Meet India’s starry dwarf frog, lone member of newly discovered ancient lineage
The starry dwarf frog is an expert hider. Plunging into leaf litter at the slightest disturbance, it has successfully evaded attention for millions of years...
How to take a census of Earth’s biodiversity? One team of researchers has a plan
How do you monitor the number and location of Earth’s plants and animals at any given time? It’s a daunting, planet-sized problem, but an...
How megalodon’s teeth evolved into the ‘ultimate cutting tools’
Megalodon, the largest shark that ever lived, is known only from its gigantic bladelike teeth, which can be more than 7 inches long. But these teeth, described...
Plants’ drought alert system has unlikely evolutionary origin: underwater algae
Plants’ water-to-land leap marks one of the most important milestones in the evolution of life on Earth. But how plants managed this transition when...
20-million-year-old tusked sea cow is Central America’s oldest marine mammal
Steven Manchester didn’t set out to discover Central America’s oldest known marine mammal. He was hoping to find fossil plants. Manchester, curator...
Shark bites plummet, fatalities remain average in 2018
While several high-profile shark bites made headlines last year, the total number of shark attacks globally took a nosedive. The University of Florida’s...
Scientists: ‘Time is ripe’ to use big data for planet-sized plant questions
A group of Florida Museum of Natural History scientists has issued a “call to action” to use big data to tackle longstanding questions about plant...
New butterfly named for pioneering 17th-century entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian
More than three centuries before initiatives to increase the number of women in STEM fields, 52-year-old Maria Sibylla Merian sailed across the Atlantic on a...
Oldest-known ancestor of modern primates may have come from North America, not Asia
About 56 million years ago, on an Earth so warm that palm trees graced the Arctic Circle, a mouse-sized primate known as Teilhardina first curled its fingers...
Packing a suitcase for the future: Introducing Bahamian schoolkids to native people of the past
As University of Florida archaeologist Bill Keegan studies the ancient Lucayan people, inhabitants of the Caribbean for hundreds of years, he must rewrite the...