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With vibrant colors and fantastic shapes, coral reefs are a breathtaking sight. These underwater structures are actua...

Find out what lives in the deep sea, coral reef, and continental shelf.

What unique plants and animals live in this island nation's diverse habitats?
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Many people have seen the beautiful spiral triton trumpet shell. Unfortunately, most people can see these brown and w...

Found along tropical coastlines, thick mangrove forests were once considered a nuisance, infested with mosquitoes and...

More than four thousand islands—including one big island—make up this nation in the Caribbean Sea.

Animals and plants are usually adapted to survive best in particular environments, known as their habitats.

Arctic ice is melting. Coral reefs are disappearing. Sea levels are rising. These events are part of an even bigger p...

Compared to the continent of Africa, Madagascar may seem small. But this island, the fourth largest in the world, is...

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A marine biologist answers kids' questions about how climate change affects life in the ocean.

Many animals and plants use color to warn predators to stay away, and the blue ringed octopus is no exception. When t...

Find out more about global warming. How, and why, we should slow it?

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Our oceans are full of colorful creatures. Find out how animals use color for attraction, communication, and camouflage.

All animals of the sea depend on plankton, the tiny organisms that drift in the ocean.

Most ocean plants and animals live near the shore, on a narrow ribbon of seafloor called the continental shelf.

The frigid waters of the Arctic and the Antarctic may seem like hostile habitats. But a variety of marine life -- fro...

Throughout the world's oceans, tiny particles swirl, drift, and fall like snowflakes from the ocean's upper levels.

Growing up in Argentina, Adriana Aquino loved nature, especially the ocean. As a young girl, she wondered what it wou...

The seafloor covers more than half of the Earth's surface. Most of the seafloor consists of the flat, expansive abyss...

Far beneath the ocean's surface is a mysterious world of cold temperatures, intense pressure, and almost total darkne...

You could travel the globe, but there's only one place you'd find a ruffed lemur: Madagascar. It is an endemic specie...

These creatures have lived in Earth's oceans for over 545 million years!

An invasive species is a living thing that moves into a new region. Species often become "invasive" as a re...

With their white bellies and dark backs, dolphins can be found jumping above the water, swimming alongside fishing sh...

It's easy to see how the starfish got its name -- with their pointed arms, these creatures look like stars fallen to...

Think of giant kelp as the Godzilla of the seaweeds.

The electric eel is long and narrow like an eel, but it is actually not an eel at all. In fact, electric eels are pro...

Winter brings snow and ice in places like northern Minnesota. But during the same season along Florida's beaches, tem...

The giant squid is the largest invertebrate, or animal without a backbone, ever to have lived on Earth!

Estuaries are places where a river meets the sea. This ever-changing ecosystem is bursting with life. Saltwater from...

Some people may call invertebrates spineless because they lack a backbone or spine! But these amazing creatures are t...

For thousands of years, humans have relied on the power of wind to sail across oceans, pump water, and grind grain.

You might think that all mosquitoes are alike, but did you know that there are actually about 2,500 different kinds?...

Although the rosy periwinkle stands only one foot tall, in the world of medicine it's a giant.

Take a world-wide tour of biodiversity with three scientists.

Not all spiders spin webs to catch their meals. When night falls in Australia, the white-tailed spider hunts its prey...

Test your knowledge about the major groups of life on Earth.

Explore some of the inventive ways that help living things reproduce and their offspring survive.

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Conservation biologist Ana Luz Porzecanski answers kids' questions.
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Learn about the diagrams scientists use to organize all the groups of living things.

When Paula Mikkelsen moved to Florida, she turned a fun hobby into an exciting career. She enjoyed walking along Flor...

How do your fossil-sorting skills stack up? Put them to the test with this kid-friendly online puzzle.

Find out about Earth's climate, its consequences, and what we can do.

The gremlin-like, endangered aye-aye makes its home in the tropical forests of Madagascar, a large island off the coa...

Since he was a boy, Vladimir Ovtsharenko has been fascinated by nature. Growing up, he loved collecting spiders, beet...

Explore this family tree of living things on Earth.

Chris Raxworthy has been fascinated by all things scaly and slimy since he was a kid. Chris is a herpetologist at the...

In the wild, ruffed lemurs live in only one place -- the eastern rain forests of Madagascar.

To try to piece together how organisms are related, scientists use cladistics.

This large dark bird is unmistakable soaring in the air along the coast.

The snowy egret is a beautiful sight. An adult egret is distinguished by its dark slender beak, long black legs, and...

Most mammals that live on land use their legs to get around. But the white-handed gibbon relies mostly on its arms. U...

