This Bug Has a Passenger. The Passenger Is Flying the Bug.
A parasite spends its larval life hidden inside a stink bug. When it's time to leave, the host opens a door it has never opened before.
Nature
Humpback Whales Keep Gaping for No Apparent Reason
The most watched whale in the world has an unexplained habit. Scientists found it in tourist footage.
Black Goo in a Ship's Stern Hid a New Branch of Life
A research vessel's rudder shaft was hiding something that had never been catalogued anywhere on Earth.
Fish Shelters Rent-Free in Manta Ray's Butthole
Scientists thought remoras and manta rays had a deal. Turns out, only one party knew about the deal. The other one just shuddered and kept swimming.
Gibraltar's Monkeys Eat Tourists' Junk Food. Then They Eat the Rock.
Gibraltar's macaques eat dirt after tourist junk food. Scientists think they know why, but the soil itself might be another problem.
Rice Seeds Hear the Rain Coming and Sprint to the Surface
The seeds didn't sense the water. They sensed the sound of it hitting.
Golem Grad's Tortoises Are Thriving. They're Also Going Extinct.
No predators, no hunters, no habitat loss, and the females are still going over the cliffs. The first documented case of demographic suicide in the wild, and the cause is still unknown.
The Ground Beneath a New York Cemetery Is Alive
5.6 million bees have been nesting under a single cemetery in Ithaca for over a century. Each one digs its own burrow.
Starve a Comb Jelly or Injure It and It Dismantles Itself and Becomes a Larva. Then It Grows Back.
A translucent ocean creature that has been invading the world's seas for decades turns out to have a biological reset button.
Hummingbird Happy Hour: Flowers Serve Alcoholic Nectar
Flower nectar naturally ferments, and hummingbirds drink enough of it daily to clock the human equivalent of a standard drink. Happy hour, every hour.
Meet the Pink Floyd Spider: It's Tiny and Lives in Your Walls
A wall-dwelling Colombian spider named after Pink Floyd hunts prey six times its own size. All in all it's just another crevice weaver.
The Kraken Was Real, It Was 62 Feet Long, and It Ate Marine Reptiles
A new study rewrites Cretaceous ocean history: ancient octopuses may have been bone-crunching apex predators stretching 62 feet long — bigger than any squid alive today.
Cocaine in the Water Nearly Doubled How Far Wild Salmon Swam
Cocaine and its byproducts are showing up in waterways worldwide. For juvenile salmon, the behavioral cost is not small.
Three Monkeys Walked Into a Virtual Forest
Monkeys navigated virtual worlds using intention alone. Imagine a future where people with paralysis could control everyday objects this way.
Every Tree in Every Forest Has Been Doing This During Storms. We Just Couldn't See It.
Scientists suspected it for 70 years. A storm-chasing minivan with a DIY UV telescope just proved forests silently shimmer with electricity every time a thunderstorm rolls through.
Sperm Whales Have Been Using Something Like Vowels for a Very Long Time
They didn't borrow our vowels. They built their own. What does it mean when two species land on the same communication structure independently, from opposite ends of evolution?
Deep-Sea Creature Has No Place on the Tree of Life
A pale, soft-bodied deep-sea animal that kind of looks like a sea slug, but isn't was spotted at 9100m. The deep ocean has secrets.
The Death Ball Is a Sponge. It Earned the Name.
A newly discovered sponge from the Southern Ocean has tiny hooks instead of filter pores. It doesn't wait for food to drift by. What else is down there hunting in the dark?