Mammal

Let’s Get Together

In a harsh southern African habitat, a small mongoose finds safety in numbers.

Latest in Mammal
Brown Hyena
Bounty Hunter

When the Cape fur seals along the Namibian coast have their pups each December, the desert’s top scavengers become seal-hunting specialists.

Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) swimming in s motion, Sri Lanka, Indian Ocean.
Graceful Giant

Their record-setting heft doesn't stop blue whales from being surprisingly sinuous swimmers.

Land of the Leopards

The world’s rarest cats are rebounding in Russia, thanks to the creation of a new national park.

New research shows that juvenile beavers master the art of directional tree felling by copying adults in the most advantageous approach to a tree and placement of the initial cut. Here, an adult female and her son from last year alternate in cutting a large Douglas fir near a forested lake in northern Montana in the United States. Cuts at different height on opposite sides of the trunk enable the most efficient and safest tree felling. Still, an adult pauses periodically to assess tree angle and stability. Cameras mounted high in the canopy and fired remotely from about 50 m away, just outside of a tree fall reach, were instrumental in discovering crucial aspects of tree cutting behavior in this beaver colony.
Nature’s Lumberjacks

Tree-felling is dangerous business, so naturally a mother shows her young kit how it's done.

A pair of grey foxes visit one of the ‘skeleton trees’ in their territory
Skeleton Tree

Gray foxes climb into the trees to grab a few feet of vertical advantage.

sea wolves
Sea Wolves

A pack of wolves along Canada’s Pacific Coast have become seafood specialists.

Battling Disease

Elizabeth Hadly weighs in on why bats need our help—now more than ever—and why we need bats.