Articles by

Susan Milius

Is that shark ticking? In a first, a shark is recorded making noise

Sharks may not be the sharp-toothed silent type after all. The clicking of flattened teeth, discovered by...

A nearly century-old dead date palm tree helped solve an ancestry mystery

What the island nation of Cape Verde cherishes as its own distinctive kind of date palm is...

How fish biologists discovered birds of paradise have fluorescent feathers

With flashy feathers and fancy moves, birds of paradise are already known for extravagant looks. But a...

How a mushroom coral goes for a walk without legs

A coral walks into a (sand) bar. This may sound like a joke. But new time-lapse photography...

Extinct moa ate purple trufflelike fungi, fossil bird droppings reveal

For the first time, ancient DNA from droppings left by New Zealand’s flightless moa identifies actual species...

Mole or marsupial? This subterranean critter with a backward pouch is both

Evolving a dig-in-the-dark mole lifestyle comes with radical anatomical changes, making it hard even to guess the...

Poop is on the menu for a surprising number of animals

Feces don’t get enough credit as food. The stinky stuff is not just an end product after...

Climate stress may undermine male spiders’ romantic gift giving

Courtship dazzle in spiders can lose some zing in uncertain climates. Males in places with hard-to-predict rain...