The only amphibian to live north of the Arctic Circle, the wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) has an amazing ability to undergo freezing and thawing to survive cold winters. As you might guess from its common name, it lives mainly in woodland, only taking to shallow pools in springtime to breed, the males uttering a distinctive quacking call to attract mates. What […]
Do whales grieve? Rare footage of humpback alongside stillborn calf suggests they might
One day last July, a newborn humpback whale calf lay motionless on the seafloor, just a kilometre off Australia’s Gold Coast. The encounter was captured through underwater video. For more than an hour, the mother repeatedly returned to the same spot, gently touching the calf with her head and pectoral fin and resting beside it […]
“In a gloriously tragic act of self-sacrifice, she stops eating and dies of starvation before her young hatch”.
Mother octopuses never meet their babies, as they stop eating and die of starvation before the young hatch. However, that’s probably a good thing. While parents sacrifice much for their offspring, few routinely give up their lives. But such is the destiny of a female octopus: tending her eggs is the last thing she’ll do. […]
‘Don’t shoot. Listen’: The AI-aided quest to understand Yellowstone’s wolves
Jeff Reed wasn’t raised to hate wolves. But as a child he bought into the Little Red Riding Hood myth regarding their villainous nature. You see one, you shoot it. But not on a night on his Montana farm some five years ago, a night that proved life-changing not only for Reed, but perhaps for […]
It has the legs of a supermodel, can run at 40mph and leap 3m high – yet is just 50cm tall. Meet one of the world’s weirdest, yet most beautiful, cats
Graceful, wild, and built like a runway model with a hunter’s instinct—this guide dives into the captivating world of the serval cat. How big are serval cats? Counting the head and body serval cats are between 67cm-100cm long, with the tail adding between 24–35cm on. Males are the heaviest weighing between 10–18kg, while females weigh […]
They’re the sopranos of the forest, so what’s silencing the gibbons’ morning chorus?
Dawn has broken, and the air is cool and still. It’s at about this time that gibbons usually erupt into song, wa-oo-ing and wa-ing from the highest branches and filling the tree tops with rich melodies. But in this corner of Malaysian forest, bordered by housing and roads, the resident white-handed gibbons are quiet. All […]
“He was dragged down to the riverbed and was rapidly running out of air…” 8 animals that deliberately drag their prey underwater to drown them
How predators kill their prey is a fascinating subject. Big cats typically either asphyxiate by pressing down on an animal’s trachea with paws and mouth, though lions will also stop its prey from breathing by covering its mouth and nose with their jaws. Jaguars deliver the coup de grace with a bite to the skull. […]
Maryland boy recovering from surgeries after rabid beaver attack at state park
A 13-year-old Maryland boy is reported to be recovering from multiple surgeries and nerve damage after being attacked by a rabid beaver. The teen, Dominick Cebula, was swimming at a popular spot in Cunningham Falls state park in Thurmont, Maryland, on 26 July when a beaver attacked his chest underwater, a relatively rare kind of […]