A simple procedure on a caterpillar gives a unique look inside the formation of color in a butterfly wing.

Urban house finches incorporate more fibres from cigarette butts into their nests if they have live ticks in them, suggesting the toxic chemicals in the butts may deter the parasites

Researchers crack a centuries-old mystery

A hatchling exquisitely preserved in amber is giving us the best glimpse yet of what an extinct group of birds was like  

Species like the blue whale became so big only in the past 4.5 million years, a result of changes to the food supply in the oceans, scientists say.

They’re so steady that you can balance a dead one on a single leg.

Top predators like wolves have a powerful effect on their ecosystems, and if they are taken away, a strange phenomenon can happen

Drone footage taken in the far northeastern regions of Canada finally sheds light on how narwhals use the massive tusks protruding from their heads.

The footprint made by a reptile that lived almost 250 million years ago has been found in the Pyrenees.

Forget the laughing kookaburra—kea are the birds that really tickle each other's funny bones. The highly intelligent parrot has a specific call, that—like human laughter—puts other parrots that hear it in a good mood. This makes the kea the first known non-mammal to show contagious emotion, joining the ranks of humans, rats, and chimpanzees.

A non-native snake species that has already wiped out most of Guam's tree-dwelling birds is also decimating the Pacific island's forests, researchers said Wednesday.

Can a mouse be mindful? Researchers believe they have created the world’s first mouse model of meditation by using light to trigger brain activity similar to what meditation induces. The mice involved appeared less anxious, too. Human experiments show that meditation reduces anxiety, lowers levels of stress hormones and improves attention and cognition. In one study of the effects of two to four weeks of meditation training, Michael Posner of the University of Oregon and colleagues discovered changes in the white matter in volunteers’ brains, related to the efficiency of communication between different brain regions. The changes, picked up i

Be nice – or your dog may judge you. Both pets and monkeys show a preference for people who help others, and this might explain the origins of our sense of morality. Studies involving babies have previously shown that by the age of one, humans are already starting to judge people by how they interact. This has led to suggestions that children have a kind of innate morality that predates their being taught how to behave.

For decades, scientists thought that most primates could not produce vowels, sounds fundamental to human speech. That’s because nonhumans supposedly lacked the necessary vocal anatomy. But now, researchers report that Guinea baboons, monkeys that inhabit the forests and savanna of West Africa, make five vowellike sounds similar to those used by humans. The findings bolster a recent study showing that Japanese macaques are also anatomically capable of speech.

Chickens are not as ‘bird brained’ as previously thought.

If movies were trying to be more realistic, perhaps the way to summon Batman shouldn't have been the Bat-Signal — it should have been the bat squeak. New research from the Bat Lab for Neuro-Ecology at Tel Aviv University found that bats are "vocalizing" more information than many researchers previously thought. And researchers were able to decipher what the bats were squeaking to each other about — often they were bickering over things like food, sleep and mating.

Migrating birds are arriving at their breeding grounds earlier as global temperatures rise, an Edinburgh University study finds.

Research indicates apes are able to predict one another’s beliefs and suggests that other primates have complex inner lives

A new study estimates there are just 7,100 now left in the wild as they face growing conflict with humans.

To scientists' delight, the incredible appendage from 99 million years ago is covered in feathers.