Appalachian woodland salamanders look remarkably similar to each other on the outside, however, they've evolved differences in metabolism and drought/cold tolerance demonstrating that these amphibians are more than a case of "non-adaptive" radiation! 🧪 www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Stingray spines have evolved in two main directions: sharp and breakable, or, strong and durable. The first type may injure predators more by breaking off, while the latter may be used repeatedly. Habitat and lifestyle help explain the difference! 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

As dipterocarp trees grow taller, they adjust how they move water through their bodies, which helps them stay hydrated and continue growing even in dry conditions! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Fiber-optic cables can be used to track the subtle movements of silent blue whales via distributed acoustic sensing, even when these elusive giants aren't vocalizing! 🧪 www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Fossils from New Mexico's Jose Creek Formation demonstrate that flowering plants had already developed a wide range of large seeds and fruits by the Late Cretaceous, suggesting earlier specialization for animal dispersal than previously thought! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This flexible, waterproof diving suit comes with onboard oxygen generation and enables cyborg cockroaches to stay active underwater for up to three hours! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Tiny GPS trackers fitted to Pygmy Falcons during breeding season revealed an average home range of just under a square kilometer. Unlike most raptors, they rely entirely on Sociable Weaver nests for breeding and roosting which could explain this constrained range! 🧪 bioone.org/journals/jou...

NASA's Lucy spacecraft reveals that asteroid Donaldjohanson is a wobbling, peanut-shaped remnant of an ancient collision, with surface clues that its parent body may have hosted water-related chemistry! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The Australian ballista spider uses a spring-actuated snare tuned to the defense behavior of its prey: the aggressive green tree ant! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

This sealed Herculaneum scroll could not be opened without being destroyed. Instead, it was virtually unwrapped using high-resolution scanning, surface reconstruction, and ink detection revealing that it contained a philosophical treatise on ethics! 🧪 scrollprize.org/pdf/main.pdf

Analysis of over 5000 Mediterranean sperm whale vocalizations points to distinct Western/Eastern dialects, with the Eastern group sometimes making use of Western click patterns but not the other way around! 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

This four-winged microraptor (Jian Chanmaensis) was recently discovered in China's Changma Basin. Its presence in the area may explain the heaps of crushed bird bones that have been found at the same fossil site. 🧪 carnegiemnh.org/wp-content/u...

A near-complete skull of Adelphailurus kansensis provides the clearest view yet of this puma-sized ancient cat. Its distinctive jaw and teeth help resolve a long-standing puzzle about where the species fits amongst early cat relatives. 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Laser vibrometry measured across 50 sites demonstrates that tarantula legs dampen large body resonances to boost the signal-to-noise ratio for the purpose of sensing tiny external substrate vibrations! 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Heliconius butterflies have evolved much longer lifespans and age far more slowly than close relatives - sometimes living nearly a year which makes them a promising model for longevity research! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Exceptionally preserved hatchling fossils demonstrate that early tetrapods didn't have an aquatic larval phase but instead developed directly into juveniles. Metamorphoses, like what you'd see in modern amphibians, likely evolved later! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Handling soft, slippery objects is typically difficult for robots. Sashimi-Bot tackles this challenge with three arms that hold, cut, and handle salmon sashimi, adapting in real time to shape changes in the fish to serve up a delicious treat! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s44...

This newly described Amazonian spider, Taczanowskia waska, mimics the look of parasitic fungi - likely to avoid predators or to ambush prey. It is the first known case of araneopathogenic fungus mimicry! 🧪 mapress.com/zt/article/v...

This map depicts the global distribution of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. These underground fungal networks collectively stretch 110 quadrillion km and move 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the soil each year! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This drone was used to map honeybee foraging flight patterns in 3D, which suggests that these pollinators navigate with remarkable precision: each bee consistently follows its own unique route guided by visible landmarks! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

Crocodylus lucivenator was a Pliocene crocodile that called Ethiopia's Hadar Formation its home. Nicknamed "Lucy's hunter", this ancient croc was likely its ecosystem's top predator and could have preyed on early hominins like Australopithecus afarensis! 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Live goblin sharks were observed in the wild for the first time near Jarvis Island (2019) and again on the Tonga Trench slope (2024), greatly expanding their known range and revealing that lamniform sharks can dive 108m deeper than previously thought! 🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This unified wiring map of the fruit fly brain and ventral nerve cord reveals local connection loops linked by behavior-specific long-range modules, outlining how distinct nerve centers shape movement and internal state! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Venus flytraps snap shut in under a second which is too fast to be explained by water movement between cells. Instead, the plant's epidermal cell walls rapidly soften, releasing elastic energy that makes the trap buckle closed! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Stretching ~1,200 km across part of the Indian Ocean's Diamantina Zone (4.5-7 km deep), this vast whale "necropolis" consists of five modern and 476 fossil whale-falls that support thriving communities of brittle stars, bone-eating worms, and chemosynthetic clams! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ancient squirrel poop preserved in the Yukon permafrost, spanning from the Holocene to Middle Pleistocene, contains megafauna DNA: horses, bison, mammoths, and even big cats! This genetic time capsule suggests that these rodents may have been avid scavengers! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Most animals tightly regulate vitamin A because excess is toxic, but some Mexican tetra populations have lost their carotenoid‑cleaving enzyme, Bco2a, so vitamin A accumulates - a state that these cavefish tolerate and may even benefit from! 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

