News
News and interesting photography and wildlife tidbits from around the web.
Giant Filter Feeders of the Jurassic
Basking sharks, manta rays, whale sharks, and baleen whales all have one thing in common: their eating habits. These animals are marine filter feeders. They get their meals by straining tiny organisms from the seas in which they swim. Basking shar...
Ancient Jawbone Hints at Polar Bear Origins
When compared to brown bears, polar bears are the new species on the block. The two species diverged from each other 150,000 years ago on islands in the Alexandar Archipelago, Southeast Alaska.
A study published in the Proceedings of the National...
Sea Turtle Hatchlings Are Sure-Footed on Sand
A sea turtle begins its life as an egg buried beneath a pile of sand at the edge of the sea. After hatching, a sea turtle must dig its way out of the nest to reach the surface. Once at the surface the tiny turtle is exposed and vulnerable to preda...
Grizzly Bears Wander into Polar Bear Habitat
Polar bears are no longer the only bear to roam Canada's Wapusk National Park. According to Robert F. Rockwell and Linda Gormezano from the American Museum of Natural History and City University of New York, grizzly bears have recently moved into ...
Photos: Top 25 Most Endangered Primates
A recent report identifies the 25 most endangered primates on the planet today. The list includes species such as the Rondo dwarf Galago, the Tana River red colobus, the simakobu, and the cotton-top tamarin. You can view a gallery of these endange...
Photos: Leaf-Cutter Ants Tend Their Garden
This collection of images shows leaf-cutter ants clipping and carting away chunks of leaves and tending their subterranean fungus gardens.
Photos: Leaf-Cutter Ants Tend Their Garden originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Tuesday, F...
Leaf-Cutter Ants Dabble with Nitrogen Fixation
Leaf-cutter ants are crafty cultivators. They tend vast gardens of fungus that they harvest to feed their minions. In return, the ants care for the fungus. They constantly clip and compost bits of leaves to form a rich substrate on which the fungu...
Insects - Class Insecta
Insects (Insecta) are the most diverse of all animal groups. There are more species of insects than there are all other species combined. Their numbers are nothing short of remarkable, both in terms of the numbers of individuals as well as the num...
Ernst Haeckel's Artforms of Nature
Ernst Haeckel (February 16, 1834 - August 9, 1919) was a physician, anatomist, zoologist, naturalist, biologist and artist who is perhaps best know for his law of recapitulation, which proposed that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". Heackel also...
Who is Ernst Haeckel?
Ernst Haeckel (February 16, 1834 - August 9, 1919) was a physician, anatomist, zoologist, naturalist, biologist and artist who is perhaps best know for his law of recapitulation, which proposed that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". Heackel also...
Podcasts from the PBS Nature Series
The following podcasts require Quicktime or iTunes and are in .m4v format. They are very large files, so it will take awhile to download before they start playing. The videos are not full shows, but shorts from a full show. They’re interesting though.
The Beauty of Ugly (02/07/10)
22-Tentacled Nose - Meet the star-nosed mole, whose 22 fleshy tentacles are super-sensitive to touch and allow it to hunt 14 times faster than its competition. "The Beauty of Ugly" airs Sunday, February 7 at 8 p.m. (check local listings). For mo...
Wild Balkans (1/31/10)
The Balkan Peninsula is notorious for being one of the great battlegrounds of history. And yet, it possesses another side unknown to many, where ancient forests and vast wetlands harbor pristine wilderness, and sheer cliff walls and desolate plate...
American Eagle (1/24/10)
From the pristine wilderness of Alaska to the Upper Mississippi River Valley, American Eagle goes behind the scenes and into the nest to provide the ultimate bird's eye view into the private life of an American icon. American Eagle airs Sunday, Ja...
Clash: Encounters of Bears and Wolves (1/17/10)
The wilds of Yellowstone National Park are a world of predators, scavengers and opportunists. In this vast and complex kingdom, two dominant predators reign supreme: the grizzly bear and the wolf. Size and power square off against speed and teamwo...
Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air (1/10/10)
Hummingbirds take extraordinary to a whole new level. They are the smallest warm-blooded creatures on the planet, but they are also among the fastest. With wings that beat up to 200 times every second, they are among nature's most accomplished ath...