Reintroducing keystone predator species can have a near-miraculous restorative effect on ecosystems. This is what I would remind a Patagonian penguin who is feeling a bit down about his whole family being eaten by newly arrived pumas.

Trophic cascade

This new behavior is the latest change in an ongoing evolution of predator-prey dynamics on Argentina's Patagonian coast. Before European colonization, pumas (also known as cougars, catamounts, mountain lions, and panthers) ruled the windswept and rocky tip of South America. Their prey were the abundant guanaco, a llama relative, and the lesser rhea, a large flightless bird.

But introducing or reducing even a single species can cause broad changes across an entire ecosystem, a phenomenon referred to as a trophic cascade.

European colonization transformed the landscape. Sheep and cattle replaced the native herbivores, and predators were culled to protect the livestock. With the loss of the foxes and pumas, however, came a new inhabitant: the Magellanic penguin.

Like their namesake, Ferdinand Magellan, these handsome waterbirds were interested in the colonial potential of the South American mainland. Prior to the 18th century, their colonies bred mainly on offshore islands. After the mainland predators disappeared, they established a large breeding colony on the coast of Patagonia, in the Monte León sheep ranch.

Puma on penguin violence

In 2004, the Monte León ranch became Monte León National Park, after conservation organizations purchased it and donated the 25 oceanfront acres to the Argentine National Parks Administration. Wild prey species trickled back in, including the puma. Soon after, local authorities monitoring conditions in the new park began hearing about puma attacks on the penguin colonies.

Now, a study using camera traps has confirmed extensive predation. A team led by ecologist Mitchell Serota placed 22 cameras in the colony from January to April, the middle of the penguin's breeding season. Pumas visited nearly every night, more than 12 times as often as any other predator.

Pumas are incredibly adaptive animals, able to thrive in arid deserts, rocky mountains, open grasslands, and lush rainforests. We're still learning about their behavior, with a recent study finding that they're far more social than we previously believed. Penguin predation is a great example of their behavioral elasticity. Right now, it appears to be paying off, as the area around the penguin colony has the world's densest concentration of pumas.

Despite this new danger, the population of Magellanic penguins is actually growing. However, this puma hunting behavior only emerged recently. It's too soon to tell what its effect will be on the penguins, which only live in the area seasonally.

Tired, but can't sleep? Working, but can't focus? Need something mindless yet peaceful happening in the background? Check out our December picks for the best live wildlife cams from Explore.org. From surprising visitors to a bald eagle nest to the fuzziest penguins in all of Argentina, we have you covered for the best creature activity around the globe.

4. Muskoxen in Alaska

Until you have seen a muskox, you cannot comprehend how much fur they have. If you haven't, don't even finish reading this. Go take a look at the muskox live cam from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Here, half a dozen muskox meander in and out of view, attracted by a feeding stand. Some stand snacking, while others curl up on the ground, heedless of the cold, and scratch their heads against the snow.

Muskoxen went extinct in Alaska around the start of the 20th century. The U.S. government reintroduced them from Canadian populations in 1935 to support Yup'ik subsistence hunting. Since then, their population in Alaska has remained stable, and muskox continue to thrive in Canada and Greenland.

3. Elephants at a watering hole in South Africa

This one deserves a special shout-out for its soundscape. Insects and songbirds unite at all hours of the day to form a peaceful, evocative background for work or sleep.

But it's worth watching, too. At one point, a herd of strange, orange-red creatures thronged onscreen. Their heads looked like deer, they were striped like zebras, and they wagged their tails incessantly like dogs. Several larger, long-horned dark creatures wandered among them, equally obscure to me.

After much googling, I determined the orange creatures to be bongos, a type of antelope. (If you need a pick-me-up, go search for photos of baby bongos.) The cow-things were harder, but I eventually placed them as nyalas. Although also a type of antelope, nyalas have a bovine grace. They look like what teenage cows would compare themselves to when they look in the mirror.

As it turns out, bongos are both shy and nocturnal. Seeing them for so long during the day and interacting with a different species is a rare treat. Check them out when you have a moment.

2. Bald eagle nest in Iowa

Earlier this week, I was on the phone with a friend when I mentioned my hatred of raptor cams. "I check them on and off, and the birds are never there," I proclaimed. "Raptor cams are a scam. I'll never put a raptor cam on my best-of-the-month list."

But I decided to give raptors a last chance before my monthly ranking, and lo and behold, there was a little bird sauntering around the nest on the Decorah, Iowa cam. It was dark brown and strangely sleek for a chick. I watched it, entranced by the way its neck moved.

Slowly, like a character in a horror movie, the truth dawned on me. "Holy cow," I texted the same friend. "I just checked this eagle cam, and there's an owl in the nest."

"Brave owl right there," she wrote back. "Though maybe he too knows the rule of the eagle cam: As long as the eagles are on camera, they're never there."

1. Baby penguins on Isla Tova

Hey. Hey, you. Please take a look at these fuzzy little penguins.

It's been a rough day for me. These penguins have gotten me through it. I keep thinking about having a cry, and instead I switch back to the penguin tab. They're fuzzy and small, and they keep wiggling everywhere. I'm obsessed.

Magellanic penguins are native to Patagonia, and unlike many of the creatures featured on Explore.org, they're not endangered at all. These hardy two-foot birds are particularly thriving on Isla Tova off the coast of Argentina, where the live cams set up around the island also support biological research.

Right now, there are three chicks in this nest under a wiry bush. As I watch, one of them emerges from the mass of indistinguishable fluff. He opens and closes his mouth a bit like a cat chirping, annoys his siblings by rearranging his position, and then falls asleep with his mouth open. The other chicks settle back in for a long, tiring night of penguining.

Brown bear attacks on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido continue to grow more frequent every year. Depleting food sources and expanding human populations have led to hungry and emboldened bears coming into contact with people. This year alone, there have been 13 recorded fatalities from bear attacks and over 200 injuries.

One such incident occurred on August 14 on Mount Rausu. A young man, hiking with a friend, was attacked and killed by a well-known local bear. Officials located the man's remains the next day and recovered his body as well as a number of personal effects. The bear and her two cubs were killed for the safety of hikers and area residents.

Hokkaido police surrendered his remains and effects to his parents. His watch was among those items, and now his parents have shared with the media the chilling data it captured.

A chronological record of the attack

At around 11 am on August 14, GPS data shows that the watch and its owner suddenly veered off the hiking trail on Mount Rausu. The 26-year-old Tokyo resident was about 200 meters ahead of his hiking partner as they descended from the 1,661m summit. The sudden change in direction that his watch logged was the bear dragging the young man off the trail and down the slope, into a patch of bushes.

The watch circled around this spot in the bushes, seemingly tugged and whirled back and forth. Soon, between 100m and 130m from the trail, the watch stopped detecting a heartbeat. It did not register movement again until around 9 am the next morning. Location data shows the watch moved a few hundred meters further into the bush, as the bear dragged the man's body.

Later that day, hunters found the three bears, with the mother bear feasting on part of the victim's body. A hundred meters away, more of his remains were buried in a mound of earth. Brown bears will often bury uneaten food in this way.

The victim's father, Shinobu Sota, spoke to Japanese media, questioning why nothing was done before the attack. This particular bear was known to be active in the area. She had repeatedly displayed a lack of fear of humans and had even chased another hiker.

In the aftermath of the young man's death, the bear attacks have continued. As winter arrives, the bears should enter hibernation, but it seems that some remain active. Warmer weather and changing behavior may delay their hibernation, as new incidents have been confirmed even into December.

The elusive seven-armed blob octopus -- yes, that's a real creature -- has been caught on camera for just the fourth time in 40 years.

Researchers were not looking for the octopus, but it wandered into their camera's line of sight during routine survey work in Monterey Bay, California. 

Using the remotely operated vehicle Ventana, they spotted the rare species 705m below the surface. Amazed by what they had discovered, they used the ROV to gather as much information as they could about the sea creature.

The deep sea is one of the most understudied areas of the ocean. Many of its inhabitants are so mysterious and rarely seen that any information on them is a huge step forward in marine research.

At the time, the seven-armed octopus was clutching a crimson red helmet jelly (Periphylla periphylla). Research on museum specimens indicated that the blob octopus feeds on gelatinous animals. Now, researchers have first-hand evidence. In 2017, a female was recorded carrying an egg yolk jelly, but it was unclear exactly why she was doing this.

Misleading name

The octopus varies massively in size. Females can grow up to a hefty 75 kilos, while some of the males are only eight inches long. The males are the reason this species used to be known simply as the seven-armed octopus.

The name is misleading; it actually has eight arms, like every other octopus. But the males keep one arm, the reproductive hectocotylus, tucked away under their right eye. This makes it look as if it has only seven arms. While mating, the males rip off this specialized arm and use it as a tool to transfer sperm to the female.

Although we rarely see them, Haliphron atlanticus plays a crucial role in deep-sea ecosystems. They act as a food source for swordfish, blue sharks, and sperm whales.

A trail camera in Grand Marais, Minnesota, has captured two elusive Canada lynx in a noisy woodland showdown.

The footage was recorded in the fall of 2024, but the local Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center has only just released the footage. At first, a single lynx wanders along the trail, moving in and out of the frame. Moments later, a second lynx appears. The tension quickly ramps up as the newcomer creeps closer and then launches itself toward the original lynx.

At this point, you might expect a brawl to break out between the two animals. Instead of pouncing and clawing, the cats opt for a vocal sparring match. Noses pointed at one another, with one just off camera, the forest fills with their eerie calls. They growl, hiss, and make otherworldly yowls at each other. 

After a few tense minutes, one of the lynx disappears, still growling at a distance. The other briefly assesses the area, then calmly walks away back into the forest.

Bonnie Shudy, the Chik-Wauk campus director, has said both lynx are “regulars” around the museum, often caught on their trail camera. The exact number of lynx in Minnesota is uncertain, but as of 2022, the estimate was between 100 and 300.

The reason this number is so hard to figure out is that the big cats avoid humans. This is why the trail cameras have been so useful. They provide a real window into the movements, behavior, and communication between these usually solitary animals. 

For as long as humans have known them, anacondas have been giants. The colossal snakes average four to five meters long, and some individuals exceed six meters. They rank among the largest predators in South America’s wetlands, and new research shows they have been this big for a long time. But as other species shrunk, they stayed huge.

Anacondas first appeared in the fossil record 12.4 million years ago during the Miocene era. It was a time of giant creatures. Warm temperatures, vast wetlands, and abundant prey allowed reptiles and other animals to grow to extraordinary proportions. The freshwater turtle reached the size of a small car, and the caiman measured up to 12 meters, dwarfing today’s largest crocodiles. As the climate cooled and habitats shifted, almost all of these super-sized animals went extinct. Not the anaconda.

Paleontologists have assumed that, like many animals, ancient anacondas were larger than their modern-day descendants. A new study focused on 183 fossilized vertebrae from 32 snakes from northern Venezuela, dating back to the Middle and Upper Miocene eras. By looking at the size and shape of the individual vertebrae, researchers were able to estimate the length of each snake.

Found their perfect size

The average Miocene anaconda measured 5.2 meters long, virtually the same size as today's species.

"We expected to find the ancient anacondas were seven or eight meters long," said study co-author Andres Alfonso-Rojas. “But we don’t have any evidence of a larger snake from the Miocene when global temperatures were warmer."

The discovery surprised scientists because they had long assumed that, like most other species, anacondas would shrink as ecosystems changed and resources became more scarce.

Instead, the snakes seem to have found their perfect size early in their evolutionary history and held onto it.

"Species like giant crocodiles and giant turtles have gone extinct since the Miocene...but the giant anacondas have survived," said Alfonso-Rojas. "They are super-resilient."

Why they have not shrunk over time is a mystery. Some think it could be down to their lack of competition for food. Others believe the new findings challenge the long-held assumption that climate is a driving force in shaping the size of cold-blooded animals.

Over 60,000 African penguins have starved to death along the coast of South Africa, after their food supply collapsed. 

Between 2004 and 2011, around 62,000 breeding penguins vanished from Dassen Island and Robben Island, two of the most important breeding grounds for African penguins, according to a new study. A staggering 95% of the birds that bred in 2004 were gone just eight years later. 

At the root of the problem was the collapse of sardine numbers. The little fish make up a huge portion of the penguins' diet. A deadly combination of environmental stress and human activity has wrecked the sardine populations, which have been at one-quarter of capacity for most years since 2004. Rising ocean temperatures and the changing salinity disrupted their spawning zones.

Commercial fishing practices remained intense even as sardine numbers dropped. The double whammy of reduced breeding success for sardines and consistent fishing efforts devastated the population. 

As if that wasn’t dire enough, the timing of the penguins’ annual molt worsened the situation. Every year, the penguins shed and regrow their feathers. The process takes around three weeks, and for the duration, they have to stay on land. This means they can’t hunt and need to live off their fat reserves. 

Food scarcity before or after the molt makes it almost impossible for them to survive. The penguins are often underfed when the molt begins, and those that make it back into the water find too few sardines to survive. 

