Animal Life news stories

The first dinosaurs to have a warm-blooded metabolism might have emerged 180 million years ago during the early Jurassic period, according to a new study. New research published in the journal Current Biology might have answered that question.

A recent analysis of a sperm whale’s vocalizations suggests variations in ‘clicks’ represent a kind of alphabet that forms the basis of a complex communication system. This research was published in Nature Communications.

Researchers have observed a male orangutan treat a wound on his face with a plant that’s also used in human medicine. It’s the first time any wild animal has been seen caring for a wound using a natural substance with known medicinal properties, researchers report May 2 in Scientific Reports.

In the darkest corners of the planet, where the light of the Sun never touches, eerie glows can yet be found, illuminating the shadows. This is bioluminescence, a remarkable ability that has evolved separately at least 94 times throughout the history of life on Earth. See the study here.

Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the world has experienced profound ecological changes. Wildlife populations have decreased by 69 percent, the result of habitat loss caused by rapid industrialization and changing temperatures. 2023 was the hottest year on record.

Bees play by rolling wooden balls — apparently for fun. The cleaner wrasse fish appears to recognize its own visage in an underwater mirror. Octopuses seem to react to anesthetic drugs and will avoid settings where they likely experienced past pain. Nearly 40 researchers signed “The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness,” which marks a pivotal moment, as a flood of research on animal cognition collides with debates over how various species ought to be treated.

Fossil vertebrae unearthed in a mine in western India are the remains of one of the largest snakes that ever lived, a monster estimated at up to 15 metres in length – longer than a T rex. See the study here.

For millions of years, giant animals or megafauna roamed the lands that are now Australia and New Guinea. Many were like much larger versions of modern animals. There was a four-metre goanna called Megalania (Varanus priscus), for example, which likely ambushed its prey. This beast disappeared by around 40,000 years ago along with almost all the other megafauna aside from remnants such as the red kangaroo and the saltwater crocodile.

Modern Eurasian sheep predominantly belong to only two so-called genetic matrilineages inherited through the ewes, so previous research has assumed that genetic diversity must already have decreased rapidly in the early stages of domestication of wild sheep. A study of a series of complete mitogenomes from the early domestication site Asıklı Höyük in central Anatolia, which was inhabited between 10,300 and 9,300 years ago, disproves this assumption.

Hunter-gatherers in what is now Patagonia, Argentina, kept foxes as pets before the arrival of European dogs about 500 years ago, a new study suggests. In some cases, the ancient people were so closely bonded with their pet foxes that they were even buried with them.

Fossils of two strange creatures found in northeastern China show the earliest dental diversification among ancestors of mammals. One of the species, Feredocodon chowi, was found in the Daohugou Formation in Inner Mongolia. The rocks in which they were found date to the Middle Jurassic (174–163 million years ago). Two specimens assigned F. chowi were examined in a paper published in Nature.

Scientists have discovered the fossilised skull of a giant river dolphin, from a species thought to have fled the ocean and sought refuge in Peru’s Amazonian rivers 16m years ago. The extinct species would have measured up to 3.5 metres long, making it the largest river dolphin ever found. See the study here.

Sometimes, it takes the smallest thing to undertake a mammoth task. That’s what researchers behind the attempts to de-extinct the woolly mammoth are hoping as they announced what they believe to be a step forward in their efforts.

Asian elephants bury their calves with their legs poking out of the ground, researchers have observed. The calves were 1 year old or less and were transported to premade burials of sorts — irrigation drains on tea estates in India — by herd members, before being placed in holes and covered in soil. See the study here.

Psilocybe mushrooms appear to have started producing psilocybin roughly 67 million years ago, right around the dinosaurs’ demise, new research shows.

Roughly 128 million years ago, snakes suddenly burst into an abundant existence on Earth, eventually diversifying into the 4,000 or so species we see today. See the research in Science.