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10 Reptiles That Are the Only Living Species in Their Families
Cover image: Wikimedia Commons — Tuatara A leatherback turtle crosses the open ocean. A tuatara rests beside a burrow on a New Zealand island. They look very different, yet they share something surprising: each is the only living species... -
What Is Biodiversity? Why Counting Species Is Only the Beginning
Cover image: Wikimedia Commons — File:Harmonia axyridis IT.jpg, by IvanHabiprot. A woodland full of different trees, birds and insects offers an obvious introduction to biodiversity. Yet the variety of life extends beyond the number of s... -
Becoming a Flower, Smelling Like Carrion: How Fungi Influence Insect Behaviour
Cover image: Octopus stinkhorn, Clathrus archeriSource: Wikimedia Commons – Clathrus archeri - Vosges, France (fr:Utilisateur:Bouba) Something yellow appears at the tip of a stem, exactly where a flower ought to be. Insects come to it. E... -
Do Jellyfish and Insects Sleep? How Scientists Recognise Sleep
Cover photograph: “Fkeysmacro.jpg” by Chris Hind, licensed under CC BY 3.0. A motionless animal might be asleep. It might also be awake, waiting for prey or resting quietly. To tell the difference, researchers look beyond stillness: how ... -
Long Sleepers, Short Sleepers: How Animals Sleep on Land, at Sea and in the Air
Cover photograph: Peter Schmidt How does a koala spend its day? Curled into the fork of a tree, it may remain almost motionless for hours. It looks asleep, but some of that time may be spent resting while awake. At the other extreme, a s... -
Why Do Living Things Sleep?：What Orexin Research Reveals About Sleep and Wakefulness
Cover photograph by Simone Dinoia Sleep takes time away from finding food, moving about and watching for danger. Yet humans and many other animals regularly make time for it. Sleep—or a state with some of its defining features—has been r... -
One Family, One Genus, One Species：Remarkable Birds on the Taxonomic Map
Among living birds, some occupy a particularly narrow place within a chosen classification system: their family contains only one living genus, and that genus contains only one living species. In this article, I will call this arrangemen... -
One Species, One Genus, One Family: Extraordinary Plants on the Thinnest Branches of the Tree of Life
A desert plant with only two permanent leaves. A Japanese conifer found naturally nowhere else on Earth. A tiny moss that seems to shine green in the dark. Welwitschia mirabilis, Sciadopitys verticillata, and Schistostega pennata look no... -
What Is the Monito del Monte? A Tiny Marsupial with an Ancient Story
In the cool, rain-soaked forests of southern Chile and Argentina lives a tiny marsupial with rounded ears, dark rings around its eyes and a long tail that helps it move through branches. It is called the monito del monte—roughly, “little... -
What Are Ant Plants? How Ants Carry Seeds, Protect Plants, and Live Inside Them
Ants are easy to overlook on a walk. One may be carrying something across the ground, another may pause at the base of a leaf, and a third may disappear into a hollow stem. These small movements can reveal remarkable relationships betwee...
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