The title of most poisonous animal on Earth is typically given to the beautiful and deadly golden poison dart frog of Columbia—the one-inch-long frog is sometimes drenched in enough poison to kill ten grown men. But a far less exotic creature is capable of producing enough poison to kill up to 20 people: the unassuming rough-skinned newt, with its bumpy skin and fiery orange underbelly, a familiar sight in the Pacific Northwest of North America. Continue reading Toxic Newts Use Bacteria to Become Deadly Prey
Tag Archives: reptiles
Record-Breaking 17-Foot-Long Burmese Python Found in Florida
17-foot, 140-pound Burmese python caught in the Florida Everglades is the largest ever removed from the state’s 729,000-acre Big Cypress National Preserve. Continue reading Record-Breaking 17-Foot-Long Burmese Python Found in Florida
Sloths Don’t Just Live in Slow-Mo, They Can Put Their Metabolism On Pause
Sloths’ reputation as lazy, slow and stupid creatures owes much to French naturalist Georges Buffon, who described the tree-dwelling mammal as the “lowest form of existence” back in 1749. Buffon’s assessment has endured for centuries, but much of the criticism directed at sloths is unwarranted. As zoologist Lucy Cooke explains for The Day, the sloth’s sluggish lifestyle is a deliberate survival strategy that has enabled it to maintain a place on Earth for nearly 64 million years. Continue reading Sloths Don’t Just Live in Slow-Mo, They Can Put Their Metabolism On Pause
Crocs Keep an Eye on You While They Sleep
Sleeping with only half your brain sounds like a great way to become a zombie in no time, but for certain marine mammals and birds, it’s a way of life. A new study suggests that crocodiles, too, may be “unihemispheric” sleepers, a finding which makes humans and other full-brain snoozers look more and more like evolutionary oddballs.
11 Species of Chameleon Masqueraded as One
Biologists just discovered 11 new species of chameleon hiding in plain sight—as chameleons tend to do.
