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November 2, 2012 Scientists say an Asian elephant at a South Korean zoo can imitate human speech, uttering five Korean words that are readily understood. "This is not the kind of sound that Asian elephants normally make, and it's a dead-on match of the speech of his trainers," a researcher says.

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October 26, 2012 Can those of us caught in the red-blue divide learn something from political animals? At the 30-year anniversary of primatologist Frans de Waal's Chimpanzee Politics, commentator Barbara J. King looks back at the book and applies its messages to the current election season.

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October 26, 2012 The ornithomimus dinosaur was built like a 400-pound ostrich and lived about 75 million years ago. But recent research suggests the adult dinos had big, showy, colorful feathers with quills that were most likely used for sexual displays or courtship.

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October 25, 2012 If attorney Steven Wise gets his way, next year could be a game changer for animal rights in America. The director of the Nonhuman Rights Project plans to file a series of lawsuits in hopes that a court will finally recognize that a nonhuman plaintiff can be a legal "person" in the eyes of the law.

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October 24, 2012 "One common property we see in animal groups from schooling fish to flocking birds to primate groups is that they effectively vote to decide where to go and what to do," says an evolutionary biologist. But like human leaders, successful animal leaders know they can't get too far ahead of their constituents.

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October 23, 2012 Whales are among the great communicators of the animal world. They produce all sorts of sounds: squeaks, whistles and even epic arias worthy of an opera house. But in the mid-1980s, one beluga whale did something that had never been documented before: It imitated human speech.

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October 23, 2012 Here are three baby bats only a bat mommy could love; one's got its face covered, one's got its mouth covered, the other one? It's just enjoying the quiet. This photo won a prize today.

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October 21, 2012 VPRA Vermont college's decision to slaughter two oxen after one suffered an injury has sparked some serious debate. The college cited sustainability as one of its reasons, but some students and animal rights advocates say it's just not right to serve Bill and Lou for dinner.

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October 19, 2012 Could prebiotics, the food for the good bacteria known as probiotics, have more benefits than a dose of the microbes, particularly for people with serious health problems like preemies? A researcher working with pigs is trying to figure that out.

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October 17, 2012 Its nearest relatives — animals that lived before the great dinosaurs — are all extinct now. The tuatara is the only one of its order to make it through that giant asteroid, the ice ages, volcanoes, changes in sea levels, humans. And now, after 230 million years hunting insects in the forest, this little guy is in trouble.

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October 11, 2012 It's big, it's blue and no one's sure yet what or where it came from. A squid? A whale? Big Foot? See if you can help solve the mystery.

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October 11, 2012 The cub was about a week old when it died on Sept. 23. Tests since then show that her lungs didn't develop properly, which affected how much oxygen she was getting and in turn damaged her liver.

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October 8, 2012 Georgia is well known for its agricultural products, such as peaches, peanuts and chickens. Now, in the tiny town of Camilla, one farm is turning out an unusual item that's in big demand in Europe's high-fashion industry: alligators.

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October 7, 2012 A new dinosaur species was identified this week called Pegomastax, or "thick-jawed reptile." The dinosaur's defining feature is its fangs, which make it look like a fearsome cross between a porcupine and a chicken.

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