The fox is a clever beast, famously outsmarting human and animal rivals in ancient fables, recent movies and a current Top 10 song. Humanity's relationship with the fox has long been balanced between bemused tolerance and "let's shoot them for fun and raise them in cages, for fur." But there are abundant signs that the foxes have had quite enough of people, and are making coordinated global moves to take over civilization.

If the grim news about our slow-cooking world has got you down, you might be an environmentalist. Recycling bins, hiking boots, and that reusable grocery bag you got at the farmer's market are other signs that you may have ecological beliefs and concerns. To the industrial propagandists, even your awareness of the hotter temperatures and horrific storms is proof that your green behavior is actually a religion. So what would happen if 10 million or 50 million religious environmentalists suddenly appeared on the national scene?

Intrepid Mississippians tracked down the state's largest alligator, and killed it.

A group of wildfires threaten thousands of residents throughout Colorado and hundreds of inmates from an area prison. The fires have destroyed nearly a hundred homes and nearly seven thousand people have evacuated the area. Officials report that 2,300 homes are directly threatened by the flames. About a thousand prisoners had to be transported from an area prison, mainly as a precaution, as moving prisoners is a long process.

Scientists have discovered the genetic trait that results in white tigers, something originally only explained by Just So Stories logic. The trait, which caused their fur to have white accents rather than orange ones, was long known to be a recessive trait. New research has isolated a change in a specific part of one gene that causes this mutation. Humans can have the same trait, as can some mice, horses, and fish.

Monstrous "crazy ants" from Argentina and Brazil have invaded Texas and the American Southeast, driving out the already awful fire ant and making life even more miserable for those living in the South.

These outrageously adorable baby foxes were born on the grounds of Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park. They like to hang out in the Zen Garden. And they're the stars of a Facebook page called "FB Foxes." Do you like them?

Staten Island! Riverdale! The Brood II cicadas of the East Coast are not something to anticipate anymore; they're something crawling out of the ground and shedding their skins all over the map. Exclamation points are out on cicadamania.com and cicadas.info, while magicicada.org keeps soberly logging the sightings, 500 at a batch: shed skins in Brooklyn, nymphs in Princeton, hordes in Virginia and southern Maryland as the full, swarming emergence moves north, right on schedule.

Hope you weren't planning on going to sleep ever again, because now there is a fish than can survive out of water for days (days!), has teeth, and can grow to three feet long. It is a slimy, slippery horror that is waiting for you in Central Park.

It's spring, and you want to get out into nature, and take deep breaths of the forest's cold sweet damp, and commune with the wildlife, and maybe snap a few pics or a Vine to remember the life-affirming majesty.

As you experience the seasons, if you live in a place with such things, the greenery tends to adapt and change with the temperature and climate. Sometimes there are delightful little flowers, sometimes there is withering heat, sometimes there is crazy snow and you can make fun little shelters and play in the street. You can usually only experience one of these phenomena at a time, because Mother Nature wants you to dole out your appreciation.

Last time in sinister evolutionary leaps: catfish eating pigeons. This time, it's two different spider species working together for mysterious purposes.

I think I have made my stance on birds fairly clear. With a few exceptions, birds are not to be trusted; it is not normal to have such soft, vulnerable bodies bookended with slashing beaks and razor-sharp claws. It is as unnatural as an armed marshmallow.

It's a textbook case of not appreciating what you have until it's gone: the U.S. Navy plans to replace some of its mine-hunting dolphins with unmanned submersibles described as "12-foot torpedo-shaped robot[s]" by 2017. Were you even aware before this announcement that the Navy had a $28 million-dollar marine mammal program based in Southern California? Or that it began in the 1950s and at one point also included "killer whales and sharks"? If not, you must feel this loss all the more keenly.

Wildlife photographer Phil Lanoue was snapping photos in the salt marshes of Murrells Inlet — South Carolina's Seafood Capital — when he came across a scene resembling something out of a photoshop: An alligator chewing on a Croc.

Tomatoes, the disarmingly jolly cousins of the nightshade family, finally yielded the last of their secrets to us today, as scientists announced they had successfully decoded the tomato genome — marking the end of a nine-year undertaking.

A 43-year-old woman in California suffered third-degree burns last Saturday after two rocks she'd collected at the beach SPONTANEOUSLY EXPLODED while she was standing in her kitchen, causing her shorts to catch fire. (The rocks were in her pocket).

Despite very specific instructions by us to cease and desist with his nature-based musings, designated New York Times leaf-and-cow columnist Verlyn Klinkenborg continues to invade the Sunday op-ed section with some of the world's most artisanal writing. None of which has anything to do with anything.

The residents of a small Wisconsin town have had their lives plagued by house-rattling underground booms for the past few nights. No one has yet been able to identify the source of the sounds.

Welcome to my new favorite/least favorite Tumblr, Roach Party: "I'm currently keeping four different roach colonies. Lobsters, Dubias, Hissers, and Turkistans. I do plan on obtaining some other species in the future." Here we have "a hisser giving birth!" Yo, nature is gross. [Roach Party]