Animals

Australian Rancher Uses His Sheep To Send A Message Of Love

6:21am August 26, 2021

Ben Jackson couldn't travel for a family funeral because of the pandemic. He drew a design with feed on a field, and the sheep rushed to fill the outline of a giant heart. A drone captured the scene.

In this image taken from video, sheep form the shape of a heart in a field in Guyra, northern New South Wales, Australia, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021.

World News

This Australian Farmer Isn't Sheepish About Showing Love For His Late Aunt

6:13am August 26, 2021

by Jaclyn Diaz

When Ben Jackson couldn't get to his beloved aunt's funeral, he wanted to offer a unique tribute — and he knew what to ewes.

Staff members at the Kabul Small Animal Rescue are working to put together travel crates so the organization's dogs and cats can safely be evacuated out of Afghanistan.

World News

An Animal Rescue Group Is Racing To Get Hundreds Of Pets Out Of Afghanistan By Aug. 31

8:58am August 25, 2021

by Jaclyn Diaz

Kabul Small Animal Rescue's American director is raising money to airlift more than 200 dogs and cats, the group's staff and their families before foreign troops leave at the end of the month.

10-Foot-Long Python Found In Australian Store's Spice Aisle

6:10am August 20, 2021

The nonvenomous Diamond Python was hiding behind the cumin. One shopper just happened to be a trained snake catcher. She captured the python and let it slink away into nearby woods.

After listening to hours of bat pups in the wild, scientists have identified eight characteristics of babbling that are shared by human babies and the greater sac-winged bat.

Science

Bats Love To Babble — Just Like Humans

4:56pm August 19, 2021

by Geoff Brumfiel

New research finds that sac-winged bat pups — a species of bat found in Central and South America — like to "babble" in ways that are remarkably similar to human babies.

"One of the unique things about daddy longlegs is the ability to coil the tips of their legs," using small articulating pieces called tarsomeres, says Vanessa L. González, a computational genomics scientist at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

Science

Researchers Studying Daddy Longlegs' Genes Created A 'Daddy Shortlegs'

2:58pm August 18, 2021

by Bill Chappell

The arachnids, also known as harvestmen, can use their legs like a curling marsupial tail — or as a sensor, or for courtship. They can also simply detach one, in case of emergency.

For one English woman, her black pet cat was very lucky indeed.

World News

A Cat Led A Rescue Team To An 83-Year-Old Woman Who Had Fallen Down A Ravine

3:30pm August 17, 2021

by Josie Fischels

The black cat, Piran, stayed by where the woman had fallen and meowed until a neighbor discovered them at the edge of a cornfield in Cornwall, England, over the weekend.

Scientists analyzing fossils from the country's northwest regions say two specimens were from previously unknown species.