Animal Life news stories

Oxygen levels in the Earth’s atmosphere are likely to have “fluctuated wildly” one billion years ago, creating conditions that could have accelerated the development of early animal life, according to new research.

Humans are creatures of paradox. Sometimes we overflow with compassion and empathy, while at other times, we are violent and cruel. We preserve nature by creating natural parks and wilderness areas, then ravage the same natural resources without any thought of how to sustain them.

At the end of the Permian period 252 million years ago, Earth was devastated by a mass extinction that exterminated more than 90% of species on the planet. Compared with other mass extinctions, recovery from the “Great Dying” was slow: It took at least 10 million years for the planet to be repopulated and restore its diversity.

More than a mile beneath the Pacific Ocean, is a seascape of oddly shaped corals and a glass sponge named after ET.

After more than a century of debate, researchers have settled the mystery of a tiny, enigmatic reptile that left an impression on Scottish sandstone nearly a quarter of a billion years ago.

The dinosaur-killing asteroid that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago also triggered a jumbo-size tsunami with mile-high waves in the Gulf of Mexico whose waters traveled halfway around the world, a new study finds.

Narwhals are enigmatic marine mammals, fascinating us with their unique appearance and secretive lifestyles under the Arctic sea ice.

Since 1996, nearly 50 new feathered dinosaur species have emerged from the fossil fields of China. Paleontologists thought they had a good idea of the diversity of these fluffy carnivores. But a recent finding left them scratching their heads.

Whether it’s a tricky maths problem or an unexpected bill, daily life is full of stressful experiences. Now researchers have found that humans produce a different odour when under pressure – and dogs can sniff it out.

Road excavations in China’s Guizhou Province have unearthed a trove of ancient fish fossils. As a part of rock layers known as the Rongxi Formation, the newfossil bed is filled with never-before-seen species that push back the dates of our first jawed animal ancestors by about 15 million years.

South Australia’s Naracoorte Caves is one of the world’s best fossil sites, containing a record spanning more than half a million years. Among the remains preserved in layers of sand are the bones of many iconic Australian megafauna species that became extinct between 48,000 and 37,000 years ago.

Our eight-legged friends can teach us something important about ourselves.

Tiny tardigrades can survive conditions that would kill most other forms of life. By expelling their body’s water and transforming into a seemingly lifeless ball called a tun, they enter a state of dried-up suspended animation in which they can survive for decades without food and water and withstand extreme temperatures, pressures and even the vacuum of space.

An ancient fossil from one of our planet’s earliest vertebrate organisms was found concealing an exciting surprise.

The devastating destruction that’s happening across the Amazon might be what comes to your mind first when thinking about deforestation – but it’s by no means the only place where dwindling forests are a worry, as a new study highlights.