There are more than 250 kinds of vipers, a family of poisonous snakes. The largest of all is the gabon viper.

The Asian elephant is one of the largest land mammals in the world. Some people believe that elephants feel joy and s...

The king cobra is the largest venomous snake in the world. Whether slithering on land, climbing trees, or swimming, i...

The leatherback is the world's largest turtle. Unlike the bony exterior of other sea turtles, the exterior of the lea...

Cassava is one tough plant because it can grow in poor and unfertile soil in most tropical environments. Cassava is a...

Dinoflagellates are tiny, one-celled organisms that live in oceans and freshwater ponds, rivers, and streams. Some di...

Giant puffballs aren't your typical mushrooms.

Most people know red and black spotted ladybird beetles as friendly insects that are fun to pick up and watch fly awa...

If you looked at the contents of a vacuum cleaner bag with a microscope, you'd probably find millions of tiny creatur...

This beautiful tortoise lives in the deserts of Madagascar, an island off the coast of Africa. This reptile gets its...

A rotting log is a mighty tasty meal -- if you're a termite. Termites not only eat wood, some kinds live in it, too....

Vietnam is a country of amazing biodiversity, including many rare and unusual species. One fascinating example is the...

For centuries, orange roughy went mostly unnoticed by humans. These fish thrived in the dark, the cold, and the inten...

Tipping the scales at more than 7 pounds, the Goliath is the largest frog in the world. Just two of these frogs weigh...

It only seems like the world's entire ant population attends your picnics.

Based on fossils of ancient dragonflies, we know these winged insects have been soaring around for at least 300 milli...

When she was a kid, Ana explored the landscapes of rural Uruguay and Brazil and the many plants and animals that live...

Are these rare and colorful creatures flowering plants or animals?

Ornithologists, or scientists who study birds, want to prevent the forests of the Pacific Northwest from being choppe...

The St. Vincent parrot makes its home on the tropical island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean. These parrots are cover...

The American crocodile has lived on Earth for millions of years, but today their numbers are rapidly declining becaus...

The Tibetan antelope, also known as "chiru," is one of the most beautiful mammals in the world.

The hellbender is one of the largest salamanders in North America.

The Komodo dragon lumbers through the forest on its thick, stocky legs. It sways its head back and forth, flicking it...

The mountain gorilla lives high up in the forests of east central Africa.

Have you ever seen pond scum -- that thick, smelly layer of slime floating on the surface of the water? That's probab...

The Portuguese man-of-war is actually a floating colony of individuals called polyps that are all dependent on each o...

California condors are the largest birds in North America. Like all vultures, condors are carrion-eaters. This means...

New Caledonia, a tiny island east of Australia, is the only place where an unusual bird called the kagu is found. Abo...

What do we have in common with sharks, bluebirds, lizards, and toads? We are all vertebrates, or animals with backbon...

Some exotic creatures lurk in the polar seas, but perhaps none is more bizarre than the giant sea spider.

The whooping crane is known as the tallest bird in North America. This long legged creature has been struggling to su...

Its brow horns and snout horn inspired this dinosaur's name, which means "three-horned face."

When you ride in a car, watch your favorite television show, or take a hot shower, you're most likely using fossil fu...

Take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Your body just released carbon dioxide, a colorless gas that's essential to lif...

Confuciusornis is the earliest-known toothless, beaked bird.

Effigia looks just like a dinosaur. It particularly looks a lot like bird-like dinosaurs called ornithomimids, or ost...

The first vertebrates to fly took to the skies about 215 million years ago. These creatures were neither birds nor ba...

Sterling was always fascinated by nature, ancient history, and archaeology. Since he was 15 years old, he has spent e...

About 80 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous, this armored plant-eater roamed the Gobi Desert in Central Asia.

Fossils are the key to understanding life in the past.

Many famous dinosaurs, such as T. rex and Triceratops, first appeared in the Cretaceous Period.

Limestone is made up of fossils. After small marine animals die, their shells and skeletons build up on the ocean floor.

In the 1940s, paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History discovered rich fossil beds in the high des...

The name Jurassic conjures images of tremendous dinosaurs roaming the Earth.

Earth was a very different place at the beginning of the Triassic. All of Earth's continents were combined into one s...

One look at Redondasaurus, and you might think it's a crocodile. After all, it has a similar long, armored body, with...

When the famous Tyrannosaurus rex roamed North America, a very similar dinosaur was living on the other side of the E...

One of the earlier dinosaurs to appear on Earth was Coelophysis. It was a small, but skilled hunter that lived during...