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Twice a Year, Reindeer Eyes Pull Off a Wonderful Magic Trick The Arctic can stay perpetually dark for months. Reindeer cope by changing part of their eyes from gold to blue. Of all the eyeballs in Glen Jeffery’s office, only a very small minority are his. “Oh, I’ve got an office full of eyes,” Jeffery, a neuroscientist at University College London, told me. Over Skype, he fi

After plans stalled for a new dam in the Czech Republic, eight beavers saved the day seemingly overnight. “At this point, nothing that beavers do surprises me.” A beaver sits on the banks of the Elbe, a major river of Central Europe that flows from the Czech Republic through Germany to the North Sea. Beavers are famous for their abilities as ecosystem engineers, or animals that modify

The quokka, an impossibly-cute marsupial that's taken social media by storm, is facing unexpected threats in its southwestern Australia home. (Credit: Martin Pelanek/Shutterstock) The quokka, an adorable marsupial hailing from southwestern Australia, is bound to put a smile on anyone’s face. They’re small and fuzzy, and the distinctive shape of their mouth gives quokkas the appeara

Watch: Atlantic Ocean's largest recorded great white male shark gets tagged for tracking Video from OCEARCH shows Contender, a massive adult great white shark, being tagged off the Florida/Georgia coast in January 2025. Contender is the largest recorded great white male shark in the Atlantic. CAPE HATTERAS, N.C. – The biggest adult, male great white shark to ever be recorded in the Atlanti

Could seeing the luminescent twinkle of fireflies on summer evenings soon be a thing of the past? Recent claims circulating on social media say that we may be the last generation to have grown up with fireflies. But how true is that?  A 2024 study in Science of The Total Environment compiled 24,000 North American surveys from Firefly Watch, a citizen scienc

Anting 🐜 is a behavior exhibited by some birds in which they allow ants 🐜 to crawl on their feathers and skin, or they actively apply ants, other insects, or substances ants secrete, to their feathers. They do this as part of their preening, or self-care, routine. Anting is a curious behavior exhibited by a surprisingly wide range of birds – over 200 species across the gl

It’s safe to say that anyone who has seen a woodpecker in action has probably been surprised by the strength and speed with which they attack a tree’s wood. In fact, the most common way to find a woodpecker is by following the sound of its pecking until you can spot it amongst the trees. It is safe to say that anybody who has seen a woodpecker in action has been amazed at the strength and s

A 176-year-old tortoise believed to be one of the world’s oldest living creatures has died in an Australian zoo. "Harriet" was long reputed to have been one of three tortoises taken from the Galapagos Islands by Charles Darwin on his historic 1835 voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. Crocodile hunter Steve Irwin, right, and his wife Terri pose in an undated photo with Harriet, a Giant

In Banff National Park, the Trans-Canada Highway runs through the Rocky Mountains, making it a vital route for motorists traveling between British Columbia and Alberta. But as traffic volume increased over the years, so did highway-related wildlife mortality. Enter the Banff Wildlife Crossings Project. The Banff Wildlife Crossings Project was initiated in 1978 by Public Works Canada as a

Dire wolves, made famous by HBO's Game of Thrones, have been extinct for around 12,500 years. But thanks to genetic engineers at biotech company Colossal Biosciences, these majestic predators are back. Romulus and Remus are two 6-month-old dire wolves, created by genetically engineering cells from living gray wolves. (Image credit: Colossal Biosciences) Dire wolves wen