New Scientist

Chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gorillas frequently toy with their peers by poking, tickling or stealing from them, perhaps showing behaviours that were prerequisites for human joking

Some pet dogs retain their baby teeth, creating two rows that resemble the mouth of a shark. A new analysis shows that the condition is more prevalent in smaller breeds and obese dogs

Male Brachycephalus pulex frogs are so small that two of them can sit side by side on a pinky nail

These stunning images are finalists in the World of Fungi category in the International Garden Photographer of the Year contest

A group of more than a dozen orcas has disappeared after being trapped in freezing Japanese waters for about a day – it isn’t known if they escaped or have died

A subspecies of the Somali sharp-snouted worm lizard was found by a landmine clearance team, the first official sighting since 1931

Researchers have recreated the hybridisation of two wild yeast species that led to the first lager yeasts, generating new varieties that could make beer with a range of new flavours

For decades we thought the Irish elk’s body size alone explained why it had enormous antlers, but the truth may be more complicated

There were 69 unprovoked shark attacks on people and 10 fatalities in 2023 worldwide, with four of the deaths occurring in Australia

Researchers studying fruit fly egg cells have discovered that they stir up the fluid inside them with a twister-like current

Shiba inus and miniature dachshunds are among the longest-lived dog breeds while flat-faced dogs tend to die younger, a comprehensive study of UK pets has found

Tiny male anglerfish fuse their bodies into the larger females, and this strange strategy may have helped the fish diversify widely in the deep sea

The abundance of wild birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and insects has drastically declined over the past 50 years, but the scale and seriousness of this loss is often lost when we focus on the number of species in an area

Officials set up almost 2000 camera traps covering 120,000 square kilometres to estimate the number of snow leopards in India’s mountainous regions

Not only can parrots fly and walk, they can also swing along branches using their beaks, in a technique researchers are calling beakiation

DNA analysis of spider webs from two locations in Australia identified dozens of vertebrate species, suggesting a new approach to wildlife monitoring

Calls made by male orangutans to attract females have short sequences nested inside longer sequences – a feature called recursion that was thought to be unique to human language

A previously unknown type of replicating agent named "obelisks” has been found in genomic data from stool samples – but we know little about what these entities do

Drone footage filmed off the coast of California shows a 1.5-metre-long, entirely white great white shark pup, probably just hours old – something that has never been seen before

Experiments with a robotic dinosaur suggest feathers may have evolved to startle prey into fleeing from hiding places, a strategy used by some modern birds