Biology

A rare species of orangutan, a majestic tree, a beetle that looks like part of an ant, the world’s deepest-living fish, and the fossil of a marsupial lion that lived in Australia in the Oligocene and Miocene epochs are among the 10 most amazing species chosen by experts at the …

Several species of skinks (a type of lizard) from the island of New Guinea have lime-green colored blood — which in turn results in bright green muscles, bones, tongue, and mucous membranes, according to a team of researchers from Louisiana State University and the American Museum of Natural History. Prasinohaema …

A team of Indiana University researchers has reported the first evidence that non-human animals (rats) can replay a stream of multiple episodic memories. The study was published in the journal Current Biology. Panoz-Brown et al show that rats remember a stream of multiple episodes and the order in which they …

A group of Montana State University microbiologists has discovered a new archaeal lineage living in the extreme geothermal environments in Yellowstone National Park. The discovery, reported in the journal Nature Microbiology, sheds new light on the evolution of the Archaea and the importance of iron in early life. Three major …

A new study, undertaken by a team of University of Exeter researchers using captive Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber), has demonstrated the significant impact the animals have had on reducing the flow of tons of soil and nutrients from nearby fields into a local river system. Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber), a …

An international team of biologists from the United States and Germany has discovered a new species of shrew living in a forested area on Mt. Mantalingahan, a mountain on Palawan Island in the Philippines. An illustration of the Palawan moss shrew (Palawanosorex muscorum). Image credit: Velizar Simeonovski, Field Museum of …

The European mistletoe (Viscum album) is a plant steeped in ancient associations with druids and Northern European folklore and since the 18th century, has been synonymous with kissing at Christmas time. This plant is a hemiparasite (a parasitic plant that is capable of some photosynthesis), latching onto trees and extracting …

A team of entomologists from the Netherlands and Philippines has discovered three new species of aquatic beetles in the remote Maliau Basin, Malaysian Borneo, and named one of them after American actor and producer Leonardo DiCaprio. Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi. Scale bar – 1 mm. Image credit: Hendrik Freitag / Taxon Expeditions. …

A duo of scientists at the University of Oxford, UK, has proposed an evolutionary framework to understand why our gut microbiota affects the brain and behavior. Oxford researchers Katerina Johnson and Kevin Foster argue that understanding why gut microbiome influences behavior requires a focus on microbial ecology and local effects …

According to a new study published in the journal Current Biology, domestic horses can read and then remember people’s emotional expressions, enabling them to use this information to identify people who could pose a potential threat. According to Proops et al, some non-human animals can effectively eavesdrop on the emotional …