crab occupying a freshwater habitat. Researchers named the newfound species Cretaspara athanata — athanata meaning immortal; Cret- for the...

Oct 14, 2022

Can you spot the crab in this photo? (Hint: It's under the fuzz.)

A crab species that was recently discovered in Australia fashions itself massive hats and coats made from living sponges, which makes the crustacean look like a wonderfully squeezable stuffed toy. (Don't be fooled, though — there's a tough exoskeleton beneath all the shaggy fluff!) A family first spotted the crab,...

Oct 14, 2022

Natural Sunscreen Explains Mantis Shrimp's Amazing UV Vision

The bizarre visual system of the colorful mantis shrimp just got weirder: New research finds these animals use a natural sunscreen compound to see ultraviolet light. Researchers knew that mantis shrimp, marine crustaceans sometimes known to crack aquarium glass with their powerful claws, had a very impressive visual system. The...

Oct 20, 2022

What made billions of snow crabs disappear from the Bering Sea?

Snow crabs in the Bering Sea once numbered in the billions. But after a recent and massive population crash the crabs have all but vanished from these waters — and they may not be coming back anytime soon. In 2018, about 3 billion mature snow crabs (Chionoecetes opilio) inhabited the...

Nov 15, 2022

What are Sea-Monkeys?

Sea-Monkeys is the marketing term for a common type of sea creature: brine shrimp. As a product, Sea-Monkeys were first sold in 1950s. Sea-Monkeys are sold in packets of dust comprised of brine shrimp eggs in suspended animation. The process used to create these creatures is proprietary. Despite their name,...