If you aren't fond of spiders, this scene will sound like a nightmare. A 300-metre-long (1,000-foot) field of spiderweb has sprung up in western Greece in the town of Aitoliko.

Did the octopus evolve its unique intelligence by playing fast and free with the genetic code? Elizabeth Finkel investigates.

The once-endangered vicuna is thriving in the Peruvian Andes, thanks to a bold plan to sustainably gather and sell its valuable fleece – and give locals a stake in its survival.

Scientists showed that plants are much less passive than they seem by revealing the secret workings of their threat communication systems.

New study: Ingesting even a single piece of plastic exposes sea turtles to a 20% chance of death.

The snack wouldn’t exist without the help of one furry critter and its unusually sharp teeth.

Most of the extinctions were caused by deforestation in South America, a new study of endangered birds shows

Videos abound on the internet of people using customized hats and other tools to hand-feed the tiny fliers. Here’s what you need to know if you’d like to try it.

Nudibranchs may look cute, squishy and defenseless ... but watch out. These brightly-colored sea slugs aren't above stealing weapons from their prey.

A growing body of evidence points to how animals are aware of death and will sometimes mourn for or ritualize their dead

Inspired by indigenous views of nature, a movement to grant a form of legal “personhood” to rivers is gaining some ground — a key step, advocates say, in reversing centuries of damage inflicted upon the world’s waterways.

Earth is panting as soil struggles to keep up with climate change.

Often viewed as wild, naturally pristine and endangered by human encroachment, some of the African savannah’s most fertile and biologically diverse wildlife hotspots owe their vitality to heaps of dung deposited there over thousands of years by the livestock of wandering herders, suggests new research in the journal Nature.

The world’s second-largest penguin colony has collapsed in just a few decades, falling from half a million breeding pairs in the 1980s to just tens of thousands in 2017. Breeding colonies of king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) occupy unvegetated ground on islands in the Southern Ocean, including the remote Ile aux Cochons.

John Archibald praises a compelling guide to the past 3 billion years — and its molecular historians.

Retracing the steps of a century-old wildlife survey, ecologists find that birds are making remarkable adaptations to climate change.

“Pretty freaky”

Tree cover loss in the tropics was outweighed by tree cover gain in subtropical, temperate, boreal, and polar regions.

Parasites have a leisurely lifestyle — set up camp at someone else’s place, live off their food, profit (evolutionarily speaking). But new research shows that sometimes the parasite gets a taste of its own medicine, and from an unexpected source. Scientists studying wasps that target oak leaves found that a second parasite, a vine, can get its tendrils into the homes set up by the wasps, called galls, subverting their diversion of the host’s resources. After that, things don’t go so well for the wasp.

As the Salton Sea dries up, it threatens nearby communities with clouds of toxic dust.

On the frontlines of extinction in the Gulf of California, where the vaquita faces its final days.

Could a global icon of extinction still be alive?

Barn owls have simpler brains than primates, but they can process information about things moving in their environment in a similarly complex way.

A major embryo breakthrough could help save one of the most endangered animals on the planet, and many more in the future.

A largely volunteer effort to help vulnerable sea turtles is improving their plight in Indonesia.

The insatiable demand of the global building boom has unleashed an illegal market in sand. Gangs are now stealing pristine beaches to order and paradise islands are being dredged and sold to the construction industry.

It has been observed that spiders use silk to ‘float’ through the air. Even Charles Darwin noticed that many of these creatures could alight on the Beagle during its voyage, only to leave on their own accord later.This may be because spiders use the wind to perform their impressive wingless flights. However, spider-ballooning has also been observed on completely calm days. Therefore, the insects must be using a different kind of force or physical property to do so.

Never surrender.

We need a better story than the pathetic one played out by beautiful animals that we haul into the sea of our ignorance, says the writer Philip Hoare

Wonderful video with native bird calls.

Fish are losing their sense of smell because of increasingly acidic oceans caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, new research shows.

Nematodes moving and eating again for the first time since the Pleistocene age in major scientific breakthrough, say experts.

A stunning case of natural selection in action.

Most of the edible plants in the rainforest were planted by humans over 4500 years ago, new study finds. Modern farmers should look to these ancient forest gardeners for the key to sustainable food production.

A newborn snake, preserved in amber from Myanmar for nearly 100 million years, is a first for the fossil record and reveals how the animals developed.