zoology

A common frog found across Ecuador and Colombia has finally been recognized as its own species after more than a century of mistaken identity. Museum specimens from the 1800s helped scientists reveal that Pristimantis milpe had been hiding in plain sight all along.

Nature Communications, Published online: 05 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-77599-6 There is still limited data reported on virus diversity in South American bats. In this study, the authors report a divergent betacoronavirus with a functional furin cleavage site in South American bats, expanding knowledge of coronavirus diversity and features linked to zoonotic potential.

A red kangaroo can overlap three generations through embryonic diapause, prolonged pouch development and mammary glands that supply different milk to young of different ages.

The result held on one device and did not reach significance on the other, and the paper's own summaries carry that result further than its statistics do.

Scientists have overturned a leading explanation for why male and female bonnethead sharks have differently shaped heads. Instead of males developing a pointed snout at maturity, both sexes actually begin with more pointed heads that become rounder with age, particularly in females.

And they could shed light on our own language acquisition The post Chimps Have Accents, Too appeared first on Nautilus .

Researchers tracking grunts, whimpers and laughter across two geographically separated chimpanzee populations found that vocal differences sharpen with age. The post Young Chimps Develop Their Own Accents, New Study Finds appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News .

Marine biology junior Joshua Carr spent his summer investigating a rare behavior in wildlife research: gray wolves hunting and consuming sea otters.

Critically endangered pygmy raccoons on Cozumel Island in Mexico have shown remarkable creativity by making balls out of rubbish at beach clubs

It started when the pygmy raccoon dove into the wrong trash bin—not the bin known by her family for its tasty food scraps but the one with paper and plastic waste. Last January Nessie O’Neil, a graduate student in biology at Miami University in Ohio, watched as a young pygmy raccoon plucked a receipt from the paper trash. The raccoon used her paws to repeatedly dunk the receipt into a bowl of wat…

According to a new paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, some of the smallest bees studied have photoreceptors as sharp as those of much larger honeybee drones. The post Some of Smallest Bee Species See Best, New Study Finds appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News .

The brain cells help an African fish decode electric signals to spot prey, scan its murky surroundings and communicate with its fellows.

One reader delves into whether or not fish can see air – and question if humans can strictly see water

A wild coyote breached the island prison's legendary defenses, then vanished—leaving biologists to piece together an improbable 2-mile journey from clues in his scat.

Accumulative stone throwing is a rare, potentially cultural, behavior that has been observed among four groups of wild chimpanzees in West Africa The post Why Do Male Chimpanzees Throw Rocks at the Same Trees for More Than a Decade? appeared first on Nautilus .

Researchers are studying dogs’ ability to control and change their voices in the hope of shedding light on one of evolution’s biggest mysteries: the origins of human speech.