The consequences extend beyond the two colonies on Dassen Island and Robben Island. Over the last 30 years, the global population of this once robust seabird has fallen by nearly 80%. They are now critically endangered. If current trends continue, the species could be extinct within a decade. 

On November 27, a shark killed a woman in Australia and severely injured her boyfriend, who was trying to help her.

Livia Muhlheim, 25, and Lukas Schindler, 26, both of Switzerland, were filming a pod of dolphins with a GoPro at Kylies Beach in New South Wales when a three-meter bull shark attacked them.

The incident happened early in the morning, at around 6:30 am. The bull shark struck Muhlheim first, biting her several times, severing her left arm, and injuring her leg. Schindler, a qualified diving instructor, tried to fight off the shark, but it bit him twice on his right leg, causing severe injuries.

Schindler managed to drag Muhlheim 50m to the shore and called emergency services. A bystander provided initial first aid, including making a tourniquet from her swimsuit. Emergency services arrived promptly, but despite their efforts, the woman died of her injuries at the scene. Schindler was airlifted to a hospital in serious but stable condition and remains under treatment.

Livia Muhlheim was a financial professional, a runner, and a former competitive synchronized swimmer. She and Schindler had been traveling extensively in Australia, and Schindler had recently taken part in the Sydney Marathon.

Drones patrolled the waters, and authorities used SMART drumlines -- a kind of bait rig to catch sharks -- but no further sightings have been reported. Police are reviewing the GoPro footage taken before the attack for clues. According to media outlets, it was the fifth fatal shark bite in Australia this year.

Bull shark

The bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) is considered one of the three shark species most dangerous to humans (along with great whites and tiger sharks). It is highly territorial and frequently inhabits the same murky, shallow coastal areas where humans swim.

Bull sharks use the classic "bump-and bite" investigative technique and rely heavily on smell rather than eyesight. It reacts aggressively when it perceives any intrusion, competition, or anything that splashes or bleeds.

2024: 47 unprovoked shark attacks worldwide

According to the International Shark Attack File (ISAF) from the Florida Museum of Natural History, there were 47 confirmed unprovoked shark attacks globally in 2024. An unprovoked attack occurs when the victim has not interacted with the shark beforehand. Simply swimming, surfing, or wading in the water doesn’t count as provocation. That same year, there were 24 provoked shark attacks worldwide. Four people died from shark attacks in 2024, all of them unprovoked.

On Thursday, November 20, a grizzly bear attacked a group of school children and their teachers on a trail in British Columbia, Canada. The incident left 11 people injured, two of them critically.

The group consisted of two teachers and 20 fourth- and fifth-graders from Acwsalcta School, which the Nuxalk Nation runs. They were on an outing in a valley near the town of Bella Coola and stopped for lunch at around midday. At this point, the bear emerged from the forest and charged at them.

The latest information now indicates that there was more than one bear -- a mother and her two cubs.

The teachers were well-equipped and fended the animals off with bear spray and noisemakers, putting themselves between the students and the bears.

Veronica Schooner, a parent of one of the 10-year-olds on the trip, commented that one male teacher “got the whole brunt of it.” Paramedics rushed to the scene after receiving a call about the attack. The male teacher and one other person were critically injured. Two others sustained serious injuries. All four were eventually airlifted to the hospital. Seven others were treated at the scene.

Nuxalk Nation Chief Samuel Schooner commented on the “significant trauma” the incident has caused to both the school group and the wider community.

Heroic actions

“We are incredibly proud of our teachers and students who responded heroically in the moment to protect one another,” he said. He did not comment on the condition of those who had been seriously injured.

According to officials, the bear seemed unusually aggressive and was potentially acting erratically due to a prior injury. Speaking about the attack, Kevin Van Damme from the B.C. Conservation Officer Service said, “I really need to stress how dangerous the situation is with this bear at large. We need to keep people away from the area.”

In 34 years of working in the region, he has never known a grizzly attack on such a large group of people.

The school has temporarily closed, and conservation officers are patrolling the area. They have set traps for the bear and have collected forensic evidence to identify exactly which animal attacked the group. They are asking residents to stay indoors until the bears are found.

Released in 1988, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History is an offbeat documentary about Australia's invasive cane toad problem. Informative and thorough, it's edited like a horror movie in some places and a comedy in others. And in some ways, it's as much a people story as a toad story.

As text on screen informs us, the cane toad was introduced to Australia in the mid-1930s to control cane grubs, which were eating up the sugar crop. One hundred and two toads were snatched up from Hawaii and introduced to North Queensland.

It was a classic "little old lady who swallowed the fly" gambit. In introducing the toads to tackle the grub problem, they created a whole new problem. The documentary explains this issue via a surprisingly detailed breakdown of toad mating practices and techniques.

Fifty years after their introduction, the waters are thick with cane toads. Bill Freeland, a wildlife officer, pulls out writhing handfuls of slick black tadpoles. Hearty little beasts, they are quick to develop legs and can thrive in slow, fast, clear, or brackish water.

The second plague

The rapid colonization of the toads was not without consequences. Perhaps worst of all, they didn't even solve the original grub problem. The grubs and the toads were in the cane fields at different times, meaning they never intersected. The toads did, one farmer explains, kill a great deal of stray dogs. See, cane toads have a poisonous sack, which makes them a potentially deadly foodstuff.

In 1945, cane farmers brought new pesticides to bear against the grubs, resolving the initial problem. The toads continued to proliferate, covering most of Queensland and into New South Wales. And yet, by their ubiquity, they seem to have earned themselves widespread affection. One interviewee -- a self-serious intellectual trying to interpret the cultural moment -- calls it a "perverted reverence."

The documentary introduces us to charming old people who call the toads their "mates" and put out food for them. Later, we'll meet a young girl who keeps a very large cane toad as a pet, treating it like a doll. One man says he gives them cigarettes, which they apparently enjoy. There was even an attempt to erect a cane toad statue in Gordonvale.

Bufotoxin and bad habits

The cane toads aren't "mates" to anything that tries to eat them. As the stray dogs discovered, cane toads possess a powerful bufotoxin. When the glands in their backs are pressed, they expel this toxin, sometimes with impressive force and distance.

We are introduced to Dr. Michael Archer, a zoologist whose pet and study subject, a cat-like marsupial called a quoll, died after biting a cane toad. Archer, Captain Ahab-like, vows revenge against the cane toad. This led him to hit one with a pick, whereupon poison squirted right in his eye, temporarily blinding him.

The toads are also voracious and indiscriminate eaters. As Archer explains with obvious detestation in his voice, they've been found with small native marsupials in their stomachs. Larger native animals die from trying to eat the toads or being out-competed.

Another biologist, perhaps getting caught up in the moment and going a tad far, claims the cane toad invasion is just as dangerous as "the German army in World War II."

Several decades on, the cane toads have continued to spread. But the documentary isn't just a charming relic; its exploration of the complex relationship between human populations and invasive species remains relevant. It's also great if you want to see a human scientist imitate a toad's mating call with frightening accuracy.

European Green Crabs have inundated part of the coast of British Columbia. To combat this invasive species, the Haíɫzaqv Nation, which manages the land, set up crab traps along all the beaches, baited with fish. In the last few years, though, the traps in the Bella Bella area have turned up with significant damage. So they set up cameras to catch the perpetrators.

Almost immediately, the cameras caught remarkable footage of wild wolves feeding from the traps. A lone female wolf waded out at high tide and emerged carrying the trap's buoy in her jaws. Then she pulled on the line to reel in the crab trap. Once the trap was on the beach, she tore open the netting and removed the bait cup, eating the tasty bait inside.

A new study explores the meaning of this behavior. Does this count as wolves using tools? How did they figure this out, the study asks, and just how much more common is tool use than we previously believed?

How did they learn this?

This is impressive behavior. It requires the wolf to connect and understand the relationship between a yummy fish treat, a rope, a buoy, and a (completely submerged) trap.

It was an efficient process, too. The whole affair took just three minutes. The wolf moved with purpose, clearly understanding the sequence in which she had to perform certain actions.

Researchers who studied the clips are still wondering how well the wolves really understand the mechanics involved in their trick. It's possible, the paper suggests, that wolves learned to retrieve and open the traps through trial and error, then memorized the steps without fully understanding them.

It's also possible they learned from watching people. When resource management officials stopped to check the traps and switch out bait, they could have inadvertently shown observing wolves how to retrieve traps. But officials raise the traps from a boat; they don't drag them to shore.

We also don't know how widespread this behavior is. Cameras did catch another individual retrieving a partially submerged trap, but so far, only the first female wolf has shown the ability to reel in a trap that's completely hidden underwater.

The 'tool use' debate

Only rarely do researchers get a chance to observe wolf behavior in the wild. Is this level of sophistication common across wolves, and is this just the first time we've seen it? Thanks partially to the work of the Haíɫzaqv Wolf and Biodiversity Project, wolves in this area have minimal conflict with humans. Has their comparatively comfortable situation made them more confident and curious than other wolf populations?

The biggest question is more one of definitions, though. Namely: Does this count as tool use? Since tool use is considered a key marker of intelligence, categorizing wolves as a tool-using species would be significant.

The study cites "using an external object to achieve a specific goal with intent" as the common understanding. By this metric, the clip is definitely evidence of wolves using tools. But the most current comprehensive work on animal tool behavior (titled, creatively, Animal Tool Behavior) sets a higher standard.

"The animal must produce, not simply recognize," this definition runs, "[the relationship] between the tool and the incentive." So, if the wolves were tying ropes to the cages themselves, then it'd be tool use. Just using an existing rope doesn't count.

Is it still tool use when animals appropriate human tools, rather than creating their own? The paper answers with an interesting analogy: The authors are writing their paper on a computer, "whose inner workings [they] do not fully understand." Nevertheless, their use of this tool is certainly evidence of higher thinking.

Watching animals go through their daily routines, even when there's not a lot happening, is a good way to relax -- hence the popularity of live wildlife cams. These cameras are often seasonal, as migrations or weather bring different species into the spotlight.

Below, a list of the best feeds currently on explore.org, a repository of nature films and live streams. From the secret lives of pandas and wolves to the deceptive richness of a Texas backyard, here's our roundup of the best cams to watch in November.

5. Lesser Flamingos in Kimberley, South Africa

This comforting livestream always has something feathered and spindly onscreen, no matter what time of day. Outside of the city of Kimberley lies Kamfers Dam, an artificial wetland that treats most of the urban runoff. In 2006, an ornithologist convinced a local diamond mining company to help him create a breeding island for Lesser Flamingos, since the dam waters were filled with their favorite algae.

The island was a hit among the flamingos. Unfortunately, Kimberley's growth has posed a threat to the site's safety in recent years. This livestream comes with an asterisk, but it's well worth the watch.

4. Waterhole at Nkorho Bush Lodge

There are a multitude of South African bush cams live this month, and after careful analysis, I have selected this one as my favorite.

Night or day, it seems like this is the waterhole to be at. If it were a club, there would always be a line of well-dressed young people queuing outside, a bouncer breaking up a fight, and a horde of drunk girls crying on the curb.

During the day, lions prowl the area. Wildebeest cross in cautious herds. At night, the hyenas and wild dogs come out, and insects criss-cross the field of view at all moments.

As of writing this, the same hippopotamus has been slouching in the center of the watering hole for the last 10 hours. None of the other visitors seemed to care. A pack of hyenas trotted by, their laughter mellowed out by the gentle sound of rain falling on the water.

3. Pandas in Gengda Valley, China

I have a thing about pandas: I'm opposed. Listen, I like charismatic megafauna as much as the next guy, but pandas aren't a keystone species for anything. They're useless, and I take their survival against the tides of evolution as a sign of God's existence. It's time to stop throwing conservation resources at them.

So it is with great regret that I have to admit the Gengda Valley Panda Yard is really entertaining. After watching for a few minutes, I found the great lumbering beasts reaching into my heart. Where before I had described them as stupid with derision, it now seemed a term of affection. Sure, they have no desire to reproduce in captivity unless shown videos of wild pandas copulating. But look at those great fuzzy heads. Isn't it worth putting zookeepers through awkward rituals to keep these things alive?

I've kept this livestream open on my browser for the last week. Every so often, I click back on it. There's always some great stupid bear onscreen, lazing about. All it does is eat and sleep. More power to you, panda.

2. Texas backyard wildlife

While many of the most popular livestreams on Explore.org shine in one particular season -- for instance, during the zebra migration or the salmon runs -- there's always something happening in this Texas backyard. The owners have arranged 68 cameras across their five-acre Austin property, and alternate between them for the best action.

On their cameras, I've seen gray fox pups cavorting around a field and raccoons huddling over a snack. Screech owls have flown at the camera before swooping away at the last instant. A garter snake hunted down and ate a frog.

This livestream showcases the incredible biodiversity of urban areas and the impact of rewilding, even on the scale of a single backyard. The owners of this property regularly post highlight videos and photos to their website. They even run a Discord server for their viewers to foster understanding of urban wildlife.

