A pride of lions in a “pristine” savanna in Kenya where they can use whistling-thorn trees as cover to stalk and ambush plains zebra. In areas that have been colonized by invasive big-headed ants, ...

The invasion of non-native species can sometimes lead to large and unexpected ecosystem shifts, as Douglas Kamaru and colleagues demonstrate in a unique, careful study that traces the links between ...

Karen Hopkin: This is Scientific American’s Science Quickly. I’m Karen Hopkin. Hopkin: Why did the lion take down a buffalo instead of a zebra? Because of the big-headed ants! I know, I know. Sounds ...

“The ant and the zebra” sounds like the title of one of Aesop’s fables. Like all good fables, this one has a moral, which is that tinkering with nature has unpredictable consequences. Unlike the Greek ...

Mutualism describes a relationship that benefits both parties – the win-win of our world. A new study reports on a mutualism that goes from ants to trees to elephants to lions and zebras. It serves as ...

The story of how tiny ants managed to push lions to kill more African buffalo shows how the arrival of an invasive species can affect multiple animals that seem to have no connections. At an animal ...