Weather anomalies found to be keeping insects active longer

As Earth's climate continues to warm due to the emission of greenhouse gasses, extreme and anomalous weather events are becoming more common. But predicting and analyzing the effects of what is, by definition, an anomaly ...

Paleontologists discover elephant graveyard in North Florida

About five and a half million years ago, several gomphotheres—extinct relatives of elephants—died in or near a river in North Florida. Although their deaths likely occurred hundreds of years apart, their bodies were all ...

Spiny mice found to have bone-plated tails

Mammals are a bit odd when it comes to bones. Rather than the bony plates and scales of crocodiles, turtles, lizards, dinosaurs and fish, mammals long ago traded in their ancestral suit of armor for a layer of insulating ...

Butterfly tree of life reveals an origin in North America

About 100 million years ago, a group of trendsetting moths started flying during the day rather than at night, taking advantage of nectar-rich flowers that had co-evolved with bees. This single event led to the evolution ...

For birds, blending in may result in more diversity

The saying "Birds of a feather flock together" is being given new meaning by a study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Flocking birds often travel in groups made up of a single species, in ...

Family tree of 'boring' butterflies reveals they're anything but

Walk a short distance through the Amazon Rainforest, and you might witness what look like dead leaves launch from the ground and fly off into the understory. These masters of disguise are euptychiines, one of the most diverse ...

Luna moths found to use their tails solely for bat evasion

In a pair of complementary studies, researchers took a close look at Luna moth (Actias luna) tails through the eyes of birds and female moths to test the tails' role in predation and sexual selection. Scientists have known ...

Scientists discover hidden crab diversity among coral reefs

The Indo-West Pacific is the largest, most biodiverse marine ecosystem on Earth, and many of the species it supports have comparably wide ranges. Writing in The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin noted that "… many fish ...

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