Megalodon Was Two School Buses Long
The vertebra that established megalodon's maximum size was in Copenhagen the whole time. Scientists spent four decades working from the photographs.
Nature
Nobody Had Ever Filmed a Mediterranean Great White. Until Now.
Volunteer divers were hauling abandoned fishing gear from a Mediterranean shipwreck when an adult great white appeared. The species is so rare in the region, no one had ever filmed one.
Walking Sharks Gain a Cousin: Lazy Shark
Scientists confirmed a tenth reef-walking shark off Papua New Guinea, but surveys at a nearby island where it was once common turned up nothing.
Ballista Spider Catapult Uses Prey's Aggression Against Itself
A spider that can't overpower a notoriously aggressive ant builds a trap the ant triggers itself. The biomechanics are stranger than the headline suggests.
Sharks Use Manta Rays as Back Scratchers
Galapagos sharks were caught on video using manta rays as scratch posts for sea lice.
Cnidaria Frankenstein: Sea Anemone Builds Second Body From Jellyfish Tissue
The cellular command that tells a developing embryo which way is up works across animal groups so distantly related they share almost nothing else.
The Fungus That Eats the Fungus That Eats the Ant
A fungus in Borneo parasitizes the zombie fungus that hijacks ants, and it may hold the key to next-generation antimicrobial drugs.
Goblin Shark Makes Film Debut
Scientists just filmed a goblin shark alive in the wild for the first time. One showed up 2,300 feet deeper than expected.
Moss Has a Fungal Partner
Mosses were supposed to be the only land plants without fungal partners. Scientists just found fungi living inside their tissue.
BoorYul-Bah-Bilya Came for the River. It Left with Quokkas.
A water-health program run by Aboriginal Traditional Owners set camera traps along a Perth river and found the mainland's most iconic marsupial hiding in plain sight.
Single-Celled Cannibal Eats Its Own Clones
One microbe. One cell. Same DNA as every relative it's about to eat.
110 Quadrillion Kilometers of Fungal Threads Under Your Feet
Scientists mapped Earth's fungal networks for the first time. What they found underground reframes life above it.
Every Amazon Molly Is Female. The Name Tracks.
An all-female fish has been cloning itself for 100,000 years. It uses a genetic trick to keep its DNA suspiciously, impossibly clean.
Zombie Squirrel of the Pleistocene Feasted on Mammoth Meat
Permafrost-preserved squirrel feces just rewrote what we thought we knew about Ice Age ecosystems. What else hides in those frozen burrows?
A Bumblebee Solved a "Box and Banana" Puzzle
A bumblebee with a brain the size of a sesame seed just solved a puzzle that, until now, we thought only chimps, elephants and birds could crack.
Deep-Sea Pill Bug Survives Five Years Without Food
Two-thirds of its body is just stomach. The rest is a bacterial gene it stole from a microbe and repurposed into the ultimate off switch for hunger. How?
Bees Have a Water Escape Plan. Pesticides Dampen Their Swimming Skills.
Bees use visual contrast to swim toward shore. So what happens when a common pesticide erases that ability entirely?
A Katydid's Disguise Is Also Its Pickup Line
Survival and sex appeal are supposed to be a tradeoff. One katydid species apparently didn't get that memo. What happens when your disguise is also your best pickup line?