Articles by

Jake Buehler

Mega El Niños kicked off the world’s worst mass extinction

A barrage of intense, wild swings in climate conditions may have fueled the largest mass extinction in...

Remote seamounts in the southeast Pacific may be home to 20 new species

Some 1,400 kilometers off the coast of Chile, rare deep-sea creatures drift along a garden of sponges...

This spider makes its home in the burrows of extinct giant ground sloths

Deep in the unyielding darkness of a Brazilian cave, a pale, blind, spiny beast carefully feels...

Hundreds of snake species get a new origin story

The ancestors of cobras and related snakes first emerged in Asia roughly 35 million years ago. Many...

Pheromone fingers may help poison frogs mate

During mating, some male poison frogs embrace their partner’s face in a love-potion-laced hug.  The amorous amphibians...

This tentacled, parasitic ‘fairy lantern’ plant is new to science

In the weird world of chlorophyll-free “fairy lantern” plants, there’s a new species to admire. Fairy lanterns...

Early ants may have had complex social lives, fossil data suggests

Even the earliest ants may have been social butterflies. Ants fossilized in 100-million-year-old amber have sensory...

The largest known genome belongs to a tiny fern

Big things can sometimes come in small packages.  A small fern has broken the record for the...