Q. I notice you sometimes include scientific names of animals in your columns. One time you identified a timber rattlesnake; another time, two turtles (an Alabama redbelly turtle and a stinkpot).

Trish Khan, the Milwaukee County Zoo's curator of primates and small mammals, has worked at the zoo for more than 30 years, and in that time, methods for naming animals have changed. "It used to be a ...

Many scientific names acknowledge some distinctive aspect of a plant or animal. For example, the scientific name for the Alabama waterdog, an aquatic, flat-tailed salamander native to the Black ...

Even though the letter V is at the end of the alphabet, it is the first letter of some of the most colorful and important ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Scientists estimate there are over 8 million animal species ...