Exotic Species News

February 4, 2026

Top Headlines

Melting Antarctic Ice May Weaken a Major Carbon Sink

Feb. 4, 2026 Melting ice from West Antarctica once delivered huge amounts of iron to the Southern Ocean, but algae growth did not increase as expected. Researchers found the iron was in a form that marine life could not easily use. This means more melting ice ...

Hundreds of New Species Found in a Hidden World Beneath the Pacific

Feb. 2, 2026 As demand for critical metals grows, scientists have taken a rare, close look at life on the deep Pacific seabed where mining may soon begin. Over five years and 160 days at sea, researchers documented nearly 800 species, many previously unknown. ...

One of Earth’s Most Abundant Lifeforms Has a Fatal Flaw

Feb. 2, 2026 SAR11 bacteria dominate the world’s oceans by being incredibly efficient, shedding genes to survive in nutrient-poor waters. But that extreme streamlining appears to backfire when conditions change. Under stress, many cells keep copying their DNA ...

Ancient Oceans Stayed Oxygen Rich Despite Extreme Warming

Jan. 29, 2026 Scientists studying ancient ocean fossils found that the Arabian Sea was better oxygenated 16 million years ago, even though the planet was warmer than today. Oxygen levels only plunged millions of years later, after the climate cooled, defying ...

Forty Years of Forest Data Reveal a Changing Amazon

Jan. 25, 2026 After analyzing 40 years of tree records across the Andes and Amazon, researchers found that climate change is reshaping tropical forests in uneven ways. Some regions are steadily losing tree species, especially where conditions are hotter and ...

Microplastics Are Undermining the Ocean’s Power to Absorb Carbon

Jan. 17, 2026 Tiny plastic particles drifting through the oceans may be quietly weakening one of Earth’s most powerful climate defenses. New research suggests microplastics are disrupting marine life that helps oceans absorb carbon dioxide, while also releasing ...

Scientists Found the Soil Secret That Doubles Forest Regrowth

Jan. 15, 2026 New research shows tropical forests can recover twice as fast after deforestation when their soils contain enough nitrogen. Scientists followed forest regrowth across Central America for decades and found that nitrogen plays a decisive role in how ...

Forest Loss Is Driving Mosquitoes’ Thirst for Human Blood

Jan. 15, 2026 In the rapidly disappearing Atlantic Forest, mosquitoes are adapting to a human-dominated landscape. Scientists found that many species now prefer feeding on people rather than the forest’s diverse wildlife. This behavior dramatically raises the ...

A 3,000-year High: Alaska’s Arctic Is Entering a Dangerous New Fire Era

Jan. 14, 2026 For thousands of years, wildfires on Alaska’s North Slope were rare. That changed sharply in the 20th century, when warming temperatures dried soils and fueled the spread of shrubs, setting the stage for intense fires. Peat cores and satellite ...

“Marine Darkwaves”: Hidden Ocean Blackouts Are Putting Sealife at Risk

Jan. 14, 2026 Scientists have identified a newly recognized threat lurking beneath the ocean’s surface: sudden episodes of underwater darkness that can last days or even months. Caused by storms, sediment runoff, algae blooms, and murky water, these “marine ...

Extreme Heat Is Breaking Honey Bees’ Natural Cooling System

Jan. 13, 2026 Honey bees can normally keep their hives perfectly climate-controlled, but extreme heat can overwhelm their defenses. During a scorching Arizona summer, researchers found that high temperatures caused damaging temperature fluctuations inside hives, ...

Oceans Are Supercharging Hurricanes Past Category 5

Dec. 25, 2025 Deep ocean hot spots packed with heat are making the strongest hurricanes and typhoons more likely—and more dangerous. These regions, especially near the Philippines and the Caribbean, are expanding as climate change warms ocean waters far below ...

Latest Headlines

updated 9:41am EST

750-Year-Old Indian Poems Reveal a Landscape Scientists Got Wrong

Feb. 1, 2026 Old Indian poems and folk songs are revealing a surprising truth about the land. Scientists found that descriptions of thorny trees and open grasslands in texts written as far back as the 1200s ...