1. The International Wolf Center

It's strange to think, watching this livestream, that wolves were a nightmare beast to everyone from Alaska to Germany for much of human history. They look so startlingly dog-like and act so communally. But that's the magic of wildlife cams: that humans get an eye into how animals behave among themselves, without our presence.

Make no mistake, these are not wild wolves. They are living in a luxury compound designed just for them. Zoos rarely keep wolf packs, because their social lives are so complex. Without the ability for one wolf to leave, tensions may lead to violence. At the International Wolf Center (IWC), specialists continually monitor the dynamics between their "ambassador wolves" and relocate individuals, if necessary.

The IWC, like all the best zoos and aquariums, is primarily a research institution. They fund scholarships, conferences, and publish a magazine. Their ambassador wolves facilitate this research, allowing the staff to study pack behavior 24/7, but their real purpose is to encourage the public to care for wolves. The pack includes multiple breeds, including Arctic gray wolves and North American gray wolves. You can read each wolf's biography on the IWC website.

When marine scientists put suction-cup cameras on humpback whales off Australia’s east coast, they were trying to observe their behavior and migration patterns. At the same time, they unwittingly filmed the journey of hitchhiking remoras. 

The rare footage shows the remoras clinging to the whales until mere moments before the whales breach. Then, at the last minute, they quickly detach. What surprised the team most was the remoras’ ability to stick with their whale host during rapid ascents and reattach with astonishing precision and speed as the whales crashed back into the water. 

“Whenever the whale was breaching and doing in particular fast movements…the sucker fish were responding very quickly,” said Olaf Meynecke of the Whales and Climate Research Program at Griffith University in Australia. “They knew exactly when to let go of the body of the whale before it breached the surface of the water and then returned to the same spot only seconds later.”

The little hitchhikers are harmless to the huge whales. The videos demonstrate the mutual benefits of this unusual partnership. The remoras graze on dead whale skin and any sea lice the whale has. In return, they get a free ride and as much food as they could want.

"They have their entire meal, and they all have their mates with them as well," Meynecke explained. "So they are mating and reproducing on the whale's body. It's like the perfect vehicle for them." 

Research found that whales that appeared to be shedding more skin carried more remoras, often 15-20 fish per whale. In some cases, as many as 50 remoras had suctioned themselves onto a single marine mammal. 

They hitchhike on sharks, too

These sucker fish do not just attach themselves to whales but occasionally onto sharks, manta rays, turtles, dolphins, and even scuba divers. The relationship is often seen as benefiting both parties, although the whales often appear less than enthusiastic about their persistent passengers.

“We have observed whales eyeing them, undertaking multiple breaches, then checking again,” explained Meynecke.

He admits that several mysteries still surround the fish. It’s unclear whether remoras remain attached for the entire migration, all the way from Australia to Antarctica and back, or if they switch hosts along the way. There’s also the question of timing and reproduction: Remora larvae are born in the East Australian Current and must find a host soon after developing, hinting that the timing of their life cycle might be tied to the whale's migration route.

Charvet Drucker was watching a pod of orcas, also known as killer whales, off Camano Island in Washington, when she found herself unwittingly involved in their hunt.

In an act of desperate genius, a harbor seal threw itself onto the boat like movie bank robbers throwing themselves into the backseat of the getaway car and yelling, "Drive!"

Drucker was photographing the hunt in advance of its seemingly inevitable conclusion. As the orcas got closer, she cut the engines, as per regulations. The seal headed right for the vessel, quickly pulling itself aboard.

A shocked Drucker began to film on her phone as the frustrated orcas circled the boat while the seal hunkered down. The orca pod swam back and forth for some time, attempting to rock the boat through their coordinated movements and shake the seal loose. It did slip off in a tense moment, but managed to get back aboard before the pod caught it.

After about 20 minutes, the orcas gave up. When the coast was clear, the victorious pinniped slipped back into the sea, and Drucker uploaded the footage to her Instagram:

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Stowaway seals

This is hardly the first time that a wily seal has saved itself in this fashion. In 2016, Nick Templeman's boating excursion off Vancouver Island was watching a pod of orcas. The whales appeared to be hunting something. Suddenly that something, a seal, appeared and made a beeline for the boat and clambered aboard. The orcas circled the boat for some time before eventually giving up, leaving the seal free to slip back into the water.

Two years later, another boating excursion in the same area was waiting for an orca pod to kill a seal it had been chasing. They had no plans to interfere with the hunt, but the seal made them unwitting accomplices when it likewise hopped aboard their vessel.

In a strange twist, Nick Templeman was in a neighboring boat at the time. He watched events repeat themselves, as the orcas circled and waited, then eventually gave up. This time, the seal did not disembark immediately but stayed aboard until they reached the dock.

Given our historical propensity for collecting their fur and blubber, seals have fairly good reason to avoid humans. But as they say, any port in a storm.

Over the past four decades, shark bites have been on the rise. In 2024, 71 bites were reported worldwide, seven of them fatal. While encounters with sharks are still rare, the increasing numbers have inspired a new idea -- a wetsuit that could protect against shark bites.

A team of Australian marine biologists at Flinders University decided to find out if this was possible. They developed and tested new bite-resistant wetsuit materials to see if they could withstand a shark’s teeth while allowing movement in the water. Their findings suggest that the right fabric blend could significantly reduce the severity of shark-bite injuries.

Traditional “bite-proof” wetsuits rely on chain mail or steel mesh. The materials can stop skin punctures fairly well, but they are heavy and massively restrict movement in the water. The researchers tested four bite-resistant wetsuit materials: Aqua Armour, Shark Stop, ActionTX-S, and Brewster material to see how well they reduced damage from bites.

They then tested the four different suit designs against white and tiger sharks, the species responsible for most unprovoked bites in Australian waters. Using bait balls, they lured sharks close before swapping the bait for test samples attached to buoys. The sharks bit down with full force on all materials.

Dramatic difference

The difference between regular neoprene and the reinforced materials was dramatic. Standard wetsuit fabric was easily shredded, showing deep punctures and tears. The experimental materials showed only shallow indentations that didn’t penetrate all the way through. While none of the suits could eliminate crushing injuries, they could prevent the kind of deep lacerations that cause rapid blood loss, which is often what makes shark bites fatal.

“While there were small differences between the four tested materials, they all reduced the amount of substantial and critical damage, which would typically be associated with severe hemorrhaging and tissue or limb loss,” said lead author Tom Clarke.

The suits won't stop sharks from attacking, but they would give victims a better chance of surviving if they do.

Everyone loves spiders. The only thing everyone loves more than spiders is a lot of spiders all in the same place. The only way this scene could be improved, popular opinion holds, is if the many spiders are in a pitch-black flooded cavern deep underground, which smelled like brimstone.

Well, fantastic news. A recent study unveiled a massive subterranean spider colony, with a gigantic communal web, living in a sulfuric cave on the border between Greece and Albania.

Many individuals, several species

The world's largest spiderweb (that we know of) occupies over one hundred square meters of surface area. Starting about 50 meters from the cave's entrance, this region is permanently dark. The passage is narrow and low, and the bottom is covered by a sulfur-rich stream. Some sections of web have grown so heavy with silk and spiders that they've detached from the wall.

While the scene could have emerged from JRR Tolkien's worst nightmares, the spiders themselves are not giant. In fact, the Arachnes who wove this tapestry come from several different species, working together over generations to build a veritable spider citadel.

The most populous are the Tegenaria domestica, or Domestic House Spider, some 69,100 strong. As suggested by their name, T. domestica often lives near humans. While they are considered endemic to Balkan caves, this is the first time they've been observed building large, colonial webs.

Their primary collaborators are approximately 42,400 Prinerigone vagans. Smaller than T. domestica, the research suggests that the lack of light prevents T. domestica's predatory instincts from triggering at the sight of their diminutive cohabitants. P. Vagans has also never been known to form colonies before.

Every square meter of the colony is crawling with somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand spiders, 110,000 spiders in all. They are outnumbered, however, by their prey.

Why so many spiders?

These spiders are predators, and so they congregate wherever there is the most prey. The study, led by Istvan Urak of the Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, estimated there were more than 200 small chironomid flies for every spider. A type of non-biting midge, around 2,414,440 individual Tanytarsus albisutus flies feed the attercop metropolis in Sulfur Cave.

This massive, dense swarm hovers above the sulfuric stream, which runs along the cave floor. This section of the cave represents a rare type of ecosystem, where life thrives without any sunlight.

In 2024, a team from the Emil Racovitza Institute of Speleology visited Sulfur Cave, following up on earlier reports of unusual animal abundance, including a massive spider colony. The team identified 30 invertebrate species living in a self-sustaining chemoautotrophic ecosystem.

Chemoautotrophic means the bottom of the food chain turns inorganic materials into energy, instead of using energy from the sun as plants do in most ecosystems. Microorganisms in the stream convert sulfur into energy-rich biofilm (slime) which is eaten by larvae. The larvae turn into insects (like the non-biting midge) which are eaten by the predators (spiders).

This unique lifestyle seems to be changing the traditionally surface-dwelling populations within it. In the 2025 study, Urak's team genetically sequenced the P. Vagans and T. domestica in the cave. Both species were genetically distinct from nearby, above-ground populations.

Over the last few years, orcas have been making headlines around the world for their bold behavior. They’ve been ramming boats in Europe, taking down dolphins, and now they’ve been filmed deftly killing great white sharks.

Killer whales have previously been seen attacking sharks off the coast of South Africa, but these videos from the Gulf of California in Mexico show their precise hunting technique like never before. They flip young great whites onto their backs and then zero in on their favorite meal, the sharks' nutrient-dense liver. Flipping the sharks over triggers tonic immobility, a kind of paralysis that leaves the sharks frozen and helpless.

“This behavior is a testament to orcas’ advanced intelligence, strategic thinking, and social learning,” said Erick Higuera-Rivas, lead author of the new study. “These hunting techniques are passed down through generations.”

This isn’t just a one-time trick. Scientists first documented it in 2020 when a pod led by a large male named Moctezuma immobilized and killed two great whites in quick succession. A camera captured both attacks.

In the first, drone footage shows five female killer whales hunting down a young great white and then sharing its liver between them. Moments later, they are on the attack again, and another juvenile shark meets the same end. Two years later, in the same region, a mixed group of orcas used the same technique -- flipping them, paralyzing them, and hastily removing the shark's liver.

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“Drone footage is invaluable here," Marine biologist Alison Towner was not involved in the current study but published earlier drone footage of orcas killing great white sharks in South Africa.

"It changed what we understood about these interactions,” she told CNN. "This new footage from Mexico lets us compare behavior across different orca groups and shark populations.”

Here, 'playing' dead becomes permanent

Why sharks display tonic immobility is a mystery. They are not the only species that do this. Most others display the behavior to try to escape predators by "playing dead." Sharks seem to fall into this trance involuntarily when turned upside down, putting them at a serious disadvantage.

Higuera-Rivas believes that shark hunting in orcas might be far more common than we think, and that it could be due to climate change. As the Pacific Ocean warms, shark nursery grounds are expanding and young great whites are venturing into prime orca territory.

The young sharks are much easier prey for killer whales than fully grown great whites. Their smaller size means it is easier to flip them into their frozen state, and they have not yet learned to escape when a pod of orcas is in the vicinity.

Interestingly, all the attacks occurred in August, leading Higuera-Rivas to speculate that juvenile sharks might have become seasonal prey.

Scientists found a single antivenom effective against 17 venomous African snake species.

Until now, antivenoms have been far from perfect. Although they save lives, some do not neutralize every toxin in the venom they work against. Often, a specific antivenom only works against a single species. Finally, not all venomous snakes have an antivenom available that counters the poison. 

As a result, every year, about 7,000 people die and 10,000 require amputations annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, up to 150,000 die annually from snakebites, according to the World Health Organization. Many victims live in remote areas, far from prompt access to medical help.

Most antivenoms are created in the same way. Horses are injected with small doses of a particular snake’s venom. Their immune systems respond by producing antibodies, which are then harvested from the horses’ blood plasma and purified for use in humans.

This process has its drawbacks. The horses produce a mixture of antibodies, and only a fraction of them are effective. The other issue is that antivenoms can have harmful side effects.

Horse antivenom

“It’s similar to [getting] a blood transfusion from a horse,” explains Andreas Hougaard Laustsen-Kiel, a researcher with the new study. “The quality varies, because different horses are used in each production.”

The new, broad-spectrum antivenom addresses several of these issues. It neutralizes multiple snake venoms, and it is created differently.

“[This antivenom] does not require us to constantly extract antibodies from animals,” said Laustsen-Kiel, “[We] select and copy effective antibody fragments (nanobodies) and later produce them on a large scale and with consistent quality. This means that we can produce the antivenom in large quantities without compromising on quality."

To create this new antivenom, the team combined eight nanobodies. All eight are capable of binding to toxins from more than one snake species. Nanobodies are smaller, more stable antibodies that you get from animals in the camel family. The mixture of eight nanobodies was tested against 18 different snake venoms, including cobras, mambas, and rinkhals. It worked against all but one snake -- the green mamba. 

