Category: Animals
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Can Porcupines Shoot Their Quills?
While it’s true you should keep your distance, is there any truth to the tale of a tenacious porcupine shooting their quills?
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Wigglin’ In The Rain: Why Do Worms Come Out When It Rains?
Why do worms come out when it rains? Unfortunately, we can’t ask the worms, but we have some pretty good ideas!
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Snake Kinetics: How Snakes Move
Whether surfing sandy dunes, diving deep, or racing over rock, snakes know how to get around—no legs required.
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Do Ticks Fall From Trees?
Ticks, for as small as they are, strike a disproportionate amount of fear and disgust into our hearts and minds. And nothing quite leads to misconception like fear.
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Do Penguins Have Knees?
There’s something about penguins, isn’t there? They evoke our curiosity, our affection—nay, our adoration—at levels that other members of the animal kingdom would be hard-pressed to compete with. Perhaps it’s their wobbly gait. Maybe it’s the stark contrast they have with the often otherworldly habitats in which we often mentally…
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How a Puffin Problem Led to the Creation of a Star Wars Icon
Star Wars is as much a product of human ingenuity as it is a space odyssey. Just look at how they solved the Puffin Problem.
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Did Ben and Jerry, the Blue Ducks Who Married, Really Cause an Extinction?
In a sense, this is a story of a story that never needed to be one.
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Gay Black Swan Đads Make the Best Parents
June is Pride Month, a time for celebrating love, the LGBTQ+ community, and its beautiful spectrum of identities, cultures, and experiences. What you may not know is this diversity in orientations, relationships, and expressions isn’t an exclusively human experience. Over 1,500 animal species engage in same-sex coupling and parenting. Even…
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Raccoon Problems
Raccoons and humans don’t always get along. There’s a reason for that, and a solution. Truth is, we’re more similar than you might think.
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Wide-Eyed | Why Goats & Cuttlefish Have Weird Shaped Pupils
Who doesn’t love goats? Especially baby ones. Their gait, their bleat, their tiny horns. But there comes a time in any goat interaction I’ve had where we lock eyes and I’m struck with a mixture of curiosity and unease.
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Polar Bears & the Illusion of Color
Most would agree that Polar Bears are white, but there’s more to the story than things may appear.
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New Study Suggests the Dugong is ‘Functionally Extinct in China
According to a paper published on August 24th, 2022 in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the Dugong is now “functionally extinct” in China.
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Can Other Animals Get Sunburns?
When was the last time you saw a roseate rhinoceros, a bronzed bunting, or a peeling porcupine? Can other animals get sunburns?
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Sea Otters Have Secret Skin Pockets in Their Armpits
Yes, you read that right. Move over marsupials, you’re not the only mammals with skin pockets.
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Class S1E3 | The Demo Model (DEMOSPONGIAE)
Sometimes, things just work. In the case of sponges, there’s the Demo Model.
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Crocodiles Would Bankrupt the Tooth Fairy
Crocodiles go through an extraordinary amount of teeth in their lives, and the how and why are just as spectacular.
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This Pinocchio-Like Trait Means No Lyin’ Lions
As it turns out, Pinocchio’s nose isn’t the only one capable of revealing the truth. Want to know how old a lion is? The nose knows.
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What Animal has the Highest Blood Pressure?
Typically when we think of high blood pressure, we think of the negatives like high stress and a variety of high-risk health conditions. Yet for some in the animal kingdom, high blood pressure is a mere fact of life. So, what animal has the highest blood pressure?
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Why Do Hedgehogs Have Spikes?
Hedgehogs are easily one of the most unmistakable little critters out there, but how much do you know about them
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Wild Speeds | Earth’s Top 20 Fastest Animals
The average human can run 7 mph. How do we measure up against our cousins across the animal kingdom? Let’s explore the Earth’s top 20 fastest animals.
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Class S1E2: The Art of Glass (Hexactinellids)
Aside from the obviously fascinating fact that these creatures have skeletons made of glass, what exactly are glass sponges?
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Review | Sharks, Lies, and Videotape
“Sharks, Lies, and Videotape: A content analysis of 32 years of Shark Week documentaries” is a stunningly comprehensive report on the ways in which Shark Week, arguably the largest source of shark information consumed by the masses, mixes real science with spectacle and salacious stories.
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How to Build An Animal | Part Three
Life is full of branching points on the tree of animal life. The coelom is the next stop on our journey of how to build an animal..
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How to Build an Animal | Part Two
There really is no shortage of ways to build an animal, but there are rules to be followed. What better place to start than the beginning?
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How to Build an Animal | Part One
There really is no shortage of ways to build an animal, but there are rules to be followed—rules with deep roots.
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What Are Animals?
There are 1 to 2 M species of animals described today in every form imaginable. Here are some key traits they all share.
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Baby-Blue Bloods
Horseshoe crabs are a biological oddity, a valuable one at that, especially to drug companies who look to them to ensure medicines and vaccines are safe for all of us. And the key is in their blood.
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The Wild Life of the Horseshoe Crab
Horseshoe Crabs are some of the most fascinating creatures on the planet, and they are connected to us in ways you never imagined.
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New Episode| The Wild Life of the Mola mola
The Mola mola is one bizarre looking fish, but they are more than meets the eye. Learn more in this short episode from The Wild Life!
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New Episode| This Rare, Sapphire Tarantula is A Beauty From Gooty
Check out pictures and a transcript of the episode here Support The Wild Life for as little as $1 per month