Mammals

A Beloved Alpha Polar Bear Near the End of His Life

Saint Pete, as he's known by locals in nearby Churchill, Manitoba, is an elderly polar bear who's been visiting the town for decades

An Angry Hippo Charges a Trespassing Lion

A lion ventures into an area of the river that's part of a hippo bull's territory. The enraged hippo wastes no time in asserting his dominance

Hippo Climbs Down a Steep Cliff...With Difficulty

A 15-foot male hippo carefully negotiates his enormous body down a sheer cliff. It's the shortest and most direct route to the water

Showy traits, like the large antlers of these bull moose, can be detrimental to an animal's health.

Go Big or Go Generic: How Sexual Selection Is Like Advertising

When it comes to attracting mates, it pays to either go all out—or not try at all

What Really Killed Off the Woolly Mammoth?

What caused woolly mammoths to die-off so quickly? New evidence suggests an unfavorable climate may have drove them to extinction

A tickled rat.

What Tickling Giggly Rats Can Tell Us About the Brain

Their laughter manifests in a surprising region of the cerebral cortex

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Canada Can’t Figure Out Why the Ocean Floor Is Beeping

A mysterious sound has baffled residents of a far-flung hamlet

Ask Smithsonian: What’s the Longest You Can Hold Your Breath?

A dive into the science shows it is possible to override the system

A spotted hyena in South Africa's Kruger National Park.

North America Used to Have its Very Own Hyena

These giggly beasts didn’t just roam Africa and the Middle East. They were right here in our backyard

These are the creatures snakes have nightmares about.

The Animals That Venom Can’t Touch

Meet the creatures who look into the face of venomous death and say: Not today

The mammoth skull being excavated on Santa Rosa Island

Scientists Puzzle Over Unusual Mammoth Skull Unearthed in the Channel Islands

The well-preserved fossil doesn't neatly fit in with other examples of the species

A pair of bison hang out in the snow at Yellowstone National Park, one of the United States' best spots to see the huge mammals.

American Safaris: Where to See the Biggest Mammals in the U.S.

Go wild for the United States' largest mammals and take an American Safari

The lowly urban rat deserves our attention.

In Defense of Studying City Rats

By placing a taboo on researching these “disease sponges,” we leave ourselves at their mercy

What kept giraffes apart so long that they developed into separate species?

There Are Four Giraffe Species—Not Just One

The downside to this revelation: several of the new species are critically endangered

Captive Bactrian deer at The Wilds, a conservation center in Cumberland, Ohio. Until recently, the deer was feared locally extinct in Afghanistan.

Rare Afghan Deer Endures Two Major Wars, Is Ultimate Survivor

Researchers feared the endangered ungulate had gone locally extinct. The Bactrian deer proved them wrong

Fertility Problems for Man's Best Friend Could Spell Trouble for Man

Dog sperm quality has decreased likely from household chemical exposure

Move Over, Madagascar: This Island Has the World’s Greatest Concentration of Unique Mammals

The majority of them are found nowhere else on Earth, making Luzon a biological treasure trove

Two skulls belonging to extinct marine mammal herbivores used in the new study, both from the Smithsonian's collections.

When Did Today’s Whales Get So Big?

More recently than you might think, say scientists who scoured the fossil record

Expanding human populations in India have pushed tigers into small, isolated habitats—and resulted in some unusual behaviors.

Sorry, Tiger Dudes: Your Ladies Are Faking It

India’s tigresses may be feigning interest in sex as the result of shrinking habitat and overlapping territories

Jayson Mesman and his truffle hunting dog Samson hard at work at The Truffle Farm.

These Adorable Rescue Dogs Lead Truffle Hunting Tours in Australia's Majura Valley

An Australian farmer trains these abandoned canines to sleuth out a gourmet delicacy

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