The specimen’s skull measures 24 centimeters, roughly the size of a regulation NFL football. The shell which was recovered nearby – and is believed to belong to the same species – measures 172 centimeters, or about 5 feet 7 inches, long.
Scientists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center have found that fledgling catbirds living in the suburbs are extremely vulnerable. Almost 80 percent are killed by predators before they reach adulthood. Nearly half of the deaths...
More than 70 scientists from 9 institutions including the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, sequenced the entire genome of the butterfly genus Heliconius, a brightly colored favorite of collectors and scientists since the Victorian era.
Researchers led by David Nesvorny of Southwest Research Institute and David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has inferred an unseen planet, this time orbiting a distant star, marking the first success of this technique outside the solar system.
Scientists have discovered several specimens of tiny insects covered with pollen grains in two pieces of amber, revealing the first record of pollen transport and social behavior in this group of animals.
Recently, after examining hundreds of photos taken by camera traps set-up to monitor clouded leopards in the park, three Smithsonian researchers say Khao Yai also is quite popular with a different kind of visitor: poachers.
The only explanation for such symmetry across these vast distances, explains Smithsonian anthropologist Dennis Stanford, is that the method of creating the points was handed down from person to person.
Science Spotlight
