Nature & Wildlife

On December 21, 1872, a ship set sail that would change the way we view the ocean forever. The voyage of the HMS Challenger was the “nineteenth century British equivalent of the American space program,” describes Tony Koslow in his book,.... Shortened snippet. View full page for more details.

The foraging strategy may help make humpbacks more resilient to food scarcity, emphasizing the importance of preserving their cultural knowledge, a study suggests

A new study from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute used a robot to mimic common big-eared bats’ echolocation skills

If not for a pair of Smithsonian scientists, the fingernail-size frog from Brazil would have likely gone extinct without ever being described

The black-bulb yam excels at mimicry, producing small clones of itself that look like the dark, shiny berries of seed-growing plants

The pet cow’s tool use challenges long-held assumptions about bovine intelligence

The long-living sharks aren’t as blind as once thought and have DNA repair mechanisms that may help prevent their vision from degrading, a study suggests

Can a bat catch prey on a mirror? A bat’s expert foraging skills revealed using a robot