The bones were so small that at first glance they looked like they might belong to juveniles. But Fidel Torcida Fernández-Baldor of the Dinosaur Museum of Salas de los Infantes reckoned otherwise. Scattered across the Burgos Province site in northern Spain, the delicate fossils represented at least five individuals—all adults, all impossibly tiny for dinosaurs. … Read more
Most of us would probably try to downplay an illness, but for ant pupae, the best way to protect family is to scent their own death. Researchers at IST Austria have found that when young ants catch a truly deadly infection, they sound an invisible chemical alarm. The result isn’t a rescue. It’s a swift … Read more
At mealtimes, rabbit sized Australian bettongs turn into nut cracking powerhouses that can splinter seeds tougher than popcorn kernels. In new imaging analysis led by Flinders University and published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, researchers used 3D scans and geometric morphometrics of 161 skulls from all four living bettong species to uncover … Read more
For at least 45 million years, global shark and ray diversity has been sliding downhill, not climbing, and today’s crisis looks less like a blip than a long, slow collapse. In a new fossil analysis published in the journal Scientific Reports, an international team led by Manuel A. Staggl at the University of Vienna assembled … Read more
Most spiders shut down when temperatures slip below freezing, but Clubiona spiders keep hunting through subzero nights in European orchards, an improbable winter endurance that depends on potent antifreeze proteins flowing through their bodies. In work published November 19, 2025 in The FEBS Journal, researchers from Queen’s University in Ontario and collaborators in Czechia analyzed … Read more
High on the misty slopes of Tanzania, a toad the size of a thumb pads along a wet leaf, its skin a patchwork of tawny browns and ash gray. No ponds are needed here. Instead of laying strings of eggs, the female toad will deliver tiny, fully formed toadlets that hop off into the forest. … Read more
At a picnic table, the air shimmers with summer heat. You wave your hand at a faint buzz, but it is too late. A mosquito, guided by invisible plumes of carbon dioxide from your breath, has found you. New research from the University of California San Diego reveals in exquisite detail how this tiny hunter … Read more
Scientists have stumbled onto a strange quirk of evolution: tadpoles that lose their lungs through evolutionary time never regrow them, even when returning to environments where lungs would be useful. The finding challenges a core assumption about how evolution works, namely that traits with intact genetic blueprints can easily reemerge when conditions change. All adult … Read more
Your dog might be better suited to a carnivore’s diet than the kibble in their bowl suggests. A new study from Finland’s University of Helsinki reveals that canine metabolism responds more favorably to fat-rich foods than carbohydrate-heavy diets, challenging assumptions about what belongs in commercial dog food. Researchers from the DogRisk research group tracked 46 … Read more
Under the microscope, shark skin looks like a tiled road of tiny teeth. In a new study, Florida Atlantic University scientists used high-resolution imaging to show how those tooth-like tiles, called dermal denticles, shift shape and spacing as bonnethead sharks grow. The result is a clearer view of how evolution tunes a living armor for … Read more