Scientists Finally Explain Earth’s Strangest Fossils

Jan. 27, 2026 The Ediacara Biota are some of the strangest fossils ever found—soft-bodied organisms preserved in remarkable detail where preservation shouldn’t be possible. Scientists now think their survival ...

Earth May Have Been Ravaged by “invisible” Explosions from Space

Dec. 19, 2025 Cosmic “touchdown airbursts” — explosions of comets or asteroids above Earth’s surface — may be far more common and destructive than previously thought, according to new research. Unlike ...

The Western U.S. Tried to Stop Wildfires and It Backfired

Dec. 18, 2025 Much of the western U.S. is overdue for wildfire, with decades of suppression allowing fuel to build up across millions of hectares. Researchers estimate that 74% of the region is in a fire deficit, ...

New Ghost Marsupial Related to the Kangaroo Found in Australia

Dec. 13, 2025 Researchers analyzing ancient fossils from caves across Western Australia have uncovered a completely new species of bettong along with two new woylie subspecies—remarkable finds made bittersweet ...

A Silent Ocean Pandemic Is Wiping out Sea Urchins Worldwide

Dec. 12, 2025 A sudden, unexplained mass die-off is decimating sea urchins around the world, including catastrophic losses in the Canary Islands. Key reef-grazing species are reaching historic lows, and their ...

New Fossils in Qatar Reveal a Tiny Sea Cow Hidden for 21 Million Years

Dec. 12, 2025 Fossils from Qatar have revealed a small, newly identified sea cow species that lived in the Arabian Gulf more than 20 million years ago. The site contains the densest known collection of fossil sea ...

Scientists Uncover a Volcanic Trigger Behind the Black Death

Dec. 8, 2025 A newly analyzed set of climate data points to a major volcanic eruption that may have played a key role in the Black Death’s arrival. Cooling and crop failures across Europe pushed Italian states ...

A Hidden Antarctic Shift Unleashed the Carbon That Warmed the World

Dec. 2, 2025 As the last Ice Age waned and the Holocene dawned, deep-ocean circulation around Antarctica underwent dramatic shifts that helped release long-stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Deep-sea ...

Scientists Discover a Hidden Deep Sea Hotspot Bursting With Life

Nov. 26, 2025 Beneath the waters off Papua New Guinea lies an extraordinary deep-sea environment where scorching hydrothermal vents and cool methane seeps coexist side by side — a pairing never before seen. This ...

The Mystery of Volcanoes That Don’t Explode Finally Has an Answer

Nov. 22, 2025 Scientists have uncovered a long-missing piece of the volcanic puzzle: rising magma doesn’t just form explosive gas bubbles when pressure drops—it can do so simply by being sheared and ...

The Five Great Forests That Keep North America’s Birds Alive

Nov. 22, 2025 Migratory birds that fill North American forests with spring songs depend on Central America’s Five Great Forests far more than most people realize. New research shows these tropical strongholds ...

New Report Reveals Major Risks in Turning Oceans Into Carbon Sinks

Nov. 20, 2025 Experts say the ocean could help absorb carbon dioxide, but today’s technologies are too uncertain to be scaled up safely. New findings released during COP30 highlight the risks of rushing into ...

9,000-Year-Old Ice Melt Shows How Fast Antarctica Can Fall Apart

Nov. 9, 2025 Around 9,000 years ago, East Antarctica went through a dramatic meltdown that was anything but isolated. Scientists have discovered that warm deep ocean water surged beneath the region’s floating ...

New Research Uncovers Hidden Divide in West Coast Killer Whales

Nov. 20, 2025 Scientists confirmed that West Coast transient killer whales actually form two separate groups split between inner and outer coastal habitats. Inner-coast whales hunt smaller prey in shallow, ...

