The Incredible Shrinking Bison, an Unexpected Impact of Climate Change

Shrinking bison? One of the unexpected impacts of climate change is bison changing their diets. And it could in turn affect how we manage the prairie.

Matthew L. Miller

Ten Strange, Endearing and Alarming Animal Courtship Rituals

To celebrate humans' holiday of love and romance, our blogger asked biologists for tales of fascinating animal mating habits. Here are some of the strangest and most endearing.

Christine Peterson

They’re Electric: Two New Fish Species Discovered in Gabon

Not your typical fish story: Journey to Gabon to encounter two new species of electric fish.

Matthew L. Miller

White Deer: Understanding a Common Animal of Uncommon Color

For millennia, people have regarded white deer with a mix of reverence, superstition and scientific misinformation. And it continues to this day. What’s the real story of these ghost-like animals?

Matthew L. Miller

How Do Birds Stay Warm on a Cold Winter’s Night?

Winter is a tough time for birds, but a warm place to sleep can give them an edge. A scientist’s look at the cozy, and often crazy, hideouts birds choose as their winter bedrooms.

Joe Smith

Weird Conservation: The Strange Side of Saving Endangered Species

When scientists need to save an endangered species, sometimes the solution is straightforward. But sometimes, conservation requires that you built a robot, search for poop, or devise a seemingly endless variety of techniques to collect animal semen. Nature is weird, but conservation is weirder.

Justine E. Hausheer

Move Over Turkey: Meet the World’s Other Bald, Be-wattled Birds

Have you ever actually looked at a turkey? They’re cool, weird, and impressively ugly. But American Wild Turkeys aren’t the only ugly birds out there ⎯ with 10,000 avian species on Earth, the possibilities for ugly are endless.

Justine E. Hausheer

The Ten Creepiest Spiders of North America

Spider, spider on the wall, who's the creepiest of them all? Scientists share their picks for the best spiders on the continent -- the most aggressive, the rarest, the most venomous, even the prettiest. Yes, the prettiest.

Christine Peterson

Why Everything You Know About Bluegill Management is Wrong

Every angler knows that if you don’t remove enough bluegills from a pond, they’ll overpopulate and become stunted. But new research says that idea is usually wrong, and the opposite may be true.

Matthew L. Miller

Big Battles, Big Gonads: The Crazy World of the Bluegill Spawn

The common bluegill is easy to take for granted. But come spawning season, a bluegill colony is one of the wildest scenes in nature: part barroom brawl, part cheesy ‘80s romantic comedy.

Matthew L. Miller

Angry Birds: Why Molting Makes Our Feathered Friends Grumpy

For birds, “bad feather days” – what we call molting – are a part of life. And those days can make birds downright grumpy.

Joe Smith

It’s Time to End the Gar Wars

Imagine anglers piling hundreds of dead trout they've killed along stream banks. Not gonna happen, right? But it's still happening with gar, and outdoor magazines celebrate it. Why it's time to end the gar wars.

Matthew L. Miller