Turtle Teasers Quiz, Part 2February 01, 2015 – Sea turtles have been swimming in our oceans since the time of the dinosaurs. How much do you know about these shelled swimmers?
Come See an Allosaurus Excavation in Action!May 25, 2014 – It’s the time of the year for dinosaurs. As the weather warms and the days grow long, paleontologists strike out across the west in search of fossils ready to be exhumed from their Mesozoic tombs. I spend as much time as I can among the outcrops, too, and this year I’m especially excited about volunteering […]
Duck-Billed PlatypusMarch 01, 2014 – Duck-billed platypuses are small, shy animals. They have a flattened head and body to help them glide through the water. Their fur, dark brown on top and tan on their bellies, is thick and repels water to keep them warm and dry even after hours of swimming. Their head and body grow to about 15 inches (38 centimeters) and their tail about 5 inches long (13 centimeters). Their most remarkable feature is their amazing snout. It looks like a duck's bill, but is actually quite soft and covered with thousands of receptors that help the platypus detect prey. Males are also venomous. They have sharp stingers on the heels of their rear feet and can use them to deliver a strong toxic blow to any foe. Platypuses spend most of their time alone, sleeping or eating. These mammals are bottom feeders. They scoop up insects and larvae, shellfish, and worms in their bill along with bits of gravel and mud from the bottom. All this material is stored in cheek pouches and, at the surface, mashed for consumption. Platypuses do not have teeth, so the bits of gravel help them to "chew" their meal. Platypuses are long-lived, surviving 20 years or more in captivity and up to 12 years in the wild. Scientists think these fascinating creatures are the earliest relatives of modern mammals. Recent studies show that they first evolved more than 112 million years ago, well before the extinction of the dinosaurs.
ScorpionMarch 01, 2014 – Scorpions are arachnids and have eight legs like their cousins—spiders, mites, and ticks. They can quickly grab an insect with their pincers and whip their telson, the poisonous tip of their tail forward and sting their prey. They use their poison to kill prey and to defend against predators. Scorpions look like small lobsters and may be the first animals to move from water to land hundreds of millions of years ago. They have been around since before the age of the dinosaurs. Fossils of scorpions from Scotland hundreds of millions of years ago show that their appearance hasn’t changed over the millennia, but they are now half the size of their ancient ancestors. Only 30 or 40 species around the world have strong enough poison to kill a person. Each species has a special type of venom that works well against a chosen prey. Scorpions typically eat insects, but when food is scarce, they can slow their metabolism to as little as one-third the typical rate for arthropods. This technique enables some species to use little oxygen and live on only one insect per year. Such survival skills allow scorpions to live in some of the planet's toughest environments. Researchers have even frozen scorpions overnight, only to put them in the sun the next day and watch them thaw out and walk away. However, they are burrowing animals, so in areas of permafrost or heavy grasses, where loose soil is not available, scorpions may not be able to survive.
Oldest Sea Monster Babies Found; Fossil Shows Reptiles Had Live BirthFebruary 12, 2014 – The oldest embryos of a dinosaur-era sea reptile show that ichthyosaurs gave birth on land, a surprising discovery.
Nat Geo Travel Staff's Favorite Canada PlacesNovember 07, 2013 – Finding favorite places to visit in Canada wasn't hard for our National Geographic Travel editors. Here are some of their picks for don't-miss spots.
JellyfishFebruary 27, 2014 – Jellyfish have drifted along on ocean currents for millions of years, even before dinosaurs lived on the Earth. The jellylike creatures pulse along on ocean currents and are abundant in cold and warm ocean water, in deep water, and along coastlines. But despite their name, jellyfish aren't actually fish—they're invertebrates, or animals with no backbones. Jellyfish have tiny stinging cells in their tentacles to stun or paralyze their prey before they eat them. Inside their bell-shaped body is an opening that is its mouth. They eat and discard waste from this opening. As jellyfish squirt water from their mouths they are propelled forward. Tentacles hang down from the smooth baglike body and sting their prey. Jellyfish stings can be painful to humans and sometimes very dangerous. But jellyfish don't purposely attack humans. Most stings occur when people accidentally touch a jellyfish, but if the sting is from a dangerous species, it can be deadly. Jellyfish digest their food very quickly. They wouldn't be able to float if they had to carry a large, undigested meal around. They dine on fish, shrimp, crabs and tiny plants. Sea turtles relish the taste of jellyfish. Some jellyfish are clear, but others are in vibrant colors such as pink, yellow, blue, and purple, and often are luminescent. The Chinese have fished jellyfish for 1,700 years. They are considered a delicacy and are used in Chinese medicine.