In addition to neutralizing various venoms, this antivenom also appears to reduce tissue damage caused by bites. Because nanobodies are so small, they penetrate tissues faster, improving effectiveness.

To date, the treatment has only been tested in mice, so further research and clinical trials are necessary before it can be used in humans. Though it acts against 17 different venoms, it only partially neutralizes some of them. 

“I have to be careful not to promise too much," says Laustsen-Kiel, "but I am quite convinced that our antivenom has the broadest coverage of snake species.”

Now in its tenth year, the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards competition has once again brought us offbeat animal moments, from break-dancing foxes and vaping ducks to a squirrel with a bad hair day. The finalists, which have just been announced, are guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Paul Joynson‑Hicks and Tom Sullam launched the competition in 2015. Over the last decade, it has grown into a global showcase of unusual wildlife photography. This year’s contest attracted almost 10,000 entries from 108 countries. The judges, a 16-member panel of wildlife photographers, filmmakers, conservationists, comedians, and organizers, have whittled down the submissions to these finalists. They will select the winners on December 9.

Categories

The finalists are contenders in various categories, including mammals, birds, reptiles/amphibians/insects, and fish & other aquatic species. There are also two age-based categories, Junior Photographer and Young Photographer, for those under the ages of 16 and 25, respectively.

After the December 9 decision in London, all finalists’ images will be on display from December 10 to 14 in a public exhibition at the OXO Gallery in London.

There are approximately 600 species of venomous snakes on Earth, and to the untrained eye, most of their strikes appear similar -- a flash of movement as the snake lunges forward. But in reality, different species have evolved distinct fang positions, strike speeds, and venom-delivery techniques. Now, scientists have captured these rapid attacks in stunning slow motion, allowing them to determine exactly what happens when a snake strikes.

A typical snake strike lasts less than 100 milliseconds, far too quick for the human eye to perceive. Using two high-speed cameras recording at 1,000 frames per second, researchers have now filmed bites in extraordinary detail. The study analyzed 36 species of venomous snakes from three families to understand how each one delivers its venom. The three families are the vipers, elapids (including cobras and mambas), and colubrids (a diverse group that includes both non-venomous species and deadly species like the boomslang).

Better technology

The idea of using high-speed cameras to study snake strikes isn’t new. Researchers have been doing it since the 1950s. But advances in technology now allow much higher resolution and detail. Most previous studies have only used a single side-view camera and focused on differences within a single species, such as the differences in bites when it serves as a defense mechanism compared to biting prey. The new study compares snake strikes between species. 

All 36 species were filmed under identical conditions. Inside a small arena, snakes were presented with a warm cylinder of medical gel. Heated to 38˚C, it closely resembles the temperature and texture of mammalian tissue. Each strike was captured using two cameras. Using the frames from both cameras, the team reconstructed each strike in 3D. This meant they could measure jaw movement, strike speed, and how the fangs functioned for each species. In total, the researchers recorded 108 high-speed videos, three per species.

Cobras strike the most slowly

Elapids struck the slowest. That's not surprising, considering how mongooses can prey on cobras, nimbly evading their strikes, but are helpless against the much faster rattlesnakes, tests have shown. Elapids typically slithered close to their target before lunging, using short, permanently erect fangs. Rather than delivering a single fatal blow, elapids often bite multiple times, tensing their jaw muscles to inject venom during each bite.

In contrast, colubrids have fangs positioned farther back in their mouths. They tended to lunge from slightly farther away and deliver a single, forceful bite. Instead of multiple strikes, colubrids used a sawing or rotating jaw motion to deepen the wound and deliver more venom.

“Once they’re biting down, they saw or rotate their jaws and cut into the prey, which presumably gives better penetration of the venom,” explains co-author Alastair Evans.

The fastest strikers were the vipers. In 84% of viper strikes, the snakes sank their fangs into the gel in less than 90 milliseconds. This is faster than the reaction time of nearly all the mammals they prey on. Vipers also have the longest fangs, and the fangs are hinged.

“When the snake is about to hit its prey, the vipers are actually able to fold out their fangs,” Evans told Science Alert. He also explained that many vipers could adjust the position of their fangs after the initial bite to optimize venom delivery.

Japan is having its deadliest year on record for bear attacks. Since April, seven people have been killed and another is missing and presumed dead.

That is the highest annual death toll since officials began keeping data in 2006. More than a hundred others have been injured as bears are increasingly wandering out of the forests and into towns, farms, and even supermarkets.

The most recent death came on October 8, when a man in his seventies was found in a forest in Iwate Prefecture. It is reported that his head and torso had been completely severed. Two more elderly men have been found dead in forests in Iwate and Nagano, both with deep claw marks. Authorities suspect bears in both cases.

It’s not just the number of fatalities that have shocked people in Japan. It is also the ever-rising frequency of bear encounters. Last week, in the Gunma region north of Tokyo, an adult bear burst through the doors of a supermarket, injuring two customers as terrified shoppers fled. On the same day, five more attacks were reported in Akita and Fukushima -- all in one 24-hour span.

Bears are becoming a national concern. Once seen as elusive, both species of bear in Japan are now appearing regularly in inhabited areas. Experts believe the surge in attacks is due to a combination of climate change and Japan's aging human population.

Fewer acorns

Bears in Japan depend heavily on acorns as a food source. This year, that food source has plummeted because of unseasonably warm weather and erratic rainfall. Wildlife experts claim that the bears aren’t actually becoming more aggressive, but that they’re hungry and disoriented because forests no longer provide what they need.

Warming temperatures are also playing havoc with the bears’ hibernation patterns. Some are sleeping less or waking earlier, extending their active season and increasing the chances of crossing paths with people. 

Adding to the problem is Japan’s aging population. There are fewer hunters now than ever before. They used to keep the bear population in check, but that is no longer happening. Fewer people are also living in the rural areas, so abandoned farmland is creating new corridors between forests and human settlements.

Local authorities are struggling to adapt to the situation. Some villages and towns are experimenting with loudspeakers, fireworks, bearproof bins, and even drones to try to deter the bears. Experts warn that these are only temporary fixes and that the underlying causes of the bears venturing into inhabited areas will be far harder to solve.

Watching animals go through their daily routines, even when there's not a lot happening, is a good way to relax -- hence the popularity of live wildlife cams. These cameras are often seasonal, as migrations or weather bring different species into the spotlight.

Below, a list of the best feeds currently on explore.org, a repository of nature films and live streams. From bears snacking on salmon to wildebeest crossing the Okavango Delta, here are the best live streams for October.

5. Alligators and spoonbills, St. Augustine, Florida

When the sun is up, alligators flop like logs by the water in St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park. They don't do much, but that's okay. They're alligators.

At night, roseate spoonbills and herons dominate the scene. Spoonbills, once hunted nearly to extinction for their distinctive pink feathers, now thrive across the southeastern United States. A few of them are guaranteed to be curled up in front of the camera.

The nighttime soundscape is gentle but comforting, with the occasional birdcall. During the day, though, the conversation of human visitors makes muting a better option.

4. Polar Bears, Churchill, Manitoba

This live stream rewards patience. At night, a stationary camera focuses on the subarctic shrubbery outside the Tundra Buggy Lodge, a hotel in Canada's northern Manitoba, which hosts polar bear spotting tours. The only sound is the rush of the wind. During the day, the camera pans over the scrappy tundra.

But the thrill of spotting a polar bear sloping across the screen is worth it. The Churchill Wildlife Management Area heavily restricts visitors to protect this stretch of coast for polar bears and other keystone species.

Polar bears face existential threats in areas like this one, as climate change melts the sea ice on which they do most of their hunting. This is the best time of year to view polar bears at Churchill, because they're all hanging out, waiting for nearby Hudson Bay to freeze so they can start hunting and eating again.

3. Underwater Reef Cams, Utopia Village, Honduras

At night, the screen is pitch black, but the burble of water justifies the WiFi usage. When sunlight turns the water a striking turquoise, fish dart in and out of the corals. Occasionally, something larger looms up out of the distance and passes in front of the screen like a leviathan.

Utopia Village used to be a dive resort, but after the COVID-19 shutdown, its owners decided not to reopen. Now, they operate their location as a marine conservation center.

2. Boteti River zebra migration, Botswana

Of all the live streams currently on explore.org, this one stands out for its soundscape. Birds gibber and yowl. Wild dogs chirp. Other creatures of indeterminate species make noises that defy categorization. Even without the stunning video, this live stream is worth putting on in the background.

During much of the day, nothing moves across this sandy river in the Okavango Delta. But at night, the landscape comes alive. Zebras meander through the scenery, stopping to drink on their 500km migration to the Makgadikgadi salt pans. Wildebeest travel with them and frequent the river by themselves as well. Occasionally, a herd of elephants comes to splash in the water.

On tonight's stream, in the early hours of the Botswanan morning, a herd of wildebeest passed in front of the camera. When they had crossed the river, a sudden flurry of wild dog barks broke out. The wildebeest froze, scanning the shore near the camera for the threat. But no wild dogs appeared. The herd relaxed and moved on into the morning light.

1. Brooks Falls Brown Bears, Katmai, Alaska

There's a reason these bears consistently top the most-viewed list. With 40 bears often onscreen at any one time, there's no shortage of entertainment. The white noise of the water offers a pleasing background to emails, Excel sheets, or coding. And anytime a bear catches a salmon, it feels like a personal victory.

This live stream overlooks the rapids of a two-kilometer stretch of the Brooks River, right along the fall sockeye salmon run. The brown bears here eat up to 40 salmon a day in preparation for winter hibernation. As fall progresses, they will continue to fatten.

Cubs splash in the less oversubscribed stretches of the river, learning to catch salmon for the first time. Victorious old bears feast, turning wide brown eyes to the camera. Some bears, tired of fishing, sit down in the river and just enjoy the waves lapping their fur. There is plenty of salmon for everyone.

South African photographer Wim van den Heever says it took him ten years to finally photograph the rare and elusive brown hyena in Namibia's abandoned mining town of Kolmanskop.

Brown hyenas are the rarest of all hyena species, with conservationists estimating there are between 5,000 and 8,000 left. Hyenas aren't well-liked, but they play a vital role in their ecosystem.

The image also won in the Urban Wildlife category, playing with the boundaries between urban and natural environments. Kolmanskop was abandoned 70 years ago when the diamond mine ran dry. During the day, tourists visit to explore the crumbling town. At night, the tourists leave, and the hyenas emerge.

Ghost town stakeout

At least, South African photographer Van den Heever was convinced that they did. Over a decade, he returned again and again to the Namib Desert ghost towns. He found hyena tracks and scat, and caught glimpses of their dark shapes darting behind sand-blasted walls, but cryptid-like, they eluded his camera. After a decade of setting camera traps, a single hyena decided to cooperate, allowing Van den Heever to get the winning shot in the 2025 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Run by the London Natural History Museum, the contest gathers the most striking wildlife images of the year. Last year's winner featured a cadre of tadpoles from British Columbia. This year, the winners cover a diverse array of species, themes, and settings. All of them capture a unique moment from the animal kingdom.

The competition has been running since 1965, when David Attenborough presented the very first award. Today, tens of thousands of entries are narrowed down to around 100 winners across more than a dozen categories.

Besides the elusive hyena, another Namibian mammal, one of the Skeleton Coast's uniquely maritime lions, was highly commended in the competition. Like the brown hyena, Namibian lions hunt seals on the Skeleton Coast.

Category awards and standouts

The Photojournalist Story Award goes to a series of pictures that explore a central theme. This year, the winner was Javier Aznar Gonzalez de Rueda of Spain, who examined the turbulent relationship between humans and rattlesnakes in the United States. His photographs show the beauty of these feared reptiles and reflect on the annual tradition of culling them.

Other photojournalist entries showed the effects of anthropogenic climate change, plastic-choked ecosystems, and the exotic pet trade. The competition aims, in part, to increase the visibility of such important work.

While many of the images feature animals, the competition also includes plants, fungi, and even protozoa. Imre Potyo's shot of a rare bearded hedgehog fungus was highly commended, with other winners showcasing phosphorescent pitcher plants, coral structures, springtime meadows, and the tiny alien world of slime mold.

In addition to the winners showcased, the competition runs a People's Choice award, which the public can vote for. This vote will happen in the winter, with the winner being announced sometime in the new year.

You can view all the images in England's Natural History Museum in London, beginning on October 17, or visit their website.

A new study conducted over 44 years in Alaska has revealed that avalanches can cause major declines in mountain goat populations -- declines which can take the goats a generation to recover from.

“Avalanches transform mountain landscapes in major ways that can be both beneficial and deleterious,” said wildlife ecologist and lead author Dr. Kevin White of the University of Alaska Southeast.

White and colleagues used long-term monitoring data from 600 tagged mountain goats across 14 sites in Alaska from 1977 to 2021.

They also studied in detail a subset of 421 of the goats at four sites between 2005–2021. These goats were fitted with VHF/GPS collars and monitored monthly to determine their survival rates and the cause of death.

