Animals

Mice in the Dragon’s Hold

The SpaceX Dragon has been promoted, carrying its first live mammals next mission. The Dragon will be carrying 40 mousetronauts for a three-week stay in space. This is an important step to certifying the Dragon for crewed flights. The Dragon just returned with a hold full of scientific samples, but it’s already time to start…

Get Free Massages From 20-Foot Burmese Pythons!

Visitors at the Cebu City Zoo can get a free massage from four 20-foot Burmese Pythons. Thanks to Caters News , we now have a video of the massage from the constricting snake ensemble. According to the Philippines zoo, each snake is fed at least 10 chickens prior to the free treatment. So they will…

The Odd Tale of the Hollywood Bison and the Quest to Save It

What links Hollywood, a chewing gum tycoon and contraceptive darts? It’s the story of an unusual herd of bison. Calvin Duncan crouches low to the ground and eyes his target. The female bison knows he’s there, just a few dozen metres away, but she keeps on chewing the grass. Duncan quietly raises his rifle to…

Hedgehogs Run A Marathon Every Night

The science of ichnology, data-driven pet-care, and a bit of back-of-the-envelope calculations leads me to believe my little hedgehog is a world-class champion marathoner. Top image: Wilde Thing demonstrates a classic hedgehog-stride on a solid-surface wheel. Image credit: Volcano View Hedgehogs Ichnology is a fascinating field of investigating creatures by the traces they leave behind.…

Wild Animals Sneak Onto Laboratory Running Wheels to Exercise

The wheel-running rodent is frequently associated with animals inside psychology laboratories. But what would happen if you gave wild animals access to a wheel? A pair of researchers found out. While exercise has always been thought of as important to help prevent maladies like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, sleep disorders, and to promote mental health,…

Lawn Ornaments Help Lemurs Stay Happy and Healthy

The San Francisco Zoo recently introduced its lemurs to some pink plastic flamingos. The results were predictably adorable, but the flamingos weren’t just decoration. They’re an effort to give the lemurs a bit of mental exercise. Above: a ringtailed lemur inspects the plastic intruder. While most zoos try to present animals in as naturalistic a…

Why Only the Most Intelligent Mammals Make Friends

Humans aren’t the only mammals to make friends—elephants, horses, whales and plenty more form strong social bonds that aren’t connected to reproduction—but it’s only the smartest that do. Why is that? In fact, mammals form alliances to help other, to ensure safety—essentially to make life easier—and it requires intelligence to realise that’s a smart thing…

Watch all these dogs run on their dog treadmills in their dog gym

Sometimes when you have a lot of dogs, they don’t all get the exercise they need. Not these dogs though, they get to use these sweet dog treadmills at their outdoor dog gym. So even though there’s a lot of dogs, they all get to be active. Well, most of them. The dog on the…

The last time anyone saw a Clarion nightsnake – the gorgeous, nocturnal snake pictured above – was in 1936. Now, after going missing for close to 80 years, researchers have rediscovered the species on the remote Mexican island of its namesake. Photo Credit: Daniel Mulcahy via BoingBoing

This Is What It Looks Like When A Mammal Hatches From An Egg

The echidna – aka the “spiny anteater” – is a mammal. But unlike almost every other mammal, baby echidnas (aka “puggles,” aka “baby Max Rebos” aka “the most adorable creatures on Earth with four-headed penises“) emerge into the world not from their mother’s wombs, but from eggs. This short clip from a 1974 film called…

Canadian Man Rescues Baby Moose, Takes It To Tim Hortons

Because donuts solve all problems. CBC News reports how the man, Stephan Michel Desgroseillers, found himself caring for the tiny moose: Desgroseillers said his friends found the moose calf on Sunday, not in Copper Cliff, but on the side of Highway 144 near Dowling, walking into oncoming traffic. They debated what to do with the…

Mother Bear Heroically Saves Cub From Busy Highway

Joke all you want about chickens crossing roads, but highways really do pose a danger to wildlife. A bear cub learned that recently when it found itself a bit too close to oncoming traffic. Luckily, mom was nearby. According to the video’s description, a man named Ricky Forbes was driving through Canada’s Kootenay National Park,…

So This is What Hedgehog Snoring Sounds Like

YouTuber Vusiuz has an albino hedgehog and her tiny little snores are definitely the most adorable thing you’ll hear all day. Whether those sounds are associated with dreams we can’t know for sure, but hedgehogs do probably have dreams and nightmares. In The History of Animals, Aristotle wrote: “It would appear that not only do…

Why Did Thousands of California Fish Suddenly Turn Up Dead?

This photo might look like a bit of abstract art, but it’s actually a shot of thousands of fish – anchovies and sardines – that turned up dead en masse in Marina del Rey, near Los Angeles. What could explain the sudden death? Researchers are still investigating, but the most plausible explanation is a sudden,…

It’s Time For The Canine Medal Of Honor

Sasha, a yellow Labrador, has been posthumously awarded the Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of Britain’s highest military honor. In Afghanistan, she saved several lives by locating 15 caches of hidden bombs and weapons. Regrettably, while the UK honors its animals that serve in the military, the US does not. Sasha was killed along with…

Mosquito Researcher Offers Her Own Arm To Hungry Mosquitoes

When you’ve got a colony of mosquitoes in your lab, you’ve got to feed them…and that can become just a bit uncomfortable. Photographer Alex Wild explains what’s going on in this photo: Rockefeller University’s Emily Dennis feeds her study subjects, Aedes aegypti. In the wild this species transmits yellow fever, dengue, and chikungunya, but lab…

That “Drop of Seawater” Photo Was More Than A Bit Misleading

This photo that’s been going around purports to show all the little critters found in a single drop of seawater, magnified 25 times. It’s a beautiful photo, but there’s just one problem: it’s not really a single drop of seawater (though it is probably magnified 25 times). It’s not as if the photographer, David Littschwager,…

Antiques Roadshow Needs To Stop Appraising Ivory

I’ll say it: I love Antiques Roadshow. The look on the faces of folks who find out on national television that their priceless antiques are really worthless hunks of junk is, well, priceless. There’s just one problem: by appraising ivory the PBS show communicates the idea that elephants are worth more dead than alive. To…

Gorgeous Photos Show Bears and Wolves Feasting Together on a Dead Whale

When a dead whale washes ashore, it’s a meaty bounty for whatever carnivores happen to find it. Researchers were surprised to find brown bears and wolves, two predators that don’t usually get along, sharing a whale carcass for more than four months. And they have the photos to prove it. On May 5 2010, a…

Los Angeles’s Celebrity Mountain Lion is Recovering from Rat Poison

Last month we brought you the story of how P-22, the resident mountain lion mascot in LA’s Griffith Park, was treated for a severe case of mange brought about by the ingestion of rat poison. New camera trap photos show he’s recovering well. https://gizmodo.com/stop-using-rat-poison-its-killing-wildlife-1564538434 Miguel Ordeñana, a Natural History Museum and Griffith Park Connectivity Study…