Rescued Fossils are Going HomeMay 13, 2014 – Out in the field, paleontologists save fossils. Even the most resilient fossils face destruction by erosion and time, and researchers balance speed and care in trying to excavate the history of life on Earth before it crumbles away into petrified shards. But paleontologists have become increasingly concerned with saving fossils from another sort of loss. […]
The Prehistoric Worlds of Julius CsotonyiJune 05, 2014 – Paleontology is a kind of time travel. It isn’t quite as fast as Emmett Brown’s DeLorean or as swanky as the TARDIS, but standing on the vestiges of ancient environments, picking out remnants of prehistoric life, nevertheless allows us to see through the ages. Bit by bit, all those geological and biological pieces come together […]
Friday: Virtual @NatGeoTravel Photo WalkNovember 17, 2014 – This Friday: Join Traveler magazine’s director of photography and features editor for a virtual photo walk to get a sneak peek at the National Museum of Natural History’s new dinosaur exhibit and find out Traveler’s picks for the top 20 places to visit in 2015.
Exploring the Cold Coast: Seattle, a Home for Artists and Adventurers – Dispatch #2April 23, 2015 – From where I stood on the roof of my friend James’s building in Pioneer Square, I couldn’t help but wonder about the last time I actually slowed down enough to soak in a little winter sunset, count the dinosaur-like cranes towering over the port, or visit my sister, Susie, at Radicci to let her blow…
Paleo Profile: Atychodracon megacephalusJune 05, 2015 – Name: Atychodracon megacephalus Meaning: Atychodracon means “unfortunate dragon”, while megacephalus translates to “big head.” Age: The earliest Jurassic, about 200 million years ago. Where in the world?: The Blue Lias Formation of England. What sort of critter?: Atychodracon is a plesiosaur – a four-flippered marine reptile distinct from dinosaurs. Size: Approximately 16 feet long. How much of […]
Triassic Bites and a Carnivore ConundrumSeptember 23, 2014 – The Triassic was one of the strangest times in the history of the planet. Rebounding from the worst mass extinction of all time, life flourished into startling new varieties, including the first dinosaurs, weird marine reptiles, and croc-line critters that came in forms like “armadillodiles” and huge, jagged-toothed carnivores, to name just a few Triassic […]
Science Meets Speculation in All Your YesterdaysSeptember 26, 2013 – Visions of prehistoric life require speculation. Ancient strata contain biological and geological clues to restore scenes from the deep past, but the task of the paleoartist is to arrange those scraps in an approximation of what life was really like. This requires as much imagination as science. Even the most exquisitely-preserved fossils can leave out […]
Leatherback Sea TurtleMarch 01, 2014 – Leatherback sea turtles are the biggest turtles on Earth. An adult leatherback sea turtle is generally longer than an average-size man is tall. Unlike other species of sea turtles, which have hard shells, the leatherback's shell is leathery; it feels almost rubbery. The shell is black, often speckled with white or yellow spots. These huge reptiles lived 100 million years ago—during the age of dinosaurs—but their future is uncertain. Leatherbacks are one of the more endangered creatures on Earth. They are often caught by accident in fishing nets. Stuck underwater, they drown. Sea turtle nesting habitats are also being destroyed, and the eggs they do lay are illegally collected by people for food. Newly hatched sea turtles instinctively head from the nest to the sea, but in areas where people live, the hatchlings often become confused by lights from houses built along shore. Instead of heading to sea, they head toward the lights. Another hazard for sea turtles is floating plastic trash, which they often mistake for jellyfish, their main food. Leatherbacks must breathe air at the surface, but can stay underwater for up to 35 minutes at a time. Only females ever leave the ocean. During nesting season, the female comes ashore on a sandy beach, where she digs a hole. She lays about 100 eggs in the hole, covers them with sand, and heads back to sea. Sea turtles do not guard their nests, so the babies are on their own. The eggs take about two months to hatch. The tiny hatchlings are only 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 centimeters) long. As soon as they hatch, they dig their way out of the sandy nest and scurry across the beach to the sea. Gulls and other birds often scoop up the hatchlings before they make it to the water. Other predators, such as large fish, await those lucky enough to make it into the sea.
Do Beaked Whales Have Internal Antlers?July 31, 2014 – The magnificent pronged antlers growing from the skull of a male red deer are billboards. Their size reveals his strength and fighting ability to other males, and his health and quality as a mate to females. Similar horns, antlers and crests adorn the skulls of other animals, including giraffes, antelope, goats, cows, sheep, and dinosaurs […]