Monthly Archive

English taxidermist Emily Mayer is so gifted that her lifelike dogs fool other dogs into thinking they are alive—or, as the case may be, dead. 

Photo: Gil Ros

Forget the black cat costume cliché, this year trick-or-treaters sporting lynx masks or leopard spots are prowling for treats with a purpose.

Dennis Kunkel

From cape-wearing Count Draculas to chic Twilight impersonators, there are sure to be innumerable people dressed up in vampire costumes this Halloween. In honor of the holiday, and our fascination with sanguinivorous creatures, we offer you facts about real blood-sucking animals.

One species that modern birders can never add to their life lists is the imperial woodpecker, but now, a rediscovered 85-second film clip offers a unique opportunity to see this vanished species in action.

Imperial woodpeckers (male on left, Museum specimens, UMMZ 29216 on left, 29217, collected in Durango, Mexico in 1898). Credit: Phil Myers (photographer, copyright holder), Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan.

Photo: State Library of NSW
 
Every Thursday we post a funny animal photo that's begging for a caption. Click "Read more" to add your suggestion in the Comments section. On Monday we'll choose our three favorite captions and list them under the image.

Photo: Ken Hackman, Bugwood.org

Though not exactly neighborly, Stephens' kangaroo rats do keep their enemies closer. The finding could help save an endangered species.

When we were putting together our special food issue earlier this year, I was struck by the wide range of topics that we covered: factory farms, technology, pollution, nutrition, agricultural traditions, labor conditions, poverty, and so much more. That interconnectedness is being celebrated across the nation today, the first annual Food Day. Modeled on Earth Day, it’s a grassroots drive to improve our food system, sponsored by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest. There’s plenty that needs fixing.

Illustration: Mark Witton, University of Portsmouth, www.markwitton.com.

Scientists in the UK have identified a little fossil that came from a very big flying reptile.

Illustration by James Joyce

Enticed by state and federal energy incentives, a utility rebate program, and falling prices for solar panels, a Colorado couple hooks their home up to the sun. Author Susan J. Tweit shares her story.

Hoopoe caught on limesticks. Photo: Hüseyin Yorgancıname
 
More than 1 million birds have been illegally slaughtered in Cyprus so far this fall, the nonprofit BirdLife Cyprus estimates. They’re being snared in mist nets or trapped with limesticks to feed the demand for Ambelopoulia—banned delicacies that consists of pickled or boiled songbirds.
 
What makes the practice especially atrocious is that it’s indiscriminate: BirdLife Cyprus has recorded 122 avian species illegally trapped, 58 of which are listed as threatened at the international or European Union level.