Rodents are mammals of the order Rodentia, characterized primarily by a single pair of ever-growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws, separated from the cheek teeth by a diastema and adapted for gnawing. This order encompasses extensive taxonomic diversity, including families such as Muridae, Cricetidae, Sciuridae, and Caviidae, occupying a wide range of terrestrial and arboreal habitats. Rodents exhibit high reproductive rates, diverse dietary strategies (from herbivory to omnivory), and complex social structures in some lineages. They play key ecological roles as primary consumers, seed predators and dispersers, and prey species, and serve as important model organisms in biomedical and evolutionary research.
Hedgehogs, elephants, pangolins, bears or fennec foxes: many wild species are sold as pets, hunting trophies, for traditional medicine, biomedical research, or for their meat or fur. These practices, whether legal or illegal, ...
Ecology
Apr 9, 2026
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Some animals can regrow lost body parts. Salamanders and frog tadpoles can rebuild entire limbs after amputation. Mammals cannot. For decades, biologists have tried to understand why. Now a team led by Can Aztekin at EPFL ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 9, 2026
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331
Researchers at Bar-Ilan University have discovered that changing just one letter in DNA can completely alter sex development in mice. In the new study, published in Nature Communications, a single-letter insertion in a non-coding ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Apr 9, 2026
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A study published in Cell Research advances a central idea in stem cell biology by identifying a checkpoint that controls the identity of many different types of stem cells across developmental stages. For nearly two decades, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 8, 2026
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The urban monkeys in New Delhi are so bold they'll steal the lunch right off your plate. If you've spent time in New York, you've probably seen squirrels try to do the same. Sydney's white ibises got the nickname "bin chickens" ...
Ecology
Apr 8, 2026
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Snow leopards, leopards, and Himalayan wolves all share similar stomping grounds in Nepal's Lapchi Valley in the Himalayas. A recent study, published in PLOS One, has taken a closer look at how these apex predators have found ...
If you were rewarded for following a particular pattern of behavior, wouldn't you keep doing it? The answer turns out to be more nuanced than you might think. In a new study, University of Iowa researchers report that pigeons ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 6, 2026
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74
It's easy to take our eyes for granted. But our recent research shows they took an incredible evolutionary journey to reach their current familiar form.
Evolution
Apr 4, 2026
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Some pathogens use temperature as a trigger and activate virulence only after entering the warmer environment of a host. A research team from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and the University of Münster, Germany, investigated ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 2, 2026
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When the environment changes dramatically, animals from mollusks to crows can make big changes in their behavior that enable them to survive. For example, marmots and ground squirrels in California are spending more time ...
Evolution
Apr 1, 2026
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