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Paleontologist Larisa DeSantis studies the teeth of ancient and modern mammals to determine how their diets changed across the millennia and, by extension, their responses to climate change.

There are a couple of key features that make a turtle a turtle: its shell, for one, but also its toothless beak. A newly-discovered fossil turtle that lived 228 million years ago is shedding light on how modern turtles developed these traits. It had a beak, but while its body was Frisbee-shaped, its wide ribs...

Common wisdom suggests that two heads are better than one. Yet, two heads can also butt -- and when resources are scarce, competition may seem more attractive than collaboration. With that in mind, biologists have long wondered how civil societies evolve.

In the fruit fly, a single pair of brain neurons command backward locomotion in both larvae and adults, researchers report.

Hybridization, the inter-breeding of bird species, is a widespread phenomenon, which is best illustrated in Estonia by the lesser spotted eagle and the greater spotted eagle. However, due to the fact that the migration strategies of both bird species are completely different, studying their offspring, or hybrids, helps ornithologists discover a lot about their migration...

Among pet snakes and lizards, the biggest-selling species are also the most likely to be released by their owners -- and to potentially become invasive species, according to a Rutgers study published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology.