“Me and you and Zoboomafoo!” For a generation of former kids, those are lyrics to the theme song for PBS’ Zoboomafoo, a ...

Long before Western astrology, the Chinese zodiac helped organize years, beliefs, and social life. Here’s how the system of 12 animals evolved over the centuries.

Will Smith ventured into a remote cave collect and study venom from giant tarantulas for his National Geographic show, ...

The new National Geographic series Pole to Pole ventures deep into the Amazon in search of creatures whose venom may yield new life-saving drugs. In episode 2 of Pole to Pole, Will Smith captures a ...

With just over 1,000 mountain gorillas left in the wild, any evidence of reproduction is cause for celebration. But the news out of the Democratic Republic of Congo this week is doubly exciting—a ...

Gum makers have claimed, for decades, chewing is good for your mental health. They’re kind of on to something. Humans have chewed on gum for millennia. Scientists are still trying to figure out why.

Rare attacks helped brand the cassowary as deadly, but habitat loss and human activity now pose a far greater threat to the bird’s survival. A southern cassowary stands on a beach at Etty Bay in ...

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute is home to more than 2,200 animals across its campuses in D.C. and Virginia. The zoo was the first in the United States to hire a ...

From a garden at the Holy Sepulchre to new dates for the Dead Sea Scrolls, new research is offering detailed glimpses into biblical stories. The shrine that houses the traditional burial place of ...

Webs can be decorated with decoys, fine-tuned like guitars—and hold secrets about evolution. A Cyclosa spider is camouflaged on a web with debris attached to make itself less visible at the Los Amigos ...

Just before sunset, as baseball-sized tarantulas cross the road at Colorado’s Southern Plains Land Trust, two biologists quietly exit their car to scoop up a few of these eight-legged pedestrians.