Last week, I showed someone a purseweb spider’s home, the lair of a monster. The web resembles a gray, footlong dead twig an inch in diameter leaning against the base of an oak tree. Easy to overlook.

“When I first saw it, I just said ‘What?!’ and didn’t speak for a while,” said one of the researchers who studied the fossils of a prehistoric marine reptile. By Nicholas St. Fleur No mammal may be ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. A Frankensteinian mashup of a platypus, a stegosaurus, and a marine ...

An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. Impact Link Scientists say one of the world's most unique animal species, the duck-billed-platypus, is on "brink of extinction." The platypus is part-mammal, ...

The fossilized remains of a prehistoric marine reptile shows that it closely resembles the modern-day duck-billed platypus. It lived about 250 million years ago in what is now known as China. There ...

Abandon any notion that the duck-billed platypus is a soft and cuddly creature -- maybe like Perry the Platypus in the Phineas and Ferb cartoon. This platypus, renowned as one of the few mammals that ...

Scientists have sequenced the duck-billed platypus' genome. And it's as messed up as the animal itself.<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip ...

Brown University biologist Ken Miller comments at the American Museum of Natural History on the just-published genome of that strange amalgamated mammal, the platypus. Steve Mirsky reports. Robin ...

Platelet cells, which prevent mammals from bleeding non-stop, first evolved around 300 million years ago in an egg-laying animal similar to the modern duck-billed platypus, finds new research.