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Why would male flies mate with dead females? A fungus made them do it.

Mind-controlling fungus makes male flies mate with dead, infected females

By Mindy Weisberger

The pathogenic fungus Entomophthora muscae doesn't just kill the flies it infects; it also turns males into sex-crazed necrophiliacs.

Pingu the penguin is lost

This penguin swam from Antarctica to New Zealand, potentially by accident

By Joanna Thompson

A lost Adelie penguin ended up almost 2,000 miles off course.

A scorpion at the Scorpion Kingdom laboratory and farm in Egypt's Western Desert, near the city of Dakhla.

Scorpions flood Egyptian villages after storm, sting and hospitalize hundreds

By Mindy Weisberger

Venomous fat-tailed scorpions stung more than 500 people after heavy storms disrupted their habitats and brought the deadly arachnids closer to people.

common cuckoos

How do cuckoos trick other birds?

By Ailsa Harvey

Reference Rather than raising their own offspring, cuckoos have perfected the art of deception.

Reference
An illustration of Supersaurus shows what a giant it was, reaching at least 128 feet in length.

Supersaurus might be the longest dinosaur that ever lived

By Laura Geggel

If two Supersauruses bopped noses, they'd be longer than an American football field.

A lingcod's mouth photographed from a fishing boat. The fish was later released.

This fish has 555 teeth … and it loses 20 every day

By Cameron Duke

The Pacific lingcod has a mouth full of teeth and sheds up to 20 per day.

A photo of a taxidermy polar bear with its mouth open.

Polar bear parts are being smuggled around the world

By Patrick Pester

Hundreds of bear parts and their derivatives, such as bile, have been smuggled into Australia and New Zealand since 2007, including polar bears.

Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and other types of monkeys retain the tails that apes and humans lack.

Why don't people have tails?

By Mindy Weisberger

Scientists recently found that a so-called jumping gene may have jumped ship millions of years ago, and taken our tails with it.

two bald eagles lying on the ground, their wings and bodies overlapping

Tangled bald eagles crash land on Minnesota street

By Nicoletta Lanese

The bald eagles may have tangled while fighting over territory or executing a courtship ritual.

Diane Nelson, a tardigrade researcher who works in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, used a scanning microscope to take this 3-D image of a Tardigrade.

Facts about tardigrades

By Alina Bradford, Mindy Weisberger, Ailsa Harvey

Reference Tardigrades, often called water bears or moss piglets, are near-microscopic animals that are almost indestructible and can even survive in outer space.

Reference
This rare cotton-candy-colored lobster was just caught in Maine.

Rare 'cotton candy' lobster was a 1-in-100 million catch

By Nicoletta Lanese

The stunning lobster, named Haddie, is bright blue with dark purple specks.

Even when they leave, they still are there.

You can't hide from your cat, so don't even try

By Mindy Weisberger

Cats create "mental maps" using audio cues, scientists have discovered. This enables cats to spatially orient unseen companions, an ability that was previously unknown in felines.

An illustration of the newly named dinosaur Issi saaneq, which lived in Greenland 214 million years ago, back when the supercontinent Pangaea was splitting apart.

Triassic skulls unearthed in Greenland reveal 'cold bone' dinosaur

By Laura Geggel

A new analysis of two Triassic skulls found in Greenland reveals a new species of long-necked dinosaur.

illustration of ammonite swimming in the ocean

Human-size ammonites swam the Atlantic Ocean 80 million years ago

By Nicoletta Lanese

Scientists uncovered more than 100 new fossils to learn more about the world's largest ammonites.

After giant hornets (Vespa soror) invade the bees' hives, they slaughter the adults and take the bees' young to feed their own larvae.

Bees 'shriek' when attacked by giant cousins of 'murder hornets'

By Mindy Weisberger

Asian honey bees rally against giant hornet invasions with an acoustic response that resembles the alarm shrieks of birds, primates and other social mammals.

Pacific jack mackerel rubbing against a great white shark at Guadalupe Island in Mexico.

Fish defy death to rub up against great white sharks. Here's why.

By Yasemin Saplakoglu

Fish use sharks as scrub brushes by pushing up against the sea predator's scaly bodies to get rid of parasites and other irritants.

Illustration showing one gorgonopsian biting the other on the face.

Ancient saber-toothed 'gorgons' bit each other in ritualized combat

By Laura Geggel

"Gorgons" that lived during the Permian period bit each other on the face, the discovery of a bite mark on a skull reveals.

Illustration of a Cambrian penis worm inhabiting a hyolith shell.

Ferocious 'penis worms' were the hermit crabs of the ancient seas

By Brandon Specktor

Priapulids, sometimes called penis worms, were fearsome predators of the Cambrian Period. They may have worn shells for protection, new fossil evidence suggests.

A close up of a blue poison dart frog

Poison dart frogs: Facts about the beautiful but deadly amphibians

By Scott Dutfield

Reference They might look cute, but the toxins from a poison dart frog can be strong enough to kill several humans.

Reference
Joro spiders spin dense, gold-tinted webs

Giant, invasive spiders have taken over Georgia. Will they spread across the US?

By Ben Turner

Experts believe that the spiders, which arrived in 2014, could spread across more of the southern U.S.