National Museum of Natural History Species of the Day Collection
This Collection contains a complete archive of all creatures featured on the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History's "Species of the Day" feature on its home page (http://mnh.si.edu) since 20 April 2010. The sort field contains the month and day of the last time a creature was shown. Those shown more than a year ago have '999' in the sort field.
To nominate a species, please leave us a comment in the Newsfeed with your suggestion, including why you think it would make a great Species of the Day! If you can paste a link to the species you are interested in, that would also be helpful.
To nominate a species, please leave us a comment in the Newsfeed with your suggestion, including why you think it would make a great Species of the Day! If you can paste a link to the species you are interested in, that would also be helpful.
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12.07. Strawberry Poison-dart Frog tadpoles have a very specialized oophagous diet, feeding solely on food eggs supplied by the female.
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999. Males of this large West African frog species have hair-like dermal papillae.
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999. The Goliath Frog is the largest frog in the world.
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10.24. The Kihansi Spray Toad, which is known from just one small area in Tanzania and was described only in 1998, was apparently extinct in the wild shortly after its discovery, largely as a result of a hydroelectric project that dramatically modified its habitat; however, an ongoing captive breeding and reintroduction project appears promising.
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999. The scientific name of this frog is derived from the Swahili “kisiwa” (island) and “msitu” (forest) and refers to the habitat of this species, which is now just a remnant of the forest that once covered the West Usambara Mountains in Tanzania.
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999. This small frog is common where it occurs in the Uluguru, Udzungwa, and Mahenge Mountains of Tanzania, but populations are vulnerable because its geographic distribution is limited and its habitat is severely fragmented.
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999. This frog was found in 2010 for the first time since it was discovered in 1979.
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999. The toothless (but armored!) Temminck's Ground Pangolin uses its powerful forelimbs to tear open ant and termite mounds, then captures the fleeing insects by flicking its long tongue in and out. -
- Life …
- Eukaryota
- Opisthokonta
- Metazoa …
- Deuterostomia …
- Vertebrata …
- Tetrapoda …
- Synapsida …
- Cynodontia
- Mammalia …
- Rodentia …
- Sciuridae …
999. These largely nocturnal squirrels can leap off a tree and glide 50 meters to another tree at a rate of nearly two meters per second, scurrying to the other side of the trunk immediately upon landing. -
05.22. This widely introduced vineyard pest, which was first reported from Chile in 2008 and from the U.S. (Napa Valley, California) in 2009, is currently a source of great concern for the wine industry.
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999. If touched, short, hollow spines hidden beneath the "fur" of this caterpillar will penetrate the skin of a human hand, injecting poison that causes intense pain, nausea, vomiting, headache, and sometimes respiratory distress; stings can require medical attention.
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999. The silk tents constructed in the crotches of tree branches in the spring by cohorts of newly hatched Eastern Tent Caterpillars are a familiar sight in eastern North America.
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999. The Cecropia Moth, in the giant silkmoth family (Saturniidae), is the largest moth in Norh America.
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03.30. The Hickory Horned Devil, named for the horns on the very large and strikingly colored larva (caterpillar), uses hickories as well as a range of other trees and shrubs as host plants.
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999. This species is among the simplest animals — with just a few cell types and lacking a fixed body shape, symmetry, gut, or any organs — and represents a sister group to the bulk of extant animals.
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999. <i>Osedax mucofloris</i>, like other <i>Osedax</i> species, feeds on the bones of dead whales on the sea bottom.
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999. These deep-sea tubeworms, which inhabit cold methane seeps between 400 and 700 meters below the surface in the northern Gulf of Mexico, have no gut, mouth, or anus; they obtain their nutrition from internal sulfur-oxidizing chemosynthetic bacteria.
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05.20. <i>Riftia pachyptila</i> is a large tube worm that lives on the ocean floor near hydrothermal vents on the East Pacific Rise, more than a mile under the sea.
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999. Although the Horseshoe Crab's appearance may alarm some people unfamiliar with this fascinating creature, it is completely harmless.
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999. This species is one of several large nectar-feeding hawk moths that bear a striking (if mainly behavioral) resemblance to hummingbirds.
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