National Geographic estimates there are between 50 billion and 430 billion birds populating the planet, outnumbering humans by up to approximately 50 times. Spread across 9,700 species, according to ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Classifying kangaroos and platypuses together on the evolutionary family tree is as absurd as adding your neighbors to your own family ancestral line simply because they share your ...

A HEARTY welcome may be accorded to the work referred to below, which contains a well-elaborated and highly philosophical digest of the present state of our knowledge of the past history and ...

This article was originally featured on Undark. For centuries, taxonomists have cataloged every living thing they could find. Expeditions have traveled the globe, searching for unknown species; ...

Bats, rodents, hedgehogs, and shrews are mammals among the orders that are predicted to have the most undescribed mammals. (Pictured: a bicolored shrew) Werner Korschinsky via Wikimedia Commons under ...

Florida manatees, a subspecies of the West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus), can live as long as 60 years, weigh up to 1,200 lbs, and have no natural predators. The biggest threat to these peaceful ...

Changing the way microbes are classified can reveal similarities among mammals' gut microbiomes, according to a new study that proposes an alternative method for classifying microbes to provide ...

No, birds are not mammals. Rather, they are avians. Mammals are characterized by their milk glands, hair, vertebrae and their birthing of live young (being viviparous), according to Britannica.