https://phys.org/biology-news/plants-animals/ en-us The latest science news on plants and animals A new study reveals that horse personality is not only a matter of genetics, age or breed but also systematically linked to how horses are housed, ridden and cared for, and to the quality of the relationship they share with their owners. The findings underscore the importance of everyday management decisions for equine personality and welfare. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-engage-horses-personality.html Plants & Animals Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:40:04 EDT news708166321 Monash University scientists have developed a global framework to tackle a major blind spot in biodiversity conservation: Insects underpin ecosystems and food production but remain largely invisible to conservation efforts across the tropics. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-parachute-science-world-tropical-insects.html Plants & Animals Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:40:04 EDT news708164041 Hidden deep in the bush, ranging over huge territories at speeds humans can't match and through terrain not even the most rugged vehicle can handle, hyenas and lions are hard to study. Now, new research using GPS collars to map the movements of individual animals has revealed crucial information about the relationship between these competing carnivore species. We've long assumed that hyenas simply shadow lions for scraps, but these findings show that when they encounter each other, it's the lions, especially males, that approach hyenas, and the hyenas that give way. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-gps-collars-reveal-secrets-power.html Plants & Animals Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:01 EDT news708004081 Squinting through my binoculars, I scanned the dense branches of a black spruce, trying my best to catch a glimpse of the thin legs of a small black, white and yellow songbird. I was on the hunt for a yellow-rumped warbler—a bird affectionately called "butter-butt" by birdwatchers after the distinctive buttery yellow patch of feathers above its tail. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-tiny-backpacks-reveal-secret-circuitous.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 21:20:03 EDT news708088155 Over the course of the summer of 2023, Quebec experienced its worst wildfire season on record. By its end, some 4.5 million hectares (11.1 million acres) of the province's boreal forest had burned. While the effects of the toxic smoke on humans have been thoroughly studied, our knowledge of the impact on local fauna—including insects—is lacking. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-quebec-wildfire-left-forest-moths.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:00:13 EDT news708088826 Surinam toads (Pipa pipa) are strange, flat frogs with minuscule eyes that live in the murky waters of the Amazon basin and carry their eggs on their backs. The way they catch prey is even weirder. They lie in wait with outstretched forelimbs until a small fish approaches, then snap open their jaws to create enough suction to draw the fish into their tongueless mouths and swallow it whole, all in a few hundredths of a second. But how do these frogs hunt in low visibility with poor vision? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-star-fingered-toads-fingertip-lobules.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:00:09 EDT news708091981 All over the world, from Oregon's old-growth forests to Queensland's eucalyptus groves, creatures depend on trees for shelter. A new analysis from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests that as the climate destabilizes, the world's trees may become an even more important respite. That's because the study finds trees everywhere buffer their animal tenants from temperature extremes. The work is published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-reveals-world-trees.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 14:00:06 EDT news708090062 The world's most endangered tigers have started a family in Greece, offering hope for a predator rapidly vanishing from the wild. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-world-endangered-tigers-born-greece.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:40:01 EDT news708082467 New research shows that larval Antarctic krill could be carried far from their birthplace by drifting sea ice, linking distant ecosystems in ways conventional models may miss. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-sea-ice-hidden-highways-young.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:40:01 EDT news708077641 Small mammals called plateau pikas are often treated as pests because they compete with livestock for food, but research from China shows they can improve the quality of vegetation for grazing yaks. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-plateau-pikas-pests-livestock.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 09:40:04 EDT news708068522 Dog walkers distracted by their phones, conversations or other demands can fail to notice their pets defecating, disturbing wildlife or approaching livestock, according to new research from the University of Surrey. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-distracted-dog-walkers-wildlife-livestock.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 09:20:01 EDT news708067982 I spent six days on a small fishing boat in the middle of the English Channel in July trying to catch a thresher shark. The weather was fickle, even at the height of summer. My colleague, ecologist Lucy Hawkes, and I were with two anglers who probably hold more experience of Channel thresher sharks than anyone alive. Between us, we caught nothing. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-anglers-england-sharks.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 08:40:03 EDT news708067622 Several chronic diseases—obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers—have been linked to lifestyles and diets high in calories, based on processed foods and lacking diversity and nutritional value. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-farm-animals-benefit-health.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 08:00:08 EDT news708067142 While most Australians assume the ivory trade ended decades ago, Adelaide University research has found an active collectors' market exists online, with most listings showing no proof that the items are legal. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-million-elephant-ivory-advertised-online.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 07:00:01 EDT news708063301 A squishy worm that starts its life as something of a floating head in the Pacific Ocean is changing what scientists know about metamorphosis at the cellular level. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-worm-radical-metamorphosis-functions-cells.html Plants & Animals Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:00:04 EDT news707993581 A few years ago, I drove with an old friend from Togo, West Africa, towards the country's last remaining large protected area, Fazao-Malfakassa National Park. Our destination was the Hotel Fazao, where his uncle had once worked as a professional chef after its opening in 1980. For decades, while the park was managed by the Swiss Franz Weber Foundation (FWF), the hotel had hosted tourists from around the world who came to see elephants, monkeys, and other wildlife for which Africa is famous. