New Scientist

A new understanding of why some animals evolved to be loners, and the benefits that brings, shows that a social lifestyle isn’t necessarily superior

The number of dinosaurs may have been stable before the asteroid impact, despite evidence that species were getting less diverse

Colossal Biosciences claims three pups born recently are dire wolves, but they are actually grey wolves with genetic edits intended to make them resemble the lost species

A spider species eat their siblings as soon as they die but tolerate each other when they are alive, suggesting a mysterious signal helps them to determine when to dine on a nest mate

Beekeepers often experience some seasonal losses, but this past winter, more than half of all US honeybee colonies died off, potentially the largest loss in US history

The way bonobos combine vocal sounds to create new meanings suggests the evolutionary building blocks of human language are shared with our closest relatives

A company in the Netherlands says it has perfected a way to create "graft chimeras" with the skin of one plant and the innards of another

Even animals with very small brains turn out to have cultural traditions, which poses a puzzler for biologists wondering what makes human culture unique

At the Dakshineswar temple complex in India, Hanuman langurs beg for food by grabbing visitors’ legs or tugging on their clothes – and they don’t stop until they get their favourite snacks

Cave-dwelling orb spiders have adapted their webs so they act as tripwires for prey that crawl on the walls of the caves

The long-standing question of how animals came to have an anus may have been solved by studies of which genes are active during development in various animals

Bizarre parasitic wasps preserved in amber about 99 million years ago had trap-like abdomens that they may have used to immobilise other insects

A naturalist finds a hallucinogenic mushroom with the power to cure all ailments in the animated series Common Side Effects. Big Pharma is hot on his trail in this beautifully made show, says Bethan Ackerley

A weatherproof box and motion-trigger camera help photographer Will Burrard-Lucas capture images of rarely seen African elephants

The size and shape of a giraffe’s spots seem to influence how well the animals survive when temperatures get hotter or colder than normal

A species of houndshark called Mustelus lenticulatus makes sharp clicking noises when handled. Until now, sharks as a group were thought to be universally quiet

Chemical analysis suggests the 400-million-year-old fossil Prototaxites was neither plant, animal or fungus – hinting at a mysterious life form that went extinct long ago

Young female black-and-white snub-nosed monkeys often want to hold other females’ infants, but mothers are much more permissive of experienced caregivers

A dinosaur fossil discovered in Mongolia boasts the largest ever complete claw, but the herbivorous species only used it to grasp vegetation

Traditional advice tells us to only move growing plants to a pot one size larger. The science shows that you don't need to bother with this slow transition, says James Wong