Odd Creatures: Plants & Animals

July 28, 2026

Top Headlines

The Best Way to Save Giant Sequoias May Be More Fire

July 26, 2026 Giant sequoias are built to withstand ordinary fires, but recent extreme wildfires killed thousands of trees that had survived for centuries or even millennia. A new analysis of about 26,400 sequoias found that trees in areas treated with prescribed ...

Scientists Found Mystery Bacteria Inside One of the Ocean’s Most Elusive Whales

July 21, 2026 Scientists studying decades of pygmy sperm whale strandings have uncovered three previously unknown types of Helicobacter bacteria hiding in the animals’ stomachs. All four infected whales showed ...

Eating Chili Peppers May Raise the Risk of One Deadly Cancer

July 14, 2026 A major review found that people who consumed the most chili peppers had a substantially higher risk of esophageal cancer, though the evidence was less clear for stomach and colorectal cancers. Researchers emphasize that the findings show an ...

Deep-sea Life Has a Secret Food Source Scientists Never Expected

July 12, 2026 Scientists discovered that extreme deep-sea pressure squeezes valuable nutrients out of sinking organic particles, providing an unexpected food source for ocean microbes. The finding could rewrite our understanding of both deep-ocean ecosystems and ...

Scientists Warn Invasive Asian Mantises Are Threatening Europe's Wildlife

July 11, 2026 Two striking Asian praying mantis species that have rapidly spread across Europe have now been officially classified as invasive, raising new concerns about their impact on native wildlife. Boosted by climate change and urban environments, these ...

Scientists Just Debunked a Dangerous Baby Rattlesnake Myth

July 9, 2026 A new study debunks the long-standing claim that baby rattlesnakes are more dangerous than adults. Researchers found that young rattlesnakes can control their venom just like adults, while adult snakes usually inject much more venom and cause more ...

Scientists Want to Quarantine Alien Life on the Moon Before It Reaches Earth

July 6, 2026 Scientists are calling for a lunar quarantine facility where samples from Mars, the Moon, and beyond would be examined before being brought to Earth. They warn that even a tiny alien microorganism ...

From Pet to Pest, Goldfish Can Wreck Entire Ecosystems

June 26, 2026 A new study reveals that goldfish can do far more than survive in the wild—they can fundamentally reshape freshwater ecosystems. Researchers found they cloud water, damage food webs, and hurt native fish populations, sometimes triggering major ...

Butterfly That Barely Ages Could Help Unlock Longevity Secrets

June 22, 2026 Scientists discovered that Heliconius butterflies have evolved an extraordinary lifespan, living several times longer than closely related species. Even more surprising, some show little sign of physical decline as they age. Their unusual ...

On the Brink of Extinction, the Vaquita Gets a Digital Lifeline

June 17, 2026 Scientists have digitally preserved the world’s most endangered marine mammal by creating highly detailed 3D models of a vaquita skeleton using advanced imaging technology. The virtual archive provides an unprecedented look at the species and ...

The Ocean's Health May Depend on a Tiny Microbe Inside Fish

May 31, 2026 A surprising new discovery suggests that tiny microbes living inside fish may be helping shape the chemistry of the world’s oceans. Scientists found evidence that bacteria in the guts of marine fish work alongside their hosts to produce calcium ...

A New York Cemetery Was Hiding 5.5 Million Bees Underground

May 28, 2026 A casual walk through an Ithaca cemetery led to the discovery of a gigantic hidden bee population — roughly 5.5 million ground-nesting bees packed beneath the soil. Scientists believe it may be one of the largest bee aggregations ever documented ...

Latest Headlines

updated 8:41am EDT

These Insect Submariners Survive Depths That Should Crush Them

July 27, 2026 Lake fly larvae plunge more than 200 meters into Lake Malawi each day to hide from predators, using tiny air sacs to control their depth. A rubber-like material called resilin lets them expand or ...

Scientists Trace the Shocking Origin of Human Eyes to an Ancient “cyclops”

July 26, 2026 Researchers say a tiny one-eyed ancestor that lived nearly 600 million years ago may have shaped the evolution of every vertebrate eye, including our ...

Ancient Ape Fossil in Egypt Challenges the Story of Human Origins

July 24, 2026 A newly identified fossil ape from northern Egypt is reshaping ideas about where the ancestors of modern apes first emerged. Analyses place it closer to living apes than any known East African ...

New Giant Salamander Species Discovered in 3.5-Million-Year-Old Fossils

July 23, 2026 Fossils discovered in Japan more than two decades ago have finally been identified as a new genus and species of giant salamander. Limnospondylus ajimuensis lived around 3.5 million years ago in a ...

Orcas Filmed Smashing Giant Sunfish Into Thousands of Pieces

July 23, 2026 Researchers in the Gulf of California have documented a dramatic orca behavior never described before. In two separate encounters, one orca gripped a dead sunfish by the fin while another charged ...

This Ancient Sea Worm Has “bio-Metal” Jaws Unlike Anything Scientists Have Seen

July 16, 2026 An ancient sea worm may hold the secret to a whole new category of natural materials. Its jaws combine proteins and metal ions in a way that gives ...

This Dinosaur Fossil Captures the Final Moments of a T. Rex Attack

July 14, 2026 A fossilized Edmontosaurus skull with a Tyrannosaurus tooth still embedded in its face has given scientists rare evidence of a dramatic predator-prey encounter. The discovery suggests the giant ...

Spider-Like Creatures Help Uncover the Surprising Origins of Fatherhood

July 12, 2026 Citizen scientists have helped researchers solve a long-standing mystery about how parental care evolved in harvestmen. Using photos and observations from iNaturalist, scientists more than doubled ...