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rangers-residents-togo-national.html Plants & Animals Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:00:09 EDT news707988573 Tsushima leopard cats are an endangered species found only on this isolated island. The most recent government survey estimated the population at around 150 individuals, and because domestic cats also inhabit the same landscape, introgression is a legitimate conservation concern. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-genomic-analysis-unusual-tail-endangered.html Plants & Animals Mon, 07 Sep 2026 10:00:09 EDT news707988621 Scientists have discovered that one of the most unusual creatures in the animal kingdom is far more diverse and evolutionarily complex than previously known. An international team led by the University of Göttingen has reconstructed the evolutionary history of branching marine worms—rare annelids that live hidden inside sea sponges and whose bodies branch repeatedly into multiple posterior ends. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-decades-museum-specimens-reveal-extraordinary.html Plants & Animals Mon, 07 Sep 2026 09:20:01 EDT news707989621 While the highly virulent avian influenza strain has only recently been discovered on Australian shores, researchers at Deakin University have been working behind the scenes for years, anticipating what an outbreak might look like. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-bird-movements-track-global-virus.html Plants & Animals Sun, 06 Sep 2026 17:00:01 EDT news707401817 A study led by the University of Jyväskylä in Finland evaluated, for the first time, an ecological threshold for the amount of clearcutting in boreal forests. According to the results, maintaining populations of bird species specialized in old-growth forests requires either a forest rotation period of at least 90 years on average or that approximately one-fifth of the forest area be excluded from clearcut management. The study provides a concrete target for the ecologically sustainable use of forests. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-clearcutting-nature-sustain-ecological-limit.html Plants & Animals Sat, 05 Sep 2026 16:30:01 EDT news707584342 New research has found that tree species diversity can play a crucial role in protecting forests from the growing threat of extreme climate events. The study analyzed data from 88,116 separate forest plots across the United States to investigate the impact of "compound climate extremes," when events such as drought and extreme heat occur at the same time. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-tree-species-diversity-forests-climate.html Plants & Animals Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:00:01 EDT news707665667 Narwhals have nature's only straight tusk, a single tooth up to three meters (10 feet) long, so strange they were sold as magical unicorn horns during the Middle Ages. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-scientists-narwhals-nature-straight-tusk.html Plants & Animals Sat, 05 Sep 2026 11:00:07 EDT news706274391 Why do some ants help nestmates in distress while others don't? A research team from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and Tel Aviv University addressed this question in a new study. The researchers examined worker ants of the species Cataglyphis niger, some of which had shown rescue behavior while others had not. The results, recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, suggest that the key difference lies not in body size, morphology or the animals' energy reserves, but in gene activity in the nervous system. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ant-nervous-gene-behavior.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2026 17:40:01 EDT news707747341 Every 13 or 17 years, swarms of cicadas emerge from the ground, their black bodies, orange-tinged wings and ruby-red eyes enveloping trees and forests. It is a biological marvel unique in the insect world, and when it happens, it is impossible not to notice. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-periodical-cicadas-doomed-extinction.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:40:02 EDT news707746681 Feeding stations providing food and water for wild birds are contributing to the spread of disease-causing parasites among farmland birds, researchers have said, with birds three times more likely to catch a parasite from these resources. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-food-stations-wild-birds-contributing.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:20:04 EDT news707747402 Animals fulfill a wide range of roles in human society. They provide food, contribute to scientific research, live alongside people as companion animals, and play important roles in education, conservation, research and public engagement through zoos. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-pets-zoos-students-animal-husbandry.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2026 14:20:02 EDT news707740748 Global biodiversity loss is occurring at a rapid pace, driven by multiple human-caused factors, including overexploitation, pollution, invasive species and climate change. Despite increasing research on the impact of climate change on wildlife, few studies have formally attributed observed biodiversity declines to climate change or quantified its contribution relative to other factors. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-1980s-climate-european-bumblebee-habitats.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2026 11:20:07 EDT news707734741 Some of the most intriguing scientific breakthroughs happen when researchers aren't explicitly looking for them. Take, for example, the pygmy raccoon (Procyon pygmaeus), a critically endangered species that lives only on Cozumel Island, Mexico. Scientists were observing them for a study on the impact of tourism on their populations when they made an accidental discovery. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-critically-endangered-pygmy-raccoons-paper.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:30:02 EDT news707734698 Well before I start collecting coats, keys or shoes, my dog always knows when we're about to leave. By picking up on subtle cues, he anticipates our next movements, reminding me he's smarter than he often shows. But anticipation isn't always about brains. Our new research reveals that even an animal with no brain at all can anticipate what's coming next. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-brainless-sea-sponges-sunset-metamorphosis.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:20:01 EDT news707733181 For most mammals, cold suppresses neural activity and diminishes the sense of touch. But the thirteen-lined ground squirrel can detect touch in conditions as low as 4°C (39°F), about as cold as the inside of a refrigerator, finds a new Yale study published in Current Biology. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-hibernating-squirrels-retain-cold.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:40:01 EDT news707729581