News Archive

For graduate fellow Sean Lyons, "getting to the root of it all" was always his focus. So, it comes as no surprise that he wound up working with the root of all life: DNA.

When Echo's five cubs were born last fall, their exact parentage was a mystery. A genetic analysis conducted by Smithsonian scientists revealed the truth.

Smithsonian scientists discuss the impact of the first federal law designed to save endangered and imperiled animals from extinction.

Researchers at the Zoo found higher fiber and lower sugar diets had a range of health benefits for primates in human care.

With just a few tips and tricks, anyone can find salamanders and celebrate nature in their local area.

The sliminess on amphibians is more than just goop—it’s how these animals survive. A scientist and intern from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation Genomics explains.

Focus on the Future is a series that seeks to highlight the early career scientists who conduct research at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. Learn about undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral fellows and the conservation research they are supporting through first...

Here's why eating poop can sometimes be good for animal health—and how the practice is even becoming an important part of human and animal medicine.

Did you know that all animals have trillions of microscopic bacteria living inside them? These communities of microbes, known as microbiomes, play an important role in keeping animals healthy.

A new genomic study ranks the potential of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to bind to the ACE2 receptor site in 410 vertebrate animals. Old World primates and great apes, which have identical amino acids at the binding site as humans, are predicted to have a very high propensity for binding ACE2 and...

For frogs dying of the invasive chytridiomycosis disease, the leading cause of amphibian deaths worldwide, the genes responsible for protecting them may actually be leading to their demise, according to a new study published today in the journal Molecular Ecology by Smithsonian Conservation Biology...

As a research assistant for the nutrition laboratory, Jenna Pastel wears a snowsuit year-round. That’s because she spends a lot of time in a -20 degree Fahrenheit walk-in freezer located in the Zoo’s science building.

Life found a way at Smithsonian’s National Zoo, where a female Asian water dragon at the Reptile Discovery Center underwent facultative parthenogenesis—that is, she reproduced and contributed a healthy, thriving offspring to her species despite never breeding with a male or receiving genetic...

DNA is the ultimate library, and scientists at SCBI’s Center for Species Survival and Center for Conservation Genomics are cataloging it as diligently as any librarians. 

Wood turtles are endangered and can be difficult to find in the wild because of their cryptic nature and frequently small populations, but scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) found that environmental DNA (eDNA) can be used to find them much faster. 

Smithsonian scientists and partners believe genetic diversity could hold the key to saving amphibians from Ranavirus, a pathogen that is particularly devastating to frogs and toads in the U.S.

Without ever laying eyes on a San Joaquin kit fox, scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation Genomics know how many of the cute creatures live in California’s Ciervo-Panoche Natural Area.

The secret to salamanders’ survival may be in their slimy secretions. Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute are swabbing salamanders in Shenandoah, looking for disease-fighting microbes that live in the mucus on their skin.

In a new study almost 20 years in the making, Smithsonian researchers and partners report some of the strongest evidence yet of the phenomenon of speciation reversal in two lineages of common ravens.

Lebanon’s majestic cedar forests are the country's national symbol. Yet the famous forests and the animals that live there have declined precipitously as the result of logging, invasive species, human encroachment and hunting.

Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s (SCBI) Center for...

A new study from the Smithsonian and partners presents the most comprehensive evolutionary family tree for the eight known species of pangolins—one of Earth's most evolutionarily unique animals and the world's most trafficked mammal.

In 2016, the international import of 201 salamander species into the United States was restricted in an effort to prevent the newly discovered deadly salamander fungal disease, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal), from entering the country. In a new study, Smithsonian Conservation Biology...

These bats have been dead for more than a century, but they are finding a second “life” as a research specimen. It may sound like a spooky science fiction story, but it is actually the work of scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation Genomics and the...

In a shell of a paternity test story, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) scientists found that male desert tortoises that had been relocated from a threatened habitat to a new nearby home are reproducing at a much, much lower rate than resident males. Genetic paternity testing of 92...

Four years after conservationists relocated 570 desert tortoises in California from a threatened habitat to a nearby location, the tortoises outwardly appeared to have successfully acclimated. Genetic paternity testing of 92 hatchlings by SCBI geneticists, however, has revealed that the translocated...