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News Articles: Animals

Hannah Frost (right) and Hope pose on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Byron, Georgia. Hope holds the Guinness World Record for longest ears on a living donkey and received the award in December 2025. Katie Tucker/The Telegraph

Tagged as: 

  • Animals

Rescued donkey in Byron breaks world record for longest ears. How big are they?

If you’re looking from a distance, Hope the donkey’s titanic ears could easily be mistaken for wings. As of Jan. 2, the ears aren’t just a quirky local sight, but the longest ears on any donkey alive.

January 21, 2026
|
By:
  • Lucinda Warnke ,
  • Katharine Tucker ,
  • and 1 more
Basket, a 7-year-old female Border collie, knows the names of over 200 dog toys. A new study finds that certain dogs can learn new words simply by overhearing them — much as a human toddler would.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

These dogs can learn new words just by eavesdropping

Some dogs have an amazing ability to learn the names of dozens, even hundreds of toys. Now, a new study suggests these super learners can pick up new words by overhearing people talk, just as toddlers can.

January 08, 2026
|
By:
  • Nell Greenfieldboyce
Firearms Training Systems, Inc.,  Instructor Mike Murphy demonstrates the company’s virtual reality turkey hunter system at the factory in Suwanee, Ga. on July 17, 1995.

Tagged as: 

  • Animals

How turkey hunters may cause turkey hens to have more daughters

In ways scientists don't yet understand, turkey hens can shift to rearing more females when hunting pressure on top males becomes too much, according to a new study. 

January 08, 2026
|
By:
  • Grant Blankenship
When an ant pupa has a deadly, incurable infection, it sends out a signal that tells worker ants to unpack it from its cocoon and disinfect it, a process that results in its death.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

Sick young ants send out a 'kill me' scent to prevent deadly epidemics

Young, infected Lasius neglectus ants will send out an altruistic "kill me" signal to worker ants, a new study finds, as part of a strategy to keep deadly pathogens from spreading through the colony.

January 07, 2026
|
By:
  • Arundathi Nair
This artist's rendering depicts a herd of ancient sea cows foraging on the seafloor. A new species of ancient sea cow, Salwasiren qatarensis, is one of the many species described in 2025.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

Meet five new species discovered in 2025

A bumpy snailfish, Andean mouse opossum and ancient sea cow were just some of the many species described in 2025.

December 31, 2025
|
By:
  • Arundathi Nair
While blue-spotted salamanders can be sighted on warm, sunny days, they also seem to be able to venture out on cold, snowy ones, too.

Tagged as: 

  • Science

In the snow, these salamanders get supercool

Blue spotted salamanders have been seen walking across snow and new research suggests how they get by in the cold.

December 24, 2025
|
By:
  • Nell Greenfieldboyce
A man holds and tags a small red-cockaded woodpecker.

Tagged as: 

  • Animals

Preservationists release a formerly endangered woodpecker to new home in South Georgia

On Thursday, a group of preservationists released groups of previously endangered woodpeckers to their new home in South Georgia.

December 22, 2025
|
By:
  • Chase McGee
Rockalina, the eastern box turtle, looks on as a baby of her kind scuttles past.

Tagged as: 

  • Animals

For 50 years, Rockalina the turtle lived on a kitchen floor. Now she has a new friend

The Oreo-sized baby turtle represents a turning point in Rockalina's recovery: Spending time with her own kind.

December 12, 2025
|
By:
  • Alina Hartounian
Ken Clouse and his wife Pam look at a still image taken from a game camera on their porch. The couple says in the last two years, they've regularly seen black bears in their neighborhood south of Alpine, Texas.

Tagged as: 

  • National

Black bear populations are bouncing back. Here's how these Texas towns are coping

Historically, Black bears were the biggest predator to travel the Big Bend area of Texas. But overhunting and habitat loss led to their decline.

December 09, 2025
|
By:
  • Carlos Morales
Georgia DNR and Florida FWC work to disentangle right whale No. 5217 off St. Simons Island on Dec. 4, 2025. Credit: Clearwater Aquarium Marine Research Institute/taken under NOAA permit 24359. Credit and permit number required for use. Aerial survey funded by NOAA Fisheries and Georgia DNR.

Tagged as: 

  • Animals

In two-day effort at sea, team partially frees whale of fishing gear off Georgia coast

A team from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources was documenting the second North Atlantic right whale calf of the season about 4 miles offshore of the Florida/Georgia border on Wednesday when they received an urgent message.

December 08, 2025
|
By:
  • Mary Landers and
  • The Current
A mother-calf pair of North Atlantic right whales

Tagged as: 

  • Animals

First North Atlantic right whale baby of the season spotted off coastal Georgia

North Atlantic right whales have been detected throughout the East Coast, including near Savannah, Ga., and the first mother/calf pair was spotted over the past weekend.

December 05, 2025
|
By:
  • GPB News Staff
Canadian Museum of Nature researchers Natalia Rybczynski (left), Danielle Fraser and Marisa Gilbert examine the bones of <em>Epiaceratherium itjilik.</em>

Tagged as: 

  • Science

This High Arctic rhino may change what we know about ancient animal migrations

A 23-million-year-old rhinoceros fossil is reshaping scientists' understanding of mammal evolution.

December 04, 2025
|
By:
  • Aru Nair
An olive ridley sea turtle hatchling lurches along the sand to the sea in Velas, India.

Tagged as: 

  • Environment

A bright spot for turtles: Olive ridleys are recovering in India, but still at risk

India's olive ridley turtle numbers appear to have rebounded after years of patchwork efforts to stem their decline. Can it last?

November 29, 2025
|
By:
  • Diaa Hadid and
  • Omkar Khandekar
One of the two national Thanksgiving turkeys, Waddle and Gobble, which were presented to journalists in the Willard Room of the Willard InterContinental on November 24, 2025 in Washington, DC., for the 78th annual Turkey Pardoning at the White House.

Tagged as: 

  • Animals

How the turkey trotted its way onto our Thanksgiving tables — and into our lexicon

Much of the turkey's early history is shrouded in uncertainty, historians and etymologists say — which is particularly true of how the bird got its name.

November 26, 2025
|
By:
  • Natalie Escobar
Gramma's 138th birthday was celebrated at the San Diego Zoo in 2022.

Tagged as: 

  • Animals

How a 'sweet and shy' tortoise outlived empires and survived two world wars

No one knows exactly when Gramma was born. But if the estimated birth year of 1884 is accurate, Chester Arthur occupied the Oval Office and there were only 39 states at the time.

November 26, 2025
|
By:
  • Scott Neuman
  • Load More

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