Extraordinary animals and surprising details of the natural world.
8 stories · Latest first
The leafy seadragon carries its disguise on its body. Its most obvious decorations are not the tiny fins that actually move it through the water.
Monterey Bay Aquarium, California, USA · captive example of an Australian species · 28 October 2012. Photo: Joseph C Boone · CC BY-SA 3.0. Original image unchanged; displayed proportionally.
When northern glassfrogs rest, they can pack much of their circulating red blood cells into the liver. Researchers used light and sound to track the change.
Nicaragua; separate wild individual of the studied species · 11 August 2024. Photo: Borja Fierro / borjitaaa · CC BY 4.0. Original image unchanged; displayed proportionally.
The superb lyrebird can weave borrowed sounds into its performance. Its extravagant tail is only the visible part of the display.
Mount Buffalo, Victoria, Australia · 5 August 2009. Photo: John Manger / CSIRO · CC BY 3.0. Original image unchanged; displayed proportionally.
The banded archerfish can knock insects into the water with a directed jet. Its hunting ground extends beyond the surface it swims beneath.
Newport Aquarium, USA · capture date not supplied; uploaded 2009-01-02. Photo: Ltshears · CC BY-SA 3.0. Source photograph retained without further edits; displayed proportionally.
The saiga’s oversized muzzle looks improbable until you consider a dusty summer and a freezing steppe winter. Its unusual shape is part of surviving both.
Breeding centre; exact centre and country not supplied by the photographer · 2006. Photo: Vladimir Yu. Arkhipov (Arkhivov) · CC BY-SA 3.0. Original photograph, unchanged; displayed proportionally.
Coconut octopuses have been observed carrying shell pieces for later protection. The surprising part is the gap between transporting the object and using it.
Rojos, Lembeh, Indonesia — separate example from the 2009 study · Source identifies 2017; exact capture day unspecified. Photo: q phia · CC BY 2.0. Commons supplied version has visible attribution removed and retained in metadata/description by Christian Ferrer. Author credit retained here. No further editing by us.
The blocky droppings are real. Researchers traced their shape to an unexpectedly uneven stretch of intestine.
Cradle Mountain, Tasmania, Australia · 2021-05-23. Photo: SojournerRL · CC0 1.0. Commons source is an extracted view of WombatPoopUncropped. That supplied version is reproduced without further editing.
Ice can form inside a wood frog’s body while its heartbeat and breathing stop. The survival trick depends on where that ice forms—and what stays protected until the thaw.
Living, unfrozen wood frog photographed in Lothian, USA, March28,2014; a species portrait, not a photograph of winter freezing. Photo: Carly Muletz Wolz, Smithsonian’s National Zoo · CC0 1.0. Original image, unchanged.