Deep-Sea Mining Starves Life in the Ocean’s Twilight Zone

Nov. 8, 2025 Scientists have discovered that deep-sea mining plumes can strip vital nutrition from the ocean’s twilight zone, replacing natural food with nutrient-poor sediment. The resulting “junk food” ...

Scientists Finally Discover What’s Fueling Massive Sargassum Blooms

Nov. 19, 2025 Massive Sargassum blooms sweeping across the Caribbean and Atlantic are fueled by a powerful nutrient partnership: phosphorus pulled to the surface by equatorial upwelling and nitrogen supplied by ...

Earth’s “boring Billion” Set the Stage for Complex Life

Oct. 27, 2025 Scientists have traced the origins of complex life to the breakup of the supercontinent Nuna 1.5 billion years ago. This tectonic shift reduced volcanic carbon emissions, expanded shallow seas, and ...

Scientists Turn Flower Fragrance Into a Mosquito Killer

Oct. 27, 2025 A team of researchers has developed a floral-scented fungus that tricks mosquitoes into approaching and dying. The fungus emits longifolene, a natural scent that irresistibly draws them in. It’s ...

Scientists Just Found a Surprising Twist in Earth’s Extinction Story

Oct. 27, 2025 Extinction rates are not spiraling upward as many believe, according to a large-scale study analyzing 500 years of data. Researchers found that species losses peaked about a century ago and have ...

Melting Ice Is Hiding a Massive Climate Secret Beneath Antarctica

Oct. 27, 2025 The Southern Ocean absorbs nearly half of all ocean-stored human CO2, but its future role is uncertain. Despite models predicting a decline, researchers found that freshening surface waters are ...

China’s Coastal Cities Are Sinking as Seas Rise at Record Speed

Oct. 23, 2025 Sea levels are rising faster than at any time in 4,000 years, scientists report, with China’s major coastal cities at particular risk. The rapid increase is driven by warming oceans and melting ...

Earth Has Hit Its First Climate Tipping Point, Scientists Warn

Oct. 29, 2025 Global scientists warn that humanity is on the verge of crossing irreversible climate thresholds, with coral reefs already at their tipping point and polar ice sheets possibly beyond recovery. The ...

Atlantic Dolphins Are Dying Much Younger. Scientists Sound the Alarm

Oct. 22, 2025 Common dolphins in the North Atlantic are living significantly shorter lives, with female longevity dropping seven years since the 1990s. Researchers found this decline by analyzing stranded ...

Record Amazon Fires Release More Carbon Than an Entire Country

Oct. 8, 2025 The Amazon has suffered its most destructive fire season in more than two decades, releasing a staggering 791 million tons of carbon dioxide—on par with Germany’s annual emissions. Scientists ...

Ocean Heatwaves Are Breaking Earth’s Hidden Climate Engine

Oct. 7, 2025 Marine heatwaves can jam the ocean’s natural carbon conveyor belt, preventing carbon from reaching the deep sea. Researchers studying two major heatwaves in the Gulf of Alaska found that plankton ...

From Gentle Giants to Ghostly Hunters, Sharks Face an Unseen Peril

Oct. 4, 2025 New research reveals that deep-sea mining could dramatically threaten 30 species of sharks, rays, and ghost sharks whose habitats overlap with proposed mining zones. Many of these species, already at ...

The Red Sea That Vanished and the Catastrophic Flood That Brought It Back

Oct. 8, 2025 Researchers at KAUST have confirmed that the Red Sea once vanished entirely, turning into a barren salt desert before being suddenly flooded by waters from the Indian Ocean. The flood carved deep ...

Scientists Just Recreated a Wildfire That Made Its Own Weather

Oct. 2, 2025 In 2020, California’s Creek Fire became so intense that it generated its own thunderstorm, a phenomenon called a pyrocumulonimbus cloud. For years, scientists struggled to replicate these explosive ...

Japan’s Hot Springs Hold Clues to the Origins of Life on Earth

Oct. 2, 2025 Billions of years ago, Earth’s atmosphere was hostile, with barely any oxygen and toxic conditions for life. Researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute studied Japan’s iron-rich hot ...