Animal Life news stories

Ancient echidnas leave palaeontologists scratching their heads
30th April 2025 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Weird

Platypus and echidnas are the only surviving members of the monotreme family. This includes the only mammals to lay eggs rather than giving birth to live young. For this reason, they are considered relics of early mammal evolution. The new study was published in the Proccedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

Scientists claim to have brought Game of Thrones’ dire wolves back from extinction
9th April 2025 | itv.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Humans

Scientists claim they have resurrected the dire wolf using ancient DNA, cloning and gene-editing technology. The species of wolf, which died out some 12,500 years ago, is the “world’s first successfully de-extincted animal”, according to Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences.

Searching for green in a concrete world
28th March 2025 | bbc.co.uk | Animal Life, Earth, Humans

Kwesia X grew up in south east London, surrounded by busy roads and tower blocks. When faced with tragedy and homelessness, she turned to nature to find peace. Now she’s working hard to bring the experience of the natural world to young people in the city, and they’re often amazed by the plants and creatures living in the concrete jungle. You can find her videos on her YouTube channel, City Girl in Nature.

Overlooked diversity: New research suggests plants, fungi and even viruses use venom
26th March 2025 phys.org | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

A new study reveals plants, fungi, bacteria, protists, and even some viruses deploy venom-like mechanisms, similar to that of venomous snakes, scorpions and spiders, according to researchers at Loma Linda University School of Medicine. The study is published in the journal Toxins.

25,000-year-old mammoth bones reveal culture of ancient humans
26th March 2025 | livescience.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Humans

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of at least five woolly mammoths at a site in Austria. The remains suggest that ancient humans processed the mammoths’ ivory tusks 25,000 years ago.

Chinese palaeontologists discover “life oasis” existed during mass extinction
14th March 2025 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

Fossils found in China’s Turpan-Hami Basin reveal a refuge, or “life oasis”, for plants and animals during the Permian extinction – the worst mass extinction in Earth’s history. The fossils are detailed in a paper published in the journal Science Advances.

Study Reveals How Earth’s Orbit Triggers Ice Ages, And There’s One in The Next 11,000 Years
28th February 2025 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

New research has demonstrated the precise relationship between past ice ages and each wobble, tilt, and angle of the planet’s path, unlocking a new tool for predicting the future fluctuations of our global climate. The team’s research has been published in Science.

Humpback whale song shown to be structurally similar to human language
7th February 2025 phys.org | Animal Life, Humans

Language has long been considered a uniquely human trait, with features that mark it out as distinct from the communication of all other species. However, research published in Science has uncovered the same statistical structure that is a hallmark of human language in humpback whale song.

Octopuses May Have The Oldest Sex Chromosomes in The Animal Kingdom
4th February 2025 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Animal Life

Cephalopods may have the oldest sex chromosomes of any animal, according to a new discovery in the octopus genome. That’s a big deal, given that scientists didn’t know until now if these oddball creatures even had a form of sex determination written into their genes. The research is published in Current Biology.

We may know very little about the origin of dinosaurs
29th January 2025 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

A review of the oldest known dinosaurs has revealed that fossil evidence for their origin probably has not yet been discovered. Most of the earliest dinosaur fossils have been found in South America and Africa.

Did giant ice age beasts carve these vast caves in South America?
28th January 2025 | nature.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth, Humans

Researchers are investigating who — or what — cut ancient tunnels in sandstone in Brazil and nearby nations.

Giant footprints in Mongolia could be from the largest bipedal dinosaur
27th January 2025 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

Footprints measuring 92cm in width found in Mongolia have raised the prospect of an as yet undiscovered skeleton of the largest bipedal dinosaur ever.

Octopus Arms Are Controlled by a Nervous System That’s Like No Other
15th January 2025 | sciencealert.com | Animal Life, Weird

Octopuses tend to keep secrets, but we’ve just learnt how they achieve their extraordinary dexterity. The research has been published in Nature Communications.

Enormous skull of 200-million-year-old giant dinosaur discovered in China
14th January 2025 | livescience.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

An enormous, extremely well preserved dinosaur skull unearthed in China belongs to a never-before-seen species, researchers say.

How the first animals changed the face of Earth forever
13th January 2025 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

The first animals with mineral skeletons changed the way sediments develop on Earth forever, according to new research.

Evidence of a 517-million-year-old “arms race” in the ocean
7th January 2025 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Earth

The oldest-known fossil evidence of a predator-prey arms race has been discovered in shells dating back to the early Cambrian. A new study was published in the journal Current Biology

News stories covering Animal Science, bacterial life, DNA.