A new study from Murdoch University has found that the introduced plant disease Phytophthora dieback is indirectly hindering quendas in Western Australia's jarrah forests by reducing their habitat quality and consequently decreasing their digging activity. The paper, "Exotic Plant Pathogen Reduces Habitat and Foraging Activities of a Digging Mammal," was published in the journal Austral Ecology.

Prolonged dry spells or droughts can sometimes reduce aquatic diseases, many of which affect people. Yet other times, water scarcity can counterintuitively lead to an uptick in diseases that depend on water.

Scientists have discovered a new extinct amphibian species hiding in the fossil collections of Los Angeles’ La Brea Tar Pits. Named Spea labreae, the Ice Age spadefoot toad is an exceptionally rare find—only one other extinct Pleistocene amphibian has ever been identified in North America. Its bones had been sitting in collections since the 1950s before a researcher noticed features that set it apart from known species.

Tiny viruses that infect bacteria could one day help us tackle infections that antibiotics can no longer treat. But first, scientists need to understand how these viruses work, and artificial intelligence could provide them with a powerful way to do that.

When a dairy cow miscarries, a farmer loses far more than an unborn calf. Feed has been grown, land and water have been used, and greenhouse gases have been released during the cow's pregnancy, but milk production, a future animal and income are lost.

Canine sarcoptic mange (scabies) is a skin condition in which microscopic mites (Sarcoptes scabiei) infest dogs' skin. The condition is contagious and zoonotic and can be difficult to detect. If left untreated, it can cause bleeding sores, malnutrition, emaciation and secondary bacterial infections that may eventually lead to a dog's death.

Fossils collected in Osaka more than 30 years ago have revealed a surprise hiding in plain sight: four previously unrecognized bones from a giant Cretaceous mosasaur. Among them is the first confirmed premaxilla—the frontmost bone of the upper jaw—ever identified in a Japanese mosasaur fossil. Even more intriguing, parts of the skull show unusual anatomical features that don’t match known mosasaurs, raising the possibility that the remains belong to an entirely new species.

Scientists have long thought an unusual genetic system helped ants, bees, and wasps evolve their extraordinary social colonies. A massive new analysis suggests that genetics alone can’t explain it—and the real secret may lie in other traits unique to these insects.

Four more belugas have arrived at a Chicago aquarium as part of a plan to move Canada's last remaining captive whales from a shuttered theme park to aquariums in the United States and Spain.

In ant colonies, a single ant can be the catalyst for a wave of mob activity, launching brief bursts of coordinated movement involving hundreds or even thousands of swarming workers, according to new simulations from New Jersey Institute of Technology.