Wild Animals

She's a vicious social climber, willing to do anything to get to the top. In her quest to be queen, she's snubbed girls and stolen their men. Oh, yes -- and she's a meerkat.

By Josh Clark

When it comes to lending a helping paw, meerkats are quite altruistic. Strangely, they evolved from the mongoose -- a real loner. What gives?

By Josh Clark

Mealtime in the Kalahari Desert isn't exactly an all-you-can-eat buffet. Meerkats eat what they can get -- even poisonous scorpions. Why doesn't the venom hurt them?

By Josh Clark

From sonnets to Skype, humans have been perfecting communication for centuries. Meerkats have their own ways of pointing out danger, food and even happiness.

By Josh Clark

You're probably familiar with celebrity meerkats like the Whiskers clan and Timon. But do you know anything else about this creature from the Kalahari?

By Maria Trimarchi

You think you and your siblings don't get along? Try being a shark. You might not even make it out of the womb without your brother or sister eating you.

By Molly Edmonds

Mellow probably isn't the first word that you think of when it comes to sharks, but these slackers of the sea could change your mind. What's their life of leisure like?

By Molly Edmonds

Great whites are the flashy man-eaters of the silver screen. But bull sharks may be the most dangerous, with a dinner menu that sometimes consists of sloths, dogs and cows. What can you say? They're opportunists.

By Charles W. Bryant

Sharks can have up to 15 rows of teeth growing behind their front row of chompers, so it's no surprise how many shark teeth litter beaches. But why do people collect them?

By Charles W. Bryant

Despite the fact you'll never find anything called "wasp honey," wasps perform a vital service by helping to pollinate the world's plant life -- and eliminate various six- and eight-legged pests.

By Robert Lamb

Have you ever seen a water bag hanging in a restaurant? It's not a design trend - some people say the bags repel flies. Does this method hold water?

By Robert Lamb

If you're snacking on fig bars, make sure to check the nutritional content for wasps. Wasps risk their lives to provide enough figs to satisfy every fruit- and cake-related craving.

By Robert Lamb

You don't reign supreme over the marine food chain without acute senses that can smell blood or hear injured prey from great distances. And sometimes a "sixth sense" doesn't hurt either.

By Molly Edmonds

Swat it, smash it, spray it. It's tough to get rid of the world's most annoying roommate: the housefly. But at least the housefly won't steal your food -- whoops, never mind.

By Robert Lamb

A caterpillar spends its life eating -- foliage, some animals like ants and snails, and even its own skin it previously shed. What do caterpillars do with all of this stored up food? And why do they use their waste as projectiles?

By Tracy V. Wilson

The difference between butterflies and moths is a lot like the difference between frogs and toads. There are some rules of thumb you can follow to tell them apart, but there are also exceptions to those rules. So how do you tell the difference?

By Tracy V. Wilson

Have you ever been so hungry that you could eat anything? How about a hubcap? Or maybe a suit of armor? If you said "yes," you might have something in common with the second deadliest shark.

By Molly Edmonds

Sharks are an intelligent and sometimes dangerous species of saltwater fish. Learn more about these often feared, often misunderstood creatures of the deep in this gallery.

I've heard that the black and white stripes on a zebra provide camouflage. How can this be if they're not in a black-and-white environment?

If you have ever been out in the woods or an open field in spring, summer or fall, you may have gotten chiggers around your waistband or on your ankles. They leave red, itchy bumps on your skin. Learn more about these arachnids.

The brilliantly colored orange wings of a monarch butterfly are as recognizable as the plumes of a peacock. Why are butterfly colors some of the best and brightest in nature?

By Jennifer Horton

How do coral polyps mere millimeters in length form the world's largest living structures? Will these giants of the sea last much longer if the present rate of destruction continues?

By Jennifer Horton

If you've seen a butterfly in your lifetime, you probably noticed their colorful wings, or saw one basking in the sunlight. But I bet you didn't realize that it would soon die. Why are their life spans so short, and are they nearly extinct?

By Tracy V. Wilson

To elude predators, the octopus will change color in an instant and even alter its shape to look like other sea animals. Does its magic put the chameleon to shame?

By Jennifer Horton

Each year, thousands of male Pacific walruses pack the beaches of Round Island off the coast of Alaska. Is there a reason for this months-long male bonding?

By Jennifer Horton