5+ day, 3+ hour ago   (805+ words) How one unusual rail became a taxonomic mystery There is something slightly unsettling about a bird species known from just one specimen. Sharpe’s Rail is one of those birds. The specimen arrived at the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie in Leiden…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (23+ words) One volume, 370 pages and 1,100 species: what their names stand for, both common and scientific? Let me try one particular species....

6+ mon, 6+ day ago   (353+ words) Studies on species such as the European Robin demonstrate that birds maintain directional orientation even when exposed to experimentally altered magnetic fields. When researchers shift the magnetic field around the birds, their preferred migratory direction shifts accordingly. The effect persists…...

6+ mon, 3+ week ago   (909+ words) By Peter Hinow Originally from Dresden, Germany, Peter Hinow is a mathematics professor at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. One day, when left unsupervised at home, he toyed around with a 300 mm lens that his better half…...

7+ mon, 5+ day ago   (369+ words) So, the first tried-and-tested approach when not having solid facts is looking at the scientific name. In this case, Trochalopteron affine. The first part has a nice ring of either a dinosaur or a sinister hedge fund. I went with…...

9+ mon, 2+ week ago   (656+ words) About 320 million years ago, a small egg-laying, reptile-like creature scurried through the humid forests of Pangea. Two independent and very different animal lineages in the present trace their ancestry to this ancient vertebrate: mammals and birds. Inside that ancestor’s skull…...

10+ mon, 2+ week ago   (208+ words) Keratin is a family of structural, fibrous proteins. These proteins are the primary components of hair, nails, feathers, claws, hooves, and the outer layer of skin in animals. There are two main types: alpha-keratin and beta-keratin. Both are found in…...