Rare Sighting of All-White Orca Whale

The rare all-white orca whale was spotted swimming with its pod. Photo by E. Lazareva / Newscom

On a summer morning in 2010, off the coast of Kamchatka in eastern Russia, scientists made a rare discovery. Photos, released earlier this week (and posted on our Retina Tumblr blog) document what may be the first verified sighting of its kind: an all-white adult orca whale.

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What were the largest species of all time? Does the Tyrannosaurus rex make the list?

Titanoboa was one gigantic snake. It lived around 58 to 60 million years ago, a scant several million years after the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. It could grow 42 feet or more in length and weigh more than a ton, vastly outslithering the previous fossil record holder, a 40-million-year-old, 33-foot-long snake called Gigantophis. But Titanoboa is just one proud inductee in the Prehistoric Giants Hall of Fame. Meet the other record-holders.

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Largest herbivorous dinosaur

Of all the dinosaur superlatives, “biggest dinosaur ever” is one of the most prized. The trouble is that we don’t really know who deserves the title. Sauropods like Apatosaurus (once known as “Brontosaurus”) and Diplodocus, both at roughly 70 feet long, seemed to be the champions during the 19th century, but since then a variety of even bigger sauropods has been found.

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The Story of the Most Common Bird in the World

Why do we love what is rare and despise what is all around us?

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Passer domesticus is one of the most common animals in the world. It is found throughout Northern Africa, Europe, the Americas and much of Asia and is almost certainly more abundant than humans.

Even if you don’t know it, you have probably been surrounded by house sparrows your entire life. Passer domesticus is one of the most common animals in the world. It is found throughout Northern Africa, Europe, the Americas and much of Asia and is almost certainly more abundant than humans.

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The Fight to Save the Tiger

The great cat is disappearing throughout its range because of habitat loss and illegal hunting, but an innovative scientist in India may have discovered a way to avert extinction

Tigers are thriving in and around India’s Nagarhole National Park, with a regional population of 250. “If we do everything right, we can have 500,” says big-cat biologist Ullas Karanth.

“It’s a sign saying, ‘I am here! I am here!’ ” says Ullas Karanth as he flails his arms and jumps up and down in a mock attention-grabbing wave.

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How Titanoboa, the 40-Foot-Long Snake, Was Found

In Colombia, the fossil of a gargantuan snake has stunned scientists, forcing them to rethink the nature of prehistoric life

Titanoboa, pictured with a dyrosaur and a turtle, ruled the swampy South American tropics 58 million years ago.

Jason Bourque / University Of Florida

In the lowland tropics of northern Colombia, 60 miles from the Caribbean coast, Cerrejón is an empty, forbidding, seemingly endless horizon of dusty outback, stripped of vegetation and crisscrossed with dirt roads that lead to enormous pits 15 miles in circumference. It is one of the world’s largest coal operations, covering an area larger than Washington, D.C. and employing some 10,000 workers. The multinational corporation that runs the mine, Carbones del Cerrejón Limited, extracted 31.5 million tons of coal last year alone.

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The Interstellar Internet

An interstellar web? (Original image by B. Torrissen)

A speculative but intriguing discussion that sometimes crops up when talking to people engaged in exoplanetary science goes like this; let’s suppose that we find an unmistakably terrestrial style planet around a relatively nearby star (less than about 30 light years away), perhaps even around one of the Alpha Centauri members, a touch over four light-years distant.

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