Despite the ubiquity of raptors in terrestrial ecosystems, many aspects of their predatory behaviour remain poorly understood. Surprisingly little is known about the morphology of raptor talons and how they are employed during feeding behaviour.

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A prehistoric goat survived for millennia on a resource-poor island by living like a reptile—changing its growth rate and metabolism to match the available food supply, according to a new study of the animal's bones.

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At the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi, Kelly the dolphin has built up quite a reputation. All the dolphins at the institute are trained to hold onto any litter that falls into their pools until they see a trainer, when they can trade the litter for fish.

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Experiments showed the birds - which belong to the corvid family that includes crows, ravens and magpies - perceive the physical rules of support with the same degree of intelligence as a six month old baby. More Articles

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A German spider specialist told the Observer newspaper he named the new species after Bowie — whose album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was a huge hit in 1972 — because he wanted to raise awareness about the discovery.

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A lyrebird at Adelaide Zoo has been amusing staff and visitors by mimicking construction sounds from work on a new enclosure ahead of the arrival of two pandas from China.

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A critically endangered clouded leopard cub has been captured by tribespeople in a remote area of Bangladesh, a leading zoologist has told the BBC.

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The dinosaurs that roamed the Earth millions of years ago might not have been as massive as we've long imagined...

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Great white sharks and serial killers have common behavioural traits including stalking specific victims, a new study has found.

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WAS IT really the age of the thinosaurs? Scientists have discovered that dinosaurs may have been much lighter and sleeker than previously thought because of potential flaws in the equations used to calculate their weight.

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Forget the old folk tales about snakes hypnotizing their prey. The tentacled snake from South East Asia has developed a more effective technique.

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The pairing of same sex couples had previously been observed in more than 1,000 species including penguins, dolphins and primates.

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The use of 'tactical deception' is argued to have been important in the cognitive evolution of the order Primates, but systematic studies of active deception in wild non-human primates are scant.

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One way scientists learn about animals is by studying their poop -- also called "scat" or "dung." Let's look at some animal poop and see if you can guess who left it behind.

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Like zombies, spiders in a lab twitched back to life hours after "drowning"—and the scientists were as surprised as anyone. The spiders, it seems, enter comas to survive for hours underwater, according to a new study.

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During the last 540 million years, the earth's oxygen levels have fluctuated wildly.

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Giant lions were roaming around Britain, Europe and North America up to 13,000 years ago, scientists from Oxford University have found.

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Scientists studying a mysterious neurological affliction in cats have discovered a surprising ability of the central nervous system to repair itself and restore function.

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A new paper reveals analyzes the evolutionary relationships of Synodontis catfishes and finds that their biogeographic history is more complex than previously thought. Includes data figures, maps and pics of the fishes!

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Researchers have found what they say is some of the first unambiguous evidence that an animal other than humans can make spontaneous plans for future events.

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A male chimpanzee in a Swedish zoo planned hundreds of stone-throwing attacks on zoo visitors, according to researchers. Keepers at Furuvik Zoo found that the chimp collected and stored stones that he would later use as missiles.

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Satomi's pygmy seahorse, endemic to Indonesia, is one of the world's tiniest seahorses. Two adults would fit head-to-head across the face of a penny and their offspring are each about the size of a 12-point apostrophe.

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In a fundamental reconfiguration of the tree of life, scientists now say that the last common animal ancestor is not — as was commonly believed — a sponge or comb jelly, but rather an as-yet-unknown forerunner of amoeba-like creatures called placozoans.

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A few years ago, Wisconsin Zoological Museum worker Paula Holahan opened some cabinets that hadn't been touched for decades. Inside, she found several boxes of delicate glass replicas of ocean life, including this Argonauta argo. Some were crumbling, and all needed to be cleaned.

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An ancient island utopia that sank long ago is more than a fairytale for Australia's tree lobster: it's where the strange insect may have actually evolved millions of years ago, say researchers.

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