What could be the world’s rarest coral has been discovered in the remote North Pacific Ocean.

The Pacific elkhorn coral (Acropora rotumana) — with branches like an elk’s antlers — was found during an underwater survey of the Arno atoll in the Marshall Islands.

MSNBC

A study published Tuesday in the online journal PLoS Biology suggests that Australian marsupials — kangaroos, wallabies, Tasmanian devils and more — evolved from a common South American marsupial ancestor millions of years ago. The finding, by researchers at the University of Munster in Germany, indicates that the theory that marsupials originated in Australia is incorrect.

Los Angeles Times

An octopus that uses coconut shells as portable armor is the latest addition to a growing list of animals that use tools.

LiveScience

The all-black Banggai Crow (Corvus unicolor), known to science only by two specimens described in 1900, was found again by Indonesian biologists on Peleng Island, off the east coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia, in 2007. Pamela Rasmussen, a Michigan State University zoologist verified the finding.

In the 1970s, Rathbun first described the monogamous behavior of elephant-shrews, which maintain exclusive mating pairs. They got their nickname due to the animals’ long, flexible snouts. But recent research has shown that elephant-shrews, also called sengis, are more closely related to elephants than to shrews.

Two of the new salamanders are from the Bolitoglossa genus and are nocturnal, coming out at night to feed. The first Bolitoglossa species is 3 inches (8 centimeters) long and black, with a bold red stripe down its back and small yellow markings on its side.

MSNBC

MSNBC