This newly discovered Paleocene fossil assemblage from Egypt includes 21 fish taxa across 9 orders, demonstrating that modern fish lineages appear earlier than previously thought: within 4 million years of the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Though many Cretaceous birds lacked tail vanes, Plumadraco bankoorum sported two large, broad-shafted tail feathers that were twice the length of its body and tipped with small pennant-like flags! 🧪 journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Dinoflagellates embedded in a photo‑curable hydrogel were 3D‑printed into engineered shapes. Compressing these living prints produces visible bioluminescence! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Bumble bees are able to spontaneously move a ball into position so that they can reach a suspended reward demonstrating goal-directed problem-solving which extends beyond simple conditioning! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Worker bees physiologically reprogram themselves in order to build queen cells with specific mechanical and chemical cues essential for the development of royal larvae. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Despite containing plenty of its active component, nepetalactone, free-choice trials show that cats overwhelmingly prefer to self-anoint with silver vine - to the point of ignoring catnip when both are available! 🧪 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Elephants are essential to savanna ecosystems. Without them, dung‑beetle diversity and biomass suffer sharp declines, resulting in delayed dung and seed processing from these impaired beetle‑mediated functions! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Kank australis is a newly discovered raptor that had a long, toothed snout and a heron-like neck built for snatching fish from the wetlands of late Cretacious Patagonia about 70 million years ago! 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Labrujasuchus expectatus is a newly described late Triassic (212 million years ago) shuvosaurid discovered at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico that walked bipedally and had a toothless beak despite coming from the branch of archosaurs that led to modern crocodiles! 🧪 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

5.5 million ground‑nesting miner bees (Andrena regularis) call the sandy ground beneath an old Ithaca cemetery their home, making this century‑old refuge vital for the spring pollination of nearby apple orchards! 🧪 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Superparamagnetic macrophages in homing pigeon livers are required for flight navigation on overcast days: chemically depleting these immune cells impairs orientation under cloud cover, with performance returning when visibility improves! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Weeks-long longitudinal microCT imaging reveals that cauliflower coral colonies (Pocillopora damicornis) build and remodel their skeletons with a variety of strategies including: patterned growth, defensive walls, exploratory edges, and quick-but-rough repair! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Simulations suggest that an ancient dust trap just beyond Jupiter's orbit concentrated small particles and, by filtering/delivering them at different times, produced planetesimals like carbonaceous chondrites with compositional differences we observe today. 🧪 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Microeledone galapagensis is a newly discovered deep-sea octopus that took an unconventional evolutionary path. Found near the Galápagos at 5,800ft deep, this species has very short arms and few suckers providing a minimal design that frees up energy for reproduction! 🧪 mapress.com/zt/article/v...

During flooding that occurs at the end of the Congo Basin's rainy season, thousands of tiny shellear fish (Parakneria thysi; ~1.5in long) complete the 50ft vertical climb up Luvilombo Falls through the use of hook-like pads on their pectoral and pelvic fins! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This nearly complete stegosaur skull from Upper Jurassic Spain adds more context to work on Dacentrurus armatus and suggests that stegosaurs split into two main groups: the basal, smaller Huayangosauridae and the later, larger Stegosauridae! 🧪 vertebrate-zoology.arphahub.com/article/1466...

Stromatolites, ancient oxygen-producing microbial mats, could have grown in asteroid impact craters! Evidence from South Korea's Hapcheon crater points to post-impact hydrothermal activity suggesting that impact oases, like this one, may have supported early life! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Ptilotus senarius, a plant last collected 58 years ago, has been rediscovered in northern Queensland via iNaturalist, highlighting how citizen scientists can uncover "lost" species once thought to be extinct! 🧪 connectsci.au/bt/article/7...

Fluke photos helped match two humpbacks observed in both eastern Australia and Brazil, resulting in the first documented two‑way exchange between these distant whale breeding grounds! 🧪 royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

In cloned populations, the ciliate protist Euplotes gigatrox can develop into cannibalistic "supergiants" that chase and consume their smaller siblings - demonstrating predatory behaviors more typical of multicellular life! 🧪 www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Corals host photosynthetic algae internally; giant clams host them externally. These clams show evidence of sterol transport like corals but express a “plant-like” nitrate transporter, highlighting the diverse molecular strategies used by "solar-powered" reef animals. 🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol...

These tiny aquatic robots follow simple rules (move toward light, avoid crowding) but together they self-organize into complex, scale‑free patterns with useful group behaviors like coordinated pushing! 🧪 www.science.org/doi/full/10....

The newly described 25-ton dinosaur, Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, expands known Southeast Asian sauropod diversity and suggests that mid-Cretaceous titanosauriform size increases may have been driven by warmer climates and expanded habitats! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...