Hawaii's Famous “happy-Face” Spider Has a Surprising Relative

July 9, 2026 A newly discovered Happy-Face spider in the Himalayas closely resembles Hawaii's iconic species but evolved independently, according to DNA evidence. Its mysterious smile-like markings, many color ...

Rare Goblin Shark Filmed Alive for the First Time in the Deep Sea

July 8, 2026 For the first time, researchers have filmed the elusive goblin shark alive in the deep ocean where it naturally lives. The remarkable sightings greatly expand the shark's known range and depth, ...

Great Ape Laughter Reveals a Hidden Origin of Human Speech

July 1, 2026 The rhythm of human laughter appears to have deep evolutionary roots shared with chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. That ancient pattern may offer one of the clearest clues yet to how ...

This Newly Discovered Ballista Spider Catapults Ants Into a Deadly Trap

June 26, 2026 Scientists have discovered a “ballista spider” that builds a spring-powered silk trap designed specifically to catch aggressive green tree ants. The ant unknowingly triggers the mechanism itself, ...

The Secret Language Behind Animal Cooperation

June 20, 2026 Animals from different species often rely on surprisingly sophisticated communication to work together, whether finding food, cleaning parasites, or gaining protection. New research suggests these ...

Scientists Found a Way to Explain Bird Flocks That “defy” Newton’s Third Law

June 16, 2026 Physicists have solved a long-standing problem involving systems that appear to violate Newton’s third law, such as bird flocks and bacterial swarms. By adding carefully designed “imaginary ...

Earth's First Animals Barely Evolved Until Sex Changed Everything

June 10, 2026 Earth’s earliest animals may have held evolution back because they reproduced asexually, creating low-competition communities that changed very little over time. When environmental pressures pushed ...

Scientists Stunned as Bumble Bees Solve a Classic Intelligence Test

July 2, 2026 Bumble bees astonished researchers by inventing a new way to reach a hidden reward, despite never being taught the trick. The discovery adds to growing evidence that these tiny insects are far ...

This Four-Winged Dinosaur May Have Terrorized Earth's Earliest Birds

June 23, 2026 A newly discovered feathered dinosaur called Jian changmaensis may be the missing predator responsible for mysterious piles of crushed prehistoric bird bones in China. The four-winged glider, a close ...

Octopuses Use Mirrors to Find Food They Cannot See

June 5, 2026 Octopuses may be even smarter than we thought. Researchers at Dartmouth found that octopuses can learn to use mirrors to locate food hidden behind them—a skill previously seen only in vertebrates ...

This Blood-Feeding Fly Sacrifices Its Sight After Finding a Host

June 2, 2026 Deer keds rely on flight and vision to find a host, but everything changes once they land. After shedding their wings forever, these parasites reduce the activity of key vision-related genes by about ...

The Secret to Pigeons’ Incredible Navigation Was Hiding in Their Liver

May 31, 2026 Scientists have uncovered a surprising navigation system in pigeons: iron-filled immune cells in the liver that may act like tiny magnetic sensors. Birds deprived of these cells struggled to find ...

This Newly Discovered Raptor May Have Hunted Like a Giant Heron

May 29, 2026 A newly discovered raptor-like dinosaur from Patagonia is changing how scientists think about ancient predators. Named Kank australis, the 70-million-year-old dinosaur appears to have hunted fish ...

Scottish Wrens May Be Evolving Into New Species Through Island Gigantism

May 28, 2026 Tiny birds on remote Scottish islands are undergoing a dramatic evolutionary transformation. Scientists studying four isolated populations of British Wrens discovered that some island birds have ...

This Bizarre Crocodile Relative from the Triassic Looked Like an Ostrich Dinosaur

May 29, 2026 Scientists have discovered Labrujasuchus expectatus, a bizarre crocodile relative that looked more like an ostrich-like dinosaur than anything resembling a modern crocodile. It walked on two legs, ...

Tiny “sesame” Sea Slug Discovered in Taiwan Turns out to Be a New Species

May 27, 2026 A sea slug smaller than a sesame seed has turned up in Taiwan’s coastal waters — and it’s so tiny and unusual that scientists realized they had discovered a completely new species. Named ...

Scientists Discover Ancient Single-Celled Ancestors Still Live on in Your Blood

May 26, 2026 Scientists uncovered evidence that human blood cells may trace their origins back to single-celled ancestors that lived 700 million years ago. By rebuilding the evolutionary family tree of blood ...

Queenless Wasp Colonies Explode Into Chaos but Hidden Helpers Save Them

May 26, 2026 When a queen wasp suddenly disappears, her colony doesn’t calmly choose a successor — it erupts into chaos. Researchers found that female wasps immediately begin battling for power, shattering ...

Venomous Himalayan Pit Viper Was Actually 5 Different Species All Along

May 26, 2026 Hidden deep in the towering mountains of the Himalayas, one of Asia’s most mysterious venomous snakes has been keeping a major secret for over 160 years. Scientists have now discovered that the ...

Adorable Tiny Blue Octopus Found Nearly 6,000 Feet Beneath the Galápagos

May 25, 2026 A mysterious little blue octopus discovered nearly 6,000 feet beneath the waters of the Galápagos Islands has officially been identified as a brand-new species. About the size of a golf ball, the ...

Scientists Discover Giant Sea Predator Tylosaurus Rex That Terrorized Ancient Oceans

May 23, 2026 A colossal new sea predator named Tylosaurus rex has been identified from fossils found in Texas, revealing a brutal 43-foot-long hunter that ruled ancient oceans 80 million years ago. The discovery ...

Scientists Discover Inherited Traits That Break Mendel’s Laws of Genetics

June 1, 2026 A major mouse study found that some inherited traits are passed down through epigenetic changes that break the classic rules of genetics. Researchers discovered hundreds of cases where these chemical ...