Avalanche deaths were confirmed when carcasses were found buried in avalanche debris or within the path of an avalanche.

The researchers took the long-term data from 1977-2021, which gave a picture on survival and reproduction, and combined it with the shorter-term data (2005-2021) on avalanche deaths. This let them model how avalanches affect goat populations in this part of Alaska.

Why are goats hit by avalanches?

Mountain goats are part of a broader group of alpine hoofed mammals found in 70 countries and are very well-adapted to life in the high mountains. However, their survival depends on avoiding predators such as wolves and bears. So they spend much of their time on steep, craggy slopes where predators struggle to reach them.

But these seemingly safe cliffs come with their own dangers. Even sure-footed goats can slip -- it happens -- and these cliffs may be prone to avalanches. Managing this balance between safety and risk is challenging, as avalanche hazards are often invisible and triggered by weak layers buried deep within the snowpack.

How much do avalanches impact goat populations?

In a previously published analysis, White and colleagues reported that during an average year, around 7% of mountain goats in Alaska die in avalanches. In more severe years, this can rise to 22%.

Long-term population models in this study estimate that the goat population can grow 1.5% during an average avalanche year, and 7% in years with no avalanche deaths. By contrast, during a severe year, a population can decline by as much as 15%.

The researchers estimated that after one of these severe avalanche years, it can take 11 years or 1.5 mountain goat generations for the population to return to normal. That's assuming that another severe avalanche year doesn't occur in the meantime.

“The naturally slow growth rates of mountain wildlife mean...a ‘bad’ avalanche year can set a population back by a generation or more, while a ‘good’ year only offers a relatively small, incremental boost,” said White.

What does the long-term look like?

The researchers suggest that the changes in population from avalanches recur with every generation and aren't rare, one-off events. They speculate that climate change may lead to greater avalanche risk in the future for these iconic mountain animals.

Avalanches can also impact their predators, including bears, wolves, and eagles.

White and his colleagues don't offer any practical suggestions, but it seems obvious that management of land use and hunting in mountain goat regions such as Alaska should consider avalanches in their calculations to maintain long-term populations. This might include adjusting or pausing hunting after high-mortality winters to give herds time to rebound.

Adaptability is the trait that, before all others, allows a species to survive when its environment is changing. At the end of the last Ice Age, grey wolves turned to different prey, allowing them to survive while the mortally inflexible dire wolf died off. A population of Namibian lions has, seemingly, taken this lesson to heart.

Where once they roamed the Namib desert, now they prowl the Atlantic beaches. Meet our planet's only known maritime lions.

What's old is new again

Namibian desert lions have endured decades of changing environments and difficult human-lion relationships. Into the mid-20th century, there was a firmly established population of beach-dwelling, seal-hunting lions. But farmers and tourists killed them in droves, so they retreated into the arid Namib Desert.

Namibian desert lions are famed for their endurance. They can travel great distances without water and food, hunting at night and using complex ambush strategies. But ongoing droughts made their desert retreat increasingly inhospitable. After abandoning the seaside decades earlier, descendants of these beach lions began returning to the coast.

The first few lions appeared in 2002. But conservationists worried that their unique hunting behavior, targeting seals and seabirds, had been lost forever. The lions were back on the Skeleton Coast, but they weren't hunting in the sea.

Then, over a decade after they returned, three young lionesses (nicknamed Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie) began rediscovering the ancient maritime hunting techniques. Now, a small population of lions is living, hunting, and even breeding on the Skeleton Coast again.

"Their resilience is a lesson to us all," photographer Griet Van Malderen told the BBC. "To face change, to adapt, and to act before it is too late."

Van Malderen has been following the coastal lions for years, observing and recording their behavior.

Daily lives of maritime lions

A recent study into the lions' behavior and diet confirmed that they had, indeed, re-learned ocean hunting techniques. Three young lionesses killed two flamingos, 60 cormorants, and 18 seals in a year and a half. Drought, habitat loss, and human encroachment drastically decreased the availability of land-dwelling prey. By switching to an around 80% maritime diet, the lions avoided starvation.

As exciting as this is for lions and lion-enjoyers, there are some potential concerns. Fishermen and livestock farmers didn't go away, and they remain a threat to the lions, which in turn threaten their safety and livelihoods. Tourists, likewise, are a potential source of conflict.

In an attempt to protect people and lions from each other, conservation group Desert Lion Conservation collaborated with Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism to put up a "geofence."

The geofence is not an actual fence. It's an invisible border around a 40km swath of coast. When one of the lions, which are fitted with tracking collars, crosses the border, it sends out an alert to clear the area.

Now that Namibia's drought has finally broken, terrestrial prey species will likely return. But it remains to be seen whether the maritime lions will follow them back to the desert or stay in their new coastal home.

Botswana's Okavango Delta is a sprawling inland floodplain home to a diverse array of animals. There is a brisk trade in canoe journeys for tourists, who can journey down the waterways past hippopotamuses, crocodiles, and elephants. But for one dugout canoe full of safari-goers, the trip turned terrifying when an elephant charged and then attacked their boat.

The whole incident was filmed by one of the tourists and uploaded to a conservation group on Facebook. In the footage, you can see a large bull elephant, a short distance away. He trumpets then charges at the canoes, using his tusks to upend the nearest one. People spill into the water, retreating, as guides continue shouting in an attempt to scare him off.

With everyone in the water, the chaos only continues. A mother and calf look on at a short distance as the bull charges one of the shocked people standing in knee-deep water. He knocks her over and uses his trunk to hold her under.

Luckily, he let her go after only a few seconds, and she was not seriously injured. In the final clip, he trumpets his anger one final time and rejoins the mother and calf. All three begin moving off as guides continue to shout.

Why did this happen?

According to the witnesses, the bull became aggressive after guides, misjudging the safe distance, came too close to a mother with her calf. The bull was acting to drive off a perceived threat to the herd, not from random aggression.

Still, while his cause was understandable, the elephant could very well have killed one of the tourists. Several different companies run the canoe safaris in Okavango, but none have put out an official response.

Hopefully, this incident will lead to increased precaution. While elephants may not be the animal you'd think of first when you think of attacks on safari, it's happened before. Just last July, two women were trampled by an elephant in Zambia while on safari. In the same area the year before, an elderly American was trampled as well. In March of 2024, an elephant attacked a safari truck full of tourists in South Africa.

Worldwide, elephants are responsible for as many as 500 human deaths every year, and that number is going up. As a recent study demonstrated, poaching, habitat loss and changing climate are leading to more human-elephant conflict. Another study found elephant attacks in Myanmar directly correlated with habitat destruction.

Elephants are highly intelligent, social animals that aren't innately aggressive. Attacks happen when elephants are forced into human territory -- or when humans force themselves into elephant territory.

BY COOPER GEGAN

Most shark bites happen by accident. Though Jaws has led to the popular narrative of sharks as man-hunting, killing machines, one prevailing theory states that a number of shark encounters are simply the result of mistaken identity -– cases in which sharks mistake humans for seals or other prey. But as one Australian man found out recently, some seals may be purposefully deceiving sharks into making that mistake.

The incident occurred offshore from Kangaroo Island, southwest of Adelaide, in South Australia. A man in his 50s was surfing at around 1 pm when he was bitten by a shark. It appears that the bite was a result of a seal using the man as a sort of human shield.

“A surfer has been taken to hospital after receiving two shark bites from a large Bronze Whaler at ‘The Sewer’ surf break, D’Estrees Bay,” wrote Shark Watch SA on Facebook, based on information from a public submission. “According to the report, a Bronze Whaler was chasing a seal around the bay when the seal used the surfer as a decoy, and the victim was bitten twice by the shark.”

As ABC News reports, the man drove himself to a nearby hospital for treatment. South Watch SA describes the surfer's condition as “non-life-threatening.”

This story first appeared in The Inertia.

A new paper, still in pre-print, unveils the discovery of seven mummified, 4,000-year-old cheetahs in a Saudi Arabian cave.

Ancient cultures like the Egyptians sometimes mummified cheetahs, but these are the first naturally mummified ones ever discovered. Even more importantly, researchers might be able to use these animals' remains to help their living descendants.

Why caves?

Deep underground in the Lauga cave network of northern Saudi Arabia, researchers found the remains of over 50 cheetahs, ranging in age from over 4,000 to less than 200 years old. Seven of the individuals had been naturally mummified.

The remains were in five caves, with one main cave, accessible only by sinkhole, serving as the center of cheetah operations. None of the caves would have had fresh water, and there were far more cheetah remains than there were cheetah prey remains. So it's not clear what the big cats were using the caves for.

We do know that they used them for centuries. The oldest remains were skeletal, radiocarbon dated to around 4,200 years ago, while the most recent were from the late 19th or early 20th century.

Researchers, led by Ahmad Al Boug from Saudi Arabia's National Wildlife Research Center, extracted genetic information from the remains. Unsurprisingly, the most recent matched the profile of J. venaticus, the Asiatic cheetah. But the older individuals seemed to be more closely related to J. hecki, a different subspecies that inhabits the Sahara.

The cheetahs of the Arabian Peninsula

Cheetahs have experienced a 98% decline from their historical range, which once included much of Africa and Asia. The Asiatic cheetah, in particular, which once ranged across the entire Arabian Peninsula and the Levant, is now confined to a small area in Iran.

Large predators play a crucial role in balancing an ecosystem. A notable example is the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone. Returning the wolves caused cascading changes, boosting beaver populations, willow tree health, and more. As re-wilding efforts begin in Saudi Arabia with gazelles, ibex, and oryx, filling the role of the missing cheetahs is critical.

While the seven mummified cheetahs and 54 skeletal cheetahs will not be able to balance the ecosystem due to being dead, they may provide vital insights. See, it might not be possible to introduce a healthy breeding population of cheetahs from the tiny remaining Iranian population. Their status is so critical, and their genetic diversity so low, that conservationists are looking at other options.

Thanks to the genetic information the mummified cheetahs provided, we now know that the Northwest African Cheetah can also thrive in the environment and ecosystem of the Arabian Peninsula.

The discovery has also opened new avenues of research into how caves might have been part of the ancient Arabian cheetah's lifestyle. We don't have a lot of evidence for modern cheetahs using or living in caves, but clearly, they were once an important part of their habitat.

World-renowned primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall has died at the age of 91. The Jane Goodall Institute confirmed today that she passed away peacefully in her sleep while on a speaking tour in California. 

Born in London in 1934, her favorite books were Tarzan and Doctor Dolittle. She spent her childhood dreaming of traveling to Africa.

“I’ll go to Africa, live with animals, write books about them,” she once told CBS News about those early desires.

Even in these dreams, she never imagined she would be a scientist. At the time, it was almost unheard of for girls. Everything changed when she got a job as a secretary with paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. He recognized her gift with animals and sent her to Tanzania to observe chimpanzees at Gombe Stream National Park.

He thought understanding chimpanzees would give an insight into how our ancestors behaved. In 1960, at the age of 26 and without a formal degree, she began the fieldwork that would alter the course of primatology.

At Gombe, she witnessed and meticulously recorded extraordinary behaviors. Chimpanzees making and using tools. Stripping leaves from twigs to fish termites from their mounds displayed a skill we thought only humans had. They exhibited emotions such as grief and had social relationships and a hierarchy. The study made us redefine what it is to be human. 

Chimps as individuals

Even more radically, to many in the field, Goodall insisted on seeing the chimpanzees as individuals, giving them names like David Greybeard and Flo, and following their lives over the years. Her observations forced the world to reconsider the supposed gulf between humans and other primates, and her work earned her a place at Cambridge. She began a PhD without even holding an undergraduate degree, a rarity even now.

Goodall’s personal and work lives were always intertwined. She met her first husband, Hugo van Lawick, in Tanzania. He was a wildlife photographer who filmed much of her early work. Even after divorcing, she credited his images with persuading many skeptics to take her findings seriously. In 1975, she married Derek Bryceson, then head of Tanzania’s national parks, who supported her conservation work until his death in 1980.

In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, a leading body in primate conservation. She later launched Roots & Shoots, a youth empowerment program in 75 countries. She published over 30 books, became a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and spent her later decades speaking tirelessly on climate change, deforestation, and the urgent need to protect our planet. Even in her nineties, she was relentless in her efforts, traveling around 300 days a year to speak to the public.

Her fame and legacy extend beyond what she discovered about chimpanzees. They come from her forcing the world to see that protecting animals and their habitat is a moral duty. Over the last six decades, she has been one of the most trusted and beloved voices in science, inspiring generations of researchers and conservationists to continue and build upon her work. 

High in the Peruvian Andes, a tiny, unexpected surprise awaited scientists who had come to find an obscure species of squirrel. Instead, they found something far more intriguing in Río Abiseo National Park: a new species of mouse opossum.

Silvia Pavan, the lead scientist, glimpsed the little creature at 2,664m and was sure she had spotted something unusual. The altitude was one of the giveaways. Until then, marsupials have lived only as high as 1,580m in this area. This previously undiscovered marsupial lives considerably higher. It is now officially named Marmosa chachapoya, in honor of the Chachapoya people, who inhabited this region long before the Inca. 

