Sources & Further Reading: “Thismia daemona (Thismiaceae), a new species from Thailand supported by morphological and molecular evidence” — PhytoKeys (Original Research) “Scientists Discovered a Bizarre ‘Devil Flower’ That Doesn’t Need Sunlight” — ScienceAlert “Researchers discover ‘devil flower’ hidden beneath the forest floor in Thai national park” — Discover Wildlife Original Research: Thismia daemona (Thismiaceae), a new species from Thailand supported by morphological an

Sources & Further Reading: Original Scientific Publication — Current Biology National Geographic — Meet the First New Cat Species Discovered in 100 Years Reuters — New Cat Species Identified in Bolivia, First in Over a Century Imagine finding a kitten near a road, bringing it home, and eventually realizing that not only is this absolutely not a house cat, but scientists don’t even have the correct species name for what has been living with you. That is essentially how the sci

Original research: Nature Communications — “Scalable high resolution ancestry deconvolution for genomic data” Additional reading: ScienceAlert — “It Turns Out Chihuahuas Are Actually Part Coyote” Chihuahuas already have a reputation for behaving like they are much larger than they actually are, but new genetic research has added an unexpected twist to their story. Researchers studying ancestry in animal genomes found that some sections of Chihuahua DNA are closely associated

Sources and further reading: Original study: “Consistency and Individual Variation in Common Song Types…” Effect of Urban Isolation on White-eared Ground-Sparrows Genetic Structure in Birds With Different Tolerance to Urbanization How Human Noise Affects Birdsong White-eared Ground-Sparrow Survival Along an Urban–Rural Gradient City life changes a lot about an animal’s daily routine. There are buildings to navigate, people to avoid, fragmented patches of habitat to survive in

Research and Further Reading: New squid biomass study by Rémy Denéchère and colleagues (2026 preprint) — This research has not yet been peer-reviewed. Global Proliferation of Cephalopods (Current Biology, 2016) Squid Biology and Feeding Facts—Australian Antarctic Program Squid Are Taking Over the Ocean—but Not for the Reason You Might Think—ScienceAlert Humans have spent the past century overfishing marine predators, disturbing the seafloor, and steadily warming the ocean, an

Sources and further reading: Original research: “A somatosensory fovea in the fingertips of the Surinam toad” — Journal of Comparative Physiology A Research summary from the UCLA Newsroom Surinam toad species profile — AmphibiaWeb Surinam toad facts — San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Surinam toad facts and photos — National Geographic Taxonomic record for Pipa pipa — American Museum of Natural History If evolution ever designed a frog to look like a piece of soggy driftwood, t

Read the research & learn more Original peer-reviewed study:Biological hotspot at a glacier ocean boundary in South Greenland — Communications Earth & Environment ScienceAlert coverage + ROV footage:Mesmerizing Video Reveals a Rare Ocean Ecosystem at the Edge of a Greenland Glacier Upcoming documentary:An Unlikely Hero — Hansen & Pedersen If I asked you to picture the very front of a Greenland glacier—the place where a massive wall of ice meets the ocean—you'd probably imagin

Sources and Further Reading: GREMM / Whales Online — Nordet's profile:Meet Nordet the Narwhal GREMM / Whales Online — The original 2016 sighting:Narwhal on the Run — Updated August 10, 2016 GREMM / Whales Online — 2018 drone observations with the belugas:With the Belugas... And a Narwhal! GREMM / Whales Online — Nordet's 2022 return and the question of reproduction:Big Return of a Small Cetacean Scientific Reports — Genetic confirmation of a narwhal-beluga hybrid:Hybridizatio

Read the research: Original 2025 research article:“Greater noctule bats prey on and consume passerines in flight” — Science The original evidence from 2001:“Bat predation on nocturnally migrating birds” — PNAS/PubMed Research data and code:Mendeley Data — Stidsholt et al. dataset More about the discovery:Aarhus University — How Europe’s largest bat catches and eats birds mid-air If you watched my recent Nature Is Lit episode about the 400-year-old painting that appears to sho

Sources: https://esa.org/blog/2024/11/21/sweet-tooth-ethiopian-wolves-seen-feeding-on-nectar/ https://esa.org/blog/2024/11/21/sweet-tooth-ethiopian-wolves-seen-feeding-on-nectar/ https://www.ethiopianwolf.org/ High in the Ethiopian Highlands lives one of the rarest and strangest members of the dog family: the Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis). Scientifically described in 1835, this endangered predator survives largely by hunting rodents across Africa’s high-altitude grasslands—

Deeper Dive Resources: Coyote Friendly Communities: How to Talk to Communities about Coexisting with Coyotes Yard Audit Checklist - Project Coyote After a house fire displaced my family, our insurance company placed us in a rental sitting on seven acres, and unexpectedly, it became a front-row seat to urban wildlife. For several weeks, my daughter and I have been safely observing a lone coyote that regularly moves around the pond and surrounding property, separate from a larg

Deeper Dive Resources: Published Paper: Walking Fish ​ | Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research Researchers Film Deep-Sea Armored Searobin Walking Sideways and Backward - environment coastal & offshore Sea Robin | Marine Biological Laboratory Scientists recently filmed Scalicus engyceros, an armored searobin first described in 1872, showing some seriously strange behavior in the deep waters of the South China Sea, including walking sideways and backward across the seafloor using modi

Every big dream starts as a quiet thought that refuses to leave. For me, Nature Is Lit was that thought. Years ago, before this space had a name, before the videos, blog posts, research articles, and conversations, I dreamed of building a place where science felt alive. Not locked away in technical papers. Not hidden behind jargon. Not presented as something only a select few could understand. I imagined a space where discovery could breathe, where nature could be explained w