Sunlight turns Italian waters to liquid gold, supernovae get in shape, Saturn's largest moon casts a long shadow, and more in our selection of the week's best space pictures.

Unearthed in southeastern Australia, the tiny, ancient whale likely captured its prey by slurping up mouthfuls of mud from the seafloor, scientists say.

Mountain lions, grizzly bears, and cutthroat trout are among the Rocky Mountain animals snapped during a recent photography expedition to the Flathead region, which conservationists say is threatened by mining, logging, and drilling.

Large, "lost," or simply unusual, a bevy of prehistoric beasts were brought to life in National Geographic News's most popular paleontology stories of the year.

See what could be the first professional footage of elusive Cross River gorillas, the most endangered subspecies of gorilla, filmed recently in Cameroon. Video.

Jurassic Park may have had it partly right. Some raptors did have venom, though it was more stupefying than lethal, a new study suggests.

Four of the world's eight remaining northern white rhinoceroses have been flown to Kenya in a last-ditch effort to save the critically endangered subspecies.

With the fathers taking on the responsibility of "gestating" their young, the story of pipefish reproduction is among the more heartwarming in biology. Well, it was.