The long structures seen in manta rays and their relatives function as an early warning system, rather than a defensive weapon. By Jack Tamisiea With hornlike facial fins and diamond-shape bodies that ...

An alien world near Earth is being trailed by a gigantic tail, stretching longer than 40 Earths as it closely circles its home star. The enormous structure, which is made up of gas leaking from the ...

It turns out that, like the antennas on an insect or crustacean, a ray uses its tail to sense its environment. The inside of a myliobatid stingray tail is remarkably complex, the scientists learned.

A viral particle with an unprecedentedly long 'tail' has been caught infecting dinoflagellate plankton in the Pacific Ocean. The virus, PelV-1 uses its tail to attach to its intended victim while ...

University of Hawai'i at Mānoa oceanographers have identified PelV-1, a dinoflagellate-infecting giant virus whose micron-length tail reaches 2.3 µm, stretching current notions of viral architecture.