The tiny marsupial is just 10cm long, with a tail stretching a further 15cm. It has an elongated snout, reddish-brown fur that gets softer and lighter on its underside, and distinctive, mask-like patches of darker fur around its eyes.

The team first discovered the little opossum in 2018. Since then, they have been doing everything they can to prove that this is a new species. Over the last six years, they conducted DNA analysis to rule out that it was merely a variant of a known species. This second find has finally allowed them to confirm it.

“The animal from Abiseo is very different in its DNA, about 8% different from Marmosa lepida [its closest known relative],” said Pavan. 

Virtually nothing is known about the ecology, behavior, or range of Marmosa chachapoya. The scientists don’t yet know how many there are, where else they might live, what they eat, or how they breed. What is clear, though, is that this discovery underscores how much of the Andean cloud forest remains unexplored. 

Madagascar is famous for its lemurs; their ancestors arrived 53 million years ago, and the largely predator-free island has allowed them to flourish and diversify. New research suggests lemur evolution is anything but ordinary; they have not plateaued in the same way as most other island species. 

Successive evolutionary bursts

Most island species exhibit a single evolutionary radiation, a period of rapid species expansion. Usually, this happens once. Katie Everson and her team at Oregon State University have unearthed compelling evidence that lemur species have not followed this pattern; instead, they have evolved in multiple successive radiations.

The ancestors of modern lemurs likely arrived on Madagascar aboard natural rafts that floated over from Africa. As the primates adapted to the various ecosystems, over 100 different species of lemurs evolved, all endemic to the island. Sixteen of these species have gone extinct since humans colonised the island 2,000 years ago. 

Three groups show particularly high speciation rates: mouse lemurs (Microcebus), sportive lemurs (Lepilemur), and brown lemurs (Eulemur). Researchers looked at the DNA of 129 individual lemurs from 79 different species. The DNA reveals that these groups not only have exceptionally high speciation rates -- far exceeding those of their continental cousins like lorises and bushbabies -- but also share significant genetic interchange between species.

"The lemur clades with high diversification rates also have high rates of genetic material from one species becoming part of the gene pool of another, a phenomenon known as genomic introgression," explained Everson. "That suggests that hybridization in these primates is not an evolutionary dead end, as it often can be, but potential fuel for diversification."

For context, lorises (their distant relatives of mainland Africa and Asia) show a speciation rate of just 0.15 new species per million years. Lemurs average around 0.44. 

Rapid evolution not enough to survive humans

Everson warns that even rapid evolution is not saving lemurs from the threats we pose: "At the same time that more and more lemur species are still evolving, we are also driving them rapidly to extinction." 

A depressing 95% of lemur species are now considered threatened. Conservation efforts must now consider not just the preservation of individual species, but the conservation of this incredible evolutionary process.

Midmorning on August 14, police in Japan's Hokkaido Prefecture received an emergency phone call from a distressed hiker. The caller had been hiking on Mount Rausu with a young man, who was ahead of the caller on the trail. The young man rounded a blind curve, and his friend heard him call out for help.

The hiker had walked right into the path of a brown bear. The bear attacked, and while the young man tried to fight back, he was quickly dragged off the narrow trail into the forest.

Authorities have now recovered his body. The young man, a 26-year-old Tokyo resident, had been dragged several hundred meters away, then killed. Bloody clothing and personal items lay around the scene.

They also identified the well-known bear responsible for the attack, highlighting the danger of wild animals becoming too comfortable with people.

Killer bear was well-known in the area

Authorities shot an adult bear and two cubs who were near the body when they reached the scene. DNA testing has now confirmed that the bear they shot was responsible for the fatal attack. Nicknamed Iwaobetsu's Mom and given the formal identification code SH, she was well known in the area and did not appear to be afraid of humans.

SH was likely also behind several incidents in the lead-up to the attack. Only four days earlier, she and her cubs had approached a hiker, who had to threaten her with bear spray. Two days before the attack, she chased another hiker and didn't stop even after he sprayed her with deterrent.

Though the mother bear weighed 140kg, locals didn't consider her dangerous. A frequent visitor, Takumi Nakashima, told Japanese news outlet Mainichi Shimbun that according to conventional wisdom, the brown bear population was well fed and had no reason to attack people. Now he thinks that people, himself included, "had become numb to the distance we should keep from wild animals."

An alarming rise in attacks

Japan has seen bear attacks rise alarmingly in recent years. A surging brown bear population, coupled with habitat loss and decreasing food sources, has emboldened animals to come into close contact with people. Even Sapporo, the fifth-largest city in Japan, has had an urban brown bear population for over a decade now.

There are over 10,000 brown bears in Hokkaido. However, now that hunting restrictions have eased, the number is beginning to decrease again after decades of growth. But that still leaves many bears which, fed by tourists and encroached upon by expanding urban areas, are no longer wary of humans. And conservationists worry that mass culling could easily go too far.

The island of Hokkaido is also Japan's only brown bear habitat. The mainland only has the smaller Asian Black Bears.

The hiking trails on Mount Rausu have reopened, but the local government urges visitors to carry bear spray, travel in the daylight, and never hike alone.

The waters off Israel's Hadera Beach swarm with dusky sharks, drawn in by the warm water from the nearby Orot Rabin Power Station. Usually, the sharks are harmless. No deadly shark attacks have occurred in Israel since 1948. But in April this year, a shocking shark attack took place, and it seems that humans might be to blame.

On April 21, a 40-year-old snorkeler was swimming close to the sharks with his GoPro, about 100m from shore. Suddenly, the man's curiosity turned into catastrophe. Videos show the man struggling in the water while onlookers scream for help, shouting that he is being attacked.

"I was in the water, I saw blood, and there were screams," a witness told Ynet News.

He wasn't being reckless by approaching them. This is the first time that dusky sharks have ever killed a person. Biologists have studied the footage to understand what happened. The dusky sharks' usual diet is small fish and crustaceans, and in this patch of water, they are fairly used to the presence of humans. This type of behavior is unprecedented. But the footage shows at least two sharks initiated the attack.

GoPro trigger

Researchers believe that the GoPro might have been the reason for the attack. The sharks could have picked up its electromagnetic signal and thought it was prey. In an attempt to get the GoPro, the sharks bit the man it was attached to.

The biologists believe this was unintentional, but the release of blood into the water triggered a feeding frenzy, which drew in multiple sharks, including smaller sandbar sharks.

The sharks' instinct to compete for food overrode their usual indifference towards humans. In a new study, researchers think the problem lies in the dusky sharks' altered behavior around humans. The sharks in this area sometimes approach humans and "beg" for food. Tourists wading out to get a better look at them oblige by bringing out scraps of food.

The lack of regulations around interacting with the sharks might have precipitated this attack, the study suggests. Marine biologist and co-author Kristian Parton explained: "To make shark-watching tourism safer, local authorities need to eliminate the begging behavior in sharks. [This] can only be achieved by establishing and enforcing a complete and total ban on all artificial feeding by the public, as well as banning spearfishing, which can often fuel the impulse in sharks to obtain food from humans.”

He warns against draconian responses like culling the number of sharks in the area.

Australia is the most notorious country on Earth for deadly wildlife. The red continent is thick with venomous snakes and spiders, toothy sharks and crocodiles, baby-eating dingoes, and the cassowary with its poison spur -- the world's most dangerous bird. Even pretty shells on the beach are actually venomous harpoon snails.

For 19th-century colonists from the British Isles, where anything more dangerous than an orb weaver was driven to extinction in the Stuart era, it must have been terrifying.

But a shocking new report from the National Coronial Information System reveals that Australia's most dangerous animal is none of these death-dealing critters. It's not even native to Australia.

Deadly invaders?

I'll cut to the chase: Australia's deadliest animal is the horse. Nearly a third of the 713 animal-related deaths between 2001 and 2021 were due to horses.

The first horses came to Australia in 1788 aboard British colonial ships. By the mid-19th century, enough horses had escaped their Australian corrals to sustain a feral population. Around 400,000 of these so-called "brumbies" roam wild in Australia today. But it is the larger, domestic horse population which is responsible for most deaths.

Of those equine deaths, most (59.5 percent) were caused by falls. Twenty of the victims were jockeys, with 14.8% of deaths involving horse racing. A further 12 died at rodeo, dressage, and show-jumping events.

The runner-up in terms of deadliest animal is also an expat. The humble cow was responsible for nearly 13 percent of Australian animal-related deaths. Of these, around half were the result of blunt force -- a bovine kicking or trampling a victim. Almost all the rest came in fatal vehicle/cow collisions.

It makes sense that horses and cows are deadlier than sharks and snakes, for the simple reason that people spend a lot more time around horses than they do among venomous serpents. One interaction with one horse is, statistically, fairly safe. When you multiply that by hundreds of thousands of yearly horse interactions, the accidents -- and the deaths -- start to pile up.

What else kills you in Australia?

In fact, to get to a native Australian animal, you have to go all the way down to fourth place (third went to dogs), where you will find the kangaroo. While the kangaroo is a densely muscled pugilist, all 53 kangaroo-related deaths involved collisions with vehicles.

Snakes account for spot number five, earning the dubious honor of being the first non-surprising entry. The report found 50 deaths caused by snakes, with fatalities most common among the elderly.

Allergic reactions to bee stings caused forty-five deaths. Sharks and crocodiles are credited with 39 and 25 fatalities, respectively. Nearly all of these occurred while the victim was swimming. Between magpie swooping, emu, cassowary, and other incidents, 11 total deaths were attributed to birds.

Reputation does not always reflect reality. Although Australia has the deadliest spider in the world -- the Sydney funnel web -- not one fatal spider bite occurred between 2001 and 2021.

A new startup, Tehanu, represents a revolutionary approach to conservation that allows nature to "pay for its own survival." If you're anything like me, the phrase "a new startup" chills you to the bone. But let's hear them out.

CEO and founder Jonathan Ledgard developed the concept of "interspecies money" years ago. Observing the current biodiversity crisis of unprecedented natural decline, Ledgard diagnosed what he believes is the heart of the issue. The global market economy has underestimated the monetary value of nature.

His solution is to develop a technology that allows animals, trees, microbes, etc., to possess digital currency. This currency will then be spent for them, buying conservation efforts. The allocation and spending will not be decided by the account holders themselves but by AI.

Tehanu N°1

His proposal is no longer theoretical. Starting in 2024, Tehanu tested out its proposal on a mountain gorilla family in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda.

Human ascendancy has not been kind to the gorilla, one of our closest living relatives. Poaching and habitat loss have devastated their numbers. Thanks to intensive conservation efforts, mountain gorilla populations have increased in recent years, but there are still only about 1,000 left in the wild. Over half of them live in the Virunga range, where Volcanoes National Park is located.

Under the name Tehanu No1, the startup's first project began by scraping known databases for all known information about the mountain gorilla. This was used to develop an AI model, which built profiles for specific gorillas using facial recognition.

Once the individual gorillas are identified, that identity was linked to a digital wallet. Money, which comes from existing conservation funding, was allocated to each gorilla. The AI then spent that money on behalf of the gorilla.

Tehanu refers to the spending part as an extension of the 'gig economy.' The program creates green jobs, where local people complete conservation tasks and are then paid. These tasks could include planting trees, setting up cameras, granting priority access to watering holes, or whatever else the AI decides the gorilla (or later species) prefers.

The startup's founders see their system as a way to create jobs in the poorest and more biodiverse regions. Nature stewardship will be directly, monetarily incentivized.

'I am, therefore I own'

In his essay proposing interspecies money, Ledgard described a theoretical giraffe as "the identity that allows the transfer [of funds] to happen: I am, therefore I own."

The AI decides to "pay" the giraffe, meaning it earmarks a certain amount of money. The same AI later decides to spend the earmarked money to hire giraffe bodyguards (a real use case proposed by Ledgard) without the giraffe's involvement in any part of the process.

This is not necessarily a criticism -- the giraffe is probably not the most qualified to understand complex environmental science and conservation decisions. But is an LLM (Large Language Module) qualified, either?

The problem with computers

"A computer can never be held accountable," argued a now much-quoted 1979 IBM Training Manual. "Therefore, a computer must never make a management decision.”

Then there is that fascinating irony. Can the drive for eternal and exponential economic growth, which got us into this situation in the first place, really be harnessed to undo its own damage? For many climate activists, obsessive wealth-building is incompatible with any real solution to climate change and biodiversity loss.

"We are left with a stark choice: allow climate disruption to change everything about our world, or change pretty much everything about our economy," wrote author and professor of climate justice Naomi Klein in This Changes Everything. "We need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet."

Ledgard seems to agree that the economic system is the problem. His solution is not to change the system, but to broaden it. We cannot seem to care for anything that doesn't profit us. Therefore, the mountain gorilla, the croaking frog, the willow tree, and the microbial goo must be imbued with monetary value.

