Kiwi are flightless, nocturnal birds that are native to New Zealand. There are five recognised species of kiwi, and with 400 remaining individuals, the rarest is the critically endangered Rowi (Apteryx rowi) of New Zealand’s Okarito forest. The second rarest species is the little spotted kiwi (Apteryx owenii), which has been spread over several of [...]

The Pallas’s long-tongued bat uses blood to change the shape of its mop-like tongue as it feeds in mid-air, researchers have discovered. High-speed video footage has revealed that an increased flow of blood to the tip of the bat’s tongue causes scores of tiny hair-like projections to become swollen and erect, allowing the bat to maximise [...]

A new species of forcepfly with enormous genital pincers has been discovered in Brazil, bringing the total number of known species in this family to three. Plus a tiny fairyfly named Tinkerbella nana has been found in Costa Rica, and at  250 μm long, it’s invisible to the naked eye, and one of the smallest insects [...]

“Wait, wait, wait. What is all this?” “WE’RE HERE TO CLAIM THE THRONE.” “All of you? You can’t fit those horses in here. Is the King even expecting you? I wasn’t told there was a siege scheduled today. Look, see, all I’ve got in my diary is, “Organise shoes into ‘comfortable’ and ‘who made these, [...]

A new species of skin-feeding amphibian has been discovered in French Guiana. Named Microcaecilia dermatophaga, it joins just three other caecilian species whose young have been observed to regularly feed on their mother’s skin. Amphibians can be pretty good parents, committing themselves to various guarding, transporting and feeding behaviours to foster their offspring. The Surinam toad from French [...]

The gooey ink secretions of sea hares do more than just repel or distract their predators; scientists have discovered that this sticky substance can also mask their senses of smell and taste. Sea hares (genus Aplysia) are large, herbivorous mollusks that are closely related to sea slugs and nudibranchs. The largest sea hare, Aplysia vaccaria, [...]

Genetic analysis has revealed the existence of two new species of Madagascan mouse lemur, bringing the total number of recognised species to 20. Weighing less than 100 g and rarely stretching more than 28 cm, tail included, mouse lemurs are the smallest primate in the world. Native to the forests of Madagascar, these strictly nocturnal [...]

There’s nothing like the thought of a delicious piece of meat with human teeth wrapped in prison stripes to put you to a gentle, dreamless sleep. Despite the way it looks, the sheepshead fish (Archosargus probatocephalus) has at least one thing going for it. While other members of the Sparidae family are trying out various [...]

There’s a new species convention happening somewhere right now and none of us got the memo because old. But that’s okay because we’ve got ROFLCon and Anthrocon Playstations. This week an international team of researchers announced that they’ve identified some 80 new species of plants and animals along Papua New Guinea’s Hindenburg Wall, a 50-km [...]

After a century of colourful guesses, CT scans have revealed what’s really going on inside the nightmarish jaw of Helicoprion, a large, 270 million-year-old cartilaginous fish with an elaborate whorl of teeth set in the middle of its mouth. In 1899, Russian geologist, Alexander Petrovich Karpinsky, gave this six-metre-long fish the name Helicoprion, meaning “spiral [...]