We speed-hiked through the woods, determined to make it to the high-mountain lake before lunchtime. On that spring morning in Montana’s Swan Valley, nothing sounded better than an afternoon of fishing ...

Feces are a valuable tool in the world of animal identification. It might sound gross, but it’s one of the best ways to determine an animal’s behavior. An animal’s poop, known as scat, tells you where ...

Scientists from the Smithsonian have successfully used swift fox droppings to identify individual animals and collect other data vital to monitoring a reintroduced population in Montana. Ellie ...

Smithsonian researchers used fecal samples to identify specific wild swift foxes. This method allows for non-invasive monitoring, which reduces stress for the animals. Wes Overvold, Smithsonian’s ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Here's how to tell whether those pellets on the ground came from a deer. If you live or recreate anywhere in the United States, ...

Otters may look adorable, but scientists say their poop is a goldmine of information. A new study from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland, found that otter poop, or ...