Camera traps in the jungles of Peru have captured footage of ocelots and opossums traveling together. We have at least four confirmed cases of the two animals walking in tandem, seeming to be perfectly aware and comfortable with the other's presence. The pairs were never more than two meters apart, moving at a leisurely pace. Their body language is relaxed, the opossum never attempting its famous "play dead" manoeuvre.

Experts believe that these aren't isolated incidents, but a pattern of behavior. A group of ecologists and researchers released a new study speculating on what that behavior could mean.

Sniff test

Before they developed formal theories, the researchers needed to collect more data. Ocelots might seek out opossums to hunt them, but would opossums actively seek out ocelots?

To find out, they set up camera traps with 'ocelot cues' -- items which gave off the scent of an ocelot, usually a strip of fabric -- and waited. Opossums showed up and even interacted with the ocelot cues, sniffing, biting, or rubbing themselves on the fabric. Opossums visited the ocelot-scented cameras far more often than control cameras.

To confirm that it was specifically ocelots that the little marsupials were interested in, they repeated the experiment. Using control and puma (cougar, catamount, mountain lion) scented traps, they observed that the opossums preferred the control, apparently disdaining the company of puma.

Both animals are solitary within their species, yet the ocelot and opossum don't just fall in together, but actively seek each other out. The question remains, why?

Much we don't know

Mutual partnerships between species are not rare and form when both sides have something to offer the other. Coyotes and badgers sometimes partner up to hunt burrowing prey. Their different adaptations and hunting strategies complement each other -- the coyote handles the chasing, and the badger handles the digging.

One theory is that the ocelot and opossum partnerships work much the same way. Opossums often feed on snakes and are even immune to viper venom, like the eponymous hero of Rudyard Kipling's short story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Perhaps the pairs team up to hunt serpents.

The researchers also speculate that moving as a pair may be a sort of camouflage. By moving with the notoriously odoriferous opossum, the ocelot could hide its scent, making it easier to stalk prey. Moving with the ocelot, the opossum would be safer from pumas and jaguars.

Ultimately, we don't know if one, both, or neither of these theories is correct. The study concludes with a call for more research, and a reflection on what this find reminds us: "how limited our understanding remains of the complex dynamics among tropical rainforest species."

Two killer whales have been caught "kissing" on camera in a fiord in northern Norway. A group of snorkelers-turned-citizen-scientists captured the moment last October, and now the internet is going wild for the smooching orcas. 

This behavior, known as tongue-nibbling, has never been seen before in wild orcas. The snorkelers were on a whale-watching tour when they saw the two juvenile orcas approach each other and begin gently touching mouths and nibbling at each other’s tongues.

The video footage shows three separate interactions between the whales. Altogether, the whales spent nearly two minutes tongue-nibbling, a behavior that bears striking resemblance to French kissing. After their underwater make-out session, the two whales parted ways, swimming off in different directions.

Only seen a handful of times

Even in captive whales, this behavior is incredibly rare. It was first spotted in 1978 at Loro Parque Marine Park in Tenerife, Spain. Since then, only a handful of workers at marine parks have witnessed it.

"Orca caretakers at several facilities are aware of the behavior, but its prevalence is extremely low," study co-author Javier Almunia told LiveScience. "It may appear and then not be observed again for several years.”

The meaning of the behavior is open for interpretation. Some experts believe it’s a form of social bonding, similar to grooming in primates or the lip contact seen in beluga whales. Others suggest it could be play, part of how orcas express affection, or test social boundaries.

“Tongue-nibbling itself has not been recorded in other species, but comparable mouth-related social interactions have been observed in belugas," Almunia explained. "This could suggest that, given cetacean anatomy — particularly the adaptation of limbs to the marine environment — oral contact may serve as a more versatile means of social communication than in terrestrial mammals."

Others have speculated that it might be a way to clean each other’s mouths or beg for food. Regardless of the exact reason behind it, the kiss shows us that there is still a huge amount we don't know about cetacean behavior.  

Natural behavior?

Those analyzing the footage believe that since this kissing occurs in wild orcas, it is a natural behavior also shown in orcas under human care. 

Not all scientists agree. Some think that far more research is needed -- research that does not need captive whales.

“Even if the behavior itself is fascinating, and I think it is...it’s just one observation," marine mammal researcher Luke Rendall told LiveScience. "It is telling that in their summing up, these authors take great pains to explain how this observation justifies orca captivity and swim-with-cetaceans programs. It does not, in my view.”

In mid‑June, a rare case of mammalian altruism unfolded off the coast of Western Australia. A pod of dolphins escorted a young humpback whale from the confines of a shallow bay into deeper water.

Local conservationists from the Dolphin Discovery Centre spotted the humpback whale in Koombana Bay and were immediately concerned. Every year, the whales migrate roughly 5,000km from Antarctica to their breeding grounds near Australia’s Gold Coast. Humpbacks move along the coastline but do not usually venture into the shallow bay.

They quickly dispatched a boat crew to inspect the animal and sent drones to capture aerial footage.

“Sometimes it happens that an animal gets spooked by a predator, is [doing] poorly or injured, or might have a fishing gear entanglement," the Dolphin Discovery Centre commented. "These animals then often seek shelter in calmer and more shallow parts to rest up.”

The drone recorded the whale languishing near the bay’s edge. The footage showed no signs of entanglement or wounds. Just a whale that appeared a little bit lost. Then a curious pod of bottlenose dolphins appeared. 

The dolphins started by circling the whale. Then came the pivotal moment. They began swimming northward, almost guiding the whale with purpose. The young humpback followed, moving into Geographe Bay’s deeper waters.

Dolphins are naturally sociable and curious, but this was more than a brief interaction. The footage seemed to show a coordinated effort, as if the dolphins recognized that the whale, possibly disoriented or exhausted from its migration, needed help. Inter‑species cooperation in the wild is incredibly rare. While marine animals sometimes travel together, they do not actively guide other species.

Dr. Vanessa Pirotta, a marine wildlife scientist, suggested that the dolphins might have even communicated with the whale.

“Whales use low-frequency sounds, while dolphins make high-frequency sounds, so I would assume these dolphins may have been buzzing around this whale," she said. "All in all, it looks like a very playful and innocent interaction between these two species.”

Each spring, millions of tiny brown Bogong moths fly 1,000km from southeastern Australia to the caves of the Australian Alps to escape the summer heat. Now we know how they find their way -- they navigate using the stars. 

They have an innate ability to make this journey. After a few months in the caves, they return to their breeding grounds to mate and die -- so the next time they migrate, there are no individuals from a previous generation to show them the way. But somehow, the moths unerringly make it to a place they’ve never visited before.

Their journey can take weeks. The little moths fly each night and rest during the day, hiding up in whatever little crevices they can find en route.

“Their parents have been dead for three months, so nobody’s shown them where to go” said Eric Warrant, the author of the new study. "They just emerge from the soil in spring in some far-flung area of southeastern Australia, and they just simply know where to go. It’s totally amazing."

Magnetic field not as important

Warrant has studied the moths for years. He previously proved that they use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate, but he always thought there was more to the story. He believed that the moths had visual cues to guide them. As it turns out, the magnetic fields might play less of a role than previously thought. 

To test his theory that the moths use the constellations, Warrant and his team set up a lab in his home near the Australian Alps. They designed a “moth arena” with a projection of the night sky on the ceiling. This perfectly mimicked the stars they would see if making the actual flight. To negate the impact of the magnetic field a Helmholtz coil was used, which creates a magnetic vacuum. 

“We captured the moths using a light trap, brought them back to the lab, and then we glued a very thin rod on their back, made out of tungsten, which is nonmagnetic,” explained Warrant. "Once you’ve done that, you can hold that little rod between your fingers, and the moth will fly very vigorously on the end of that tether."

Positive proof

As the moths flew around the lab, an optical sensor detected their movement. In clear-sky tests, with accurate stellar projections above, the moths oriented themselves seasonally: flying south in spring and north in autumn. Astonishingly, when researchers rotated the star pattern, the moths adjusted their flight direction accordingly. If the stellar patterns were completely scrambled, the moths became disoriented, flying in every direction.

“That was, for us, like the final proof that they actually indeed use the stars for navigation,” said lead researcher David Dyer. 

The experiment went even deeper. They then placed electrodes in the moths' brains to record neural activity. Researchers watched specific brain regions light up when the night sky shifted, especially as the insects faced south, the direction of migration.

Researchers now think that the Earth's magnetic field is more of a backup navigational system for the moths, used when heavy cloud cover blocks out the stars. 

Other celestial navigators

We know there are several birds, seals, and frogs that navigate using stars. Birds such as Indigo buntings rely on the rotation of different constellations to figure out which way is south. In captive studies, harbor seals used specific stars or constellations to orient themselves. This may help them to search for food offshore.

The Bogong moth is the first invertebrate found to do this for such long migrations. Dung beetles (also an invertebrate) do use the stars to navigate, but only in a straight line over much smaller distances. They use the polarized light from the moon and the Milky Way to direct them as they push their dungballs. 

Other moths use light sources like the moon to fly in a straight line by keeping the same angle to it -- but that is much less complicated than navigating an inborn direction by the stars.

Researchers hope that understanding their navigation will provide clues on how other insects figure out where they are going. 

A young female bear spent last weekend roaming the leafy suburbs of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. She wandered out of the forest and then meandered around residential areas, crossed highways, and explored backyards, completely unaware of the commotion she was causing. 

Her short city break quickly captured the nation. Onlookers trailed across the city, capturing footage of her on their smartphones and drones. Concerned for public safety, the Lithuanian government issued a permit to shoot the animal, causing uproar among the hunting community. 

Members of the Lithuanian Association of Hunters and Fishermen categorically refused to carry out the order. Brown bears are scarce in Lithuania. The association thinks there are only five to ten individuals left in the country. They were once native to Lithuania but disappeared in the 19th century due to excessive hunting and habitat loss. Recently, small numbers have returned, migrating from neighboring Belarus and Latvia.

Lost, not aggressive

The association disagreed with the government's directive to shoot the bear, which is endangered and protected by Lithuanian law. This bear had shown no aggressive behavior. Ramute Juknyte, the association's administrator, told the Associated Press that the two-year-old bear was "a beautiful young female" and was frightened rather than hostile. “She just didn’t know how to escape the city, but she didn’t do anything bad.”

First spotted in the capital on Saturday, the bear finally came within four to five kilometers of the city center. At this point, the hunters suggested a different strategy to move her away from the city. They wanted to sedate, tag, and release her back into the wild.

In the end, none of this was needed. On her own, the young bear ambled back into the forest. By Wednesday, she had left the outskirts of Vilnius behind. A forest camera positioned 60km away recorded her quietly feeding on corn.

The tooth-billed pigeon, often dubbed the "little dodo," is one of the most elusive birds in the world. There are fewer than 100 left in the wild, and no one has photographed one since 2013.

Found only in Samoa, this critically endangered pigeon is uniquely adapted to island life. Its strong, curved beak allows it to eat tough native fruits. Between 4,000 and 7,000 roamed the island as late as the 1980s. Unfortunately, habitat destruction, hunting, and invasive species have pushed the bird to the edge of extinction. Locating one in the wild has been nearly impossible for years.

Now, the Colossal Foundation and several conservation partners have joined forces to find the bird using sound. The Colossal Foundation is part of Colossal Biosciences, the company best known for trying to revive extinct species like the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf.

The bioacoustic effort involves placing recorders in the forest to capture the sounds of wildlife. Later, researchers use AI to pick out the sounds that belong to the tooth-billed pigeon. By filtering thousands of hours of rainforest sounds, the AI algorithm can pick out promising audio clips that might reveal the bird's presence.

Bird sounds are like fingerprints

Sounds are critical identifiers for birds, and expert birdwatchers use sound more than sight to identify birds for their life lists. Birds call to attract mates, defend territory, and communicate with their young, and their calls are often as distinctive as fingerprints. That’s why bioacoustics has become an increasingly valuable tool in conservation, especially in hard-to-access areas.

A few researchers had previously attempted to use sound to find the endangered bird, but analyzing the data proved too difficult. Conservation officer Moeumu Uili, whose photo of a tooth-billed pigeon in 2013 is the last-known trace of it, admitted that "a significant gap remained in data analysis skills, limiting our ability to process results."

Colossal stepped in to address the issue. Using a five-minute audio clip of three tooth-billed pigeon calls recorded at Germany's Berlin Zoo in the 1980s, they created their AI algorithm. It analyzes recordings made in parts of the forest where the bird once lived. In a major breakthrough, it has identified 47 possible calls that offer hope that the Little Dodo may have survived.

While Colossal brings machine learning and acoustical analysis to the collaboration, the Samoa Conservation Society gives local knowledge and boots-on-the-ground support. Their team also installs and monitors the recording devices.

Verify the bird's existence is the first step to preserving its habitat and helping the population recover.

In the same way you can't prove a negative, "extinction" is always an informed guess. If we haven't seen hide nor hair (sometimes literally) of something for long enough, we have to assume it's not out there anymore.

But sometimes we assume wrong. Such was the case with the De Winton’s golden mole, which no one saw between 1936 and 2023, or the giant, elusive "ghost fish" of Cambodia's Mekong River. But finding these never-extinct-in-the-first place species is rare.

However, one more miracle reappearance has just occurred. Amid a global biodiversity crisis, the Asian small-clawed otter has emerged from hiding in Nepal to give otter enthusiasts hope.

The otter of the hour

The Asian small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinereus) is the smallest otter species on the planet, weighing only 2.7 to 3.5 kilograms. Its short claws, which give it its name, make it particularly dexterous, helping it pry open the molluscs and crabs it feeds on. These otters are very social and friendly, mating for life and often traveling in large family groups.

They're adaptable too, and live in a variety of different environments, including mangrove forests, swamps, swift rivers, stagnant pools, and rice paddy fields. In fact, rice farmers consider them helpful to have around, since they eat crabs, which farmers consider pests.

Small-clawed otters still live across Southeast Asia and into India. The last time they were officially seen in Nepal was 1839, so it's no surprise that they were considered extinct there.

Over the past few years, visitors to Makalu Barun National Park in the eastern Himalaya have reported scattered, unverified sightings of the little otter. But it remained elusive until forestry officials stumbled upon it.

The once and future Asian small-clawed otter

A bulletin by the IUCN/SSC Otter Specialist Group announced the confirmed presence of the Asian small-clawed otter in Nepal. The discovery of a surviving Nepalese otter population came when a local from Dadeldhura village found an injured baby otter by the Rangun and Puntara Rivers. Not knowing the significance of the little creature, the local passed it on to local forestry officials.

The Forestry Officer, Rajeev Chaudhary, thought it might be a small-clawed otter. While he was nursing it back it health, he took photos and videos of the pup. Chaudhary then sent them to Nepalese otter experts at the IUCN Otter Specialist Group. They confirmed his suspicions and set about a habitat study in the area. Meanwhile, the pup in question recovered its strength and was released back into the wild.

Asian small-clawed otters are listed as Vulnerable to Extinction. This discovery doesn't change that. The fact that these tenacious little otters are clinging on to their ancestral territory in Nepal is only more reason they need immediate support.

For one thing, they aren't on Nepal's Aquatic Animal Protection Act list. The river ecosystems they inhabit are threatened by mining, over-fishing, agricultural run-off, and deforestation. Getting official protection, now that they officially exist, is crucial.

"A timely conservation effort for this exceptionally rare species, a keystone aquatic mesocarnivore, is now urgently needed in Nepal," the IUCN bulletin concludes.

We are the worst primates when it comes to wound healing, according to a new study. Our wounds heal nearly three times slower than those of chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, and other primates and mammals. 

Evolutionary biologist Akiko Matsumoto-Oda was watching wild baboons in Kenya when she noticed their wound-healing abilities. The monkeys could be very violent and aggressive with each other, and often sustained injuries.

“I was struck by how rapidly they recovered — even from seemingly severe wounds,” she told The New York Times. 

Her intrigue triggered new research at how skin wounds heal in a controlled environment for various primates and mammals. The study included humans, chimpanzees, olive baboons, Skye’s monkeys, vervet monkeys, mice, and rats. The 24 humans were all volunteers and patients from Japan's University of the Ryukyus Hospital. All were having skin tumors removed. 

The monkeys, rats, and mice came from various research facilities. Some had been injured in fights. A very few were anaesthetized and surgically wounded. “As a field researcher, I personally believe that invasive studies should be minimized,” Matsumoto-Oda explained. 

Human skin regrew 2.5 times more slowly

Humans regrew their skin at around 0.25mm per day, while the other primates and mammals exceeded this. Skin regrowth proceeded at approximately 0.62mm per day. The team discovered that there was no significant difference in the healing rate of the other primates or between the other primates and the rats and mice. 

Why humans heal so much more slowly seems to lie in our evolutionary past.

“We found that chimpanzees exhibited the same wound-healing rate as other non-human primates, which implies that the slowed wound-healing in humans likely evolved after the divergence from our common ancestor with chimpanzees,” says Matsumoto-Oda.

The exact reason for this is unknown, but one possibility is our loss of body hair. Unlike most mammals, we developed a dense network of sweat glands to cool down more efficiently. This adaptation helped early humans survive in hot climates and allowed them to run and hunt over long distances without overheating. However, this trade-off came with a hidden cost.

Animals covered in hair are also covered in hair follicles, and these contain stem cells. Usually used in hair formation, these stem cells appear to give other mammals an edge when they have a cut or scratch. 

A three-penguin race on Galindez Island, site of the Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition, concluded on Tuesday. The victory went to a newcomer to the racing scene, Unidentified Penguin #2. Unfortunately, no penguin equivalent of FastestKnownTime.com exists, but we encourage the penguin-loving community to create one.

Not professional racers

Penguin racing often flies under the radar. Averse to social media, many champion FPT-setters also have day jobs as penguins, doing penguin things like diving for fish. Fortunately, the Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition (UAE) filmed the first half of the Galindez Island race.

"This video is for those who still doubt that penguins are surprisingly fast creatures," wrote the UAE on Facebook.

In the video, the eventual winner races neck and neck with two other penguins. The three-penguin lead pack jostles for space. A large part of penguin racing appears to be strategy: when to waddle like a weird little windup toy versus coast on one's belly like a sled? Penguins can accelerate to 6kph on their bellies, but navigating difficult ground requires a combination of the two modes of transport.

Penguins are even faster in water, reaching speeds of 36kph.

The purpose of the race remains unclear

While setting the FPT on Galindez Island is a worthy goal, the exact nature of this race has not been confirmed.

"This trio must have had extremely important things to do," the UAE suggested. "Was it krill again at a discount, or did they bring a truckload of pebbles from a neighboring island?"

Penguins are very social birds, nesting in large groups and often mating for life. A penguin in veterinary care at the Perth Zoo made headlines in 2021 for its investment in watching episodes of Pingu on an iPad. And in Japan's Tobu Zoo, a penguin captured the internet's heart by apparently falling in love with a cardboard cutout of an anime character.

Still, documented evidence of racing on land is a rare treat.

Each spring, the Farne Islands off England's Northumberland coast transform into a seabird heaven, with puffins center stage. This year, to mark the 100th anniversary of the National Trust's stewardship of the islands, two webcams have been set up so that anyone can watch the charismatic little birds.

The archipelago hosts approximately 200,000 seabirds each year, including 50,000 breeding pairs of puffins. Each spring, they return from their winter haunts to nest in the same burrows they've used for years.

The first camera sits beside the puffin burrows. Initially, you will likely see male puffins trying to defend their territory. As we head into July, young pufflings will start to appear. The second camera will show the cliffside, where over 20 species of seabird that breed on the islands, including guillemots, shags, kittiwakes, razorbills, and peregrine falcons, cohabit with the puffins.

Each year, conservationists monitor the puffin population by gently extracting them from their burrows and weighing and measuring them. From 2020 to 2024, this work paused because of the pandemic and various avian flu outbreaks.

A stable population

The 2024 count revealed a relatively stable puffin population, which offers hope amid the dwindling numbers of other seabird species. Some, such as European shags and arctic terns, have suffered significant losses because of disease and severe weather.

Beyond the Farne Islands, the Alderney Wildlife Trust in the Channel Islands has also set up live streams from its puffin colony on Burhou Island. Similarly to the Farne Islands, they have two cameras. Their Puffin Main Cam and Burrow Cam should capture the daily activities of the birds, from burrow maintenance to feeding routines.

Despite the positive signs, puffins continue to confront numerous threats. Climate change, marine pollution, and overfishing all create hardships. Researchers have begun tagging puffins for an in-depth study of their lifespans and migration patterns to better understand the threats the colorful little birds are facing.

Scientists have discovered two unknown species of crocodile on islands off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. They were always assumed to be American crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus), but new genetic testing proves they are distinct. 

Researchers from McGill University and collaborating Mexican institutions found that the isolated crocodiles differed in several ways from their mainland relatives.

"The results were totally unexpected," said lead author Jose Avila-Cervantes in a statement. "We assumed Crocodylus acutus was a single species ranging from Baja California to Venezuela and across the Caribbean."

The two yet-to-be-named new species live on Cozumel Island and the Banco Chinchorro atoll. Their isolation caused them to adapt to their unique environments, beginning about 11,000 years ago.

Besides DNA disparities, physical exams revealed noticeable differences in skull shape and scale patterns. The Cozumel crocodiles have long and narrow "longirostrine” snouts that may be an adaptation for catching specific prey. Meanwhile, the Banco Chinchorro crocodiles have broader skulls that help them crush hard-shelled prey. 

Each population contains fewer than 1,000 breeding individuals, and their restricted habitats make them susceptible to climate change and human activities, such as coastal development.

For centuries, the Yangtze porpoise was a common sight on the river it is named after. Now, the freshwater mammal is critically endangered, rarely sighted, and only found in a tiny proportion of the huge waterway that winds from the Tibetan Plateau to the East China Sea. To track the species' decline, researchers have turned to an unusual source— ancient Chinese poetry. 

Researchers analyzed 724 ancient Chinese poems that referenced the Yangtze porpoise. Some date back to the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE). Penned by scholars, emperors, and poets who often traveled along the Yangtze, the poems provide vivid accounts of the porpoise's presence and behavior.

“Our work fills the gap between the super long-term information we get from fossils and DNA and the recent population surveys," said Zhigang Mei, co-author of the new study. "It really shows how powerful it can be to combine art and biodiversity conservation.” 

Harming the porpoise was bad luck

The Yangtze finless porpoise holds an important place in Chinese folklore. Mei remembers the elders in his community speaking of them as spirits, believing they could predict weather changes and good fishing. Harming the creature was considered bad luck. This is perhaps why they featured so heavily in ancient poetry. 

To ensure accuracy in the poem's content, the researchers cross-referenced the information in the poem with what they knew about that author's life. They identified where each poet lived and traveled to ensure that it matched the information within their poems. This approach allowed them to extract reliable ecological data from the verses.

Using the poems with historical records, they mapped the porpoise's distribution across different dynasties. Poems from the Qing dynasty referenced the porpoises 477 times, whereas they appeared slightly less in earlier periods.

Despite this, there was a clear pattern. Over time, a sharp decline in porpoise sightings has occurred. Tributaries and lakes associated with the river had a 91% decrease; the main river channel had one-third fewer. Overall, the findings reveal a staggering 65% reduction in the porpoise's habitat over the last 1,400 years.

Causes of decline

Poets like Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty often described the porpoise's playful antics, especially its tendency to leap from the water in stormy weather.

“Compared to fish, Yangtze finless porpoises are pretty big, and they’re active on the surface of the water, especially before thunderstorms when they’re really chasing after fish and jumping around,” explained Mei. "This amazing sight was hard for poets to ignore."

Since the 1950s, new dams have made huge sections of the river inaccessible to the porpoises. Pollution and fishing have also affected the porpoise populations. 

With fewer than 1,800 freshwater porpoises left in the river, conservationists are worried they will follow the same path to extinction as their cousins, the Yangtze River dolphin.

“Protecting nature isn’t just the responsibility of modern science; it’s also deeply connected to our culture and history,” said Mei in a statement. "Poetry can really spark an emotional connection, making people realize the harmony and respect we should have between people and nature. 

A bird once declared extinct in the wild has just laid eggs in Hawaii.

The sihek, also known as the Guam kingfisher, has a striking burnt orange breast, electric blue wings, and a sharp beak. Native to the island of Guam, the tiny birds thrived until the accidental introduction of the brown tree snake in the mid-20th century. Sihek populations plummeted. By 1988, the bird was declared extinct in the wild. 

The sihek became a feathered example of what can happen when an invasive species runs wild. The bird didn’t vanish entirely because of a last-minute rescue operation. Conservationists captured 29 of the remaining siheks and began a careful breeding program. 

Several institutions have been raising siheks for the last few decades, trying to increase their numbers. Last year, some donated eggs to a special facility at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas. Here, the hatchlings were cared for until they were old enough to journey to the atoll.

Researchers released nine of the hand-reared siheks in September 2024. They were rewilded in The Nature Conservancy’s  (TNC) Palmyra Atoll Preserve, which lies around 1,600km south of Honolulu. They chose this area because the birds have no predators there, and the area is fully protected.

One lonely male

The four females and five males formed four breeding pairs. (One lonely male didn't have a mate.) Less than a year later, all the pairs established territories, built nests, and laid eggs in the wild for the first time since the 1980s.

“This is a huge win," said John Berry of the Cincinnati Zoo. "It means the birds are not just surviving—they’re beginning to thrive.”

Though everyone is excited about the new eggs, they also admit it is very unlikely that they will survive. The mating pairs are less than a year old and have never had to care for eggs and incubate them before. It often takes a few attempts at laying and looking after eggs for them to actually hatch.

Conservationists are now planning to release more young siheks onto the atoll later this year. 

Forget the latest Netflix and Amazon Prime offerings -- right now, one of the hottest shows on the planet is a 24/7 live-stream of moose slowly migrating through the Swedish wilderness.

Dubbed The Great Moose Migration, this unlikely sensation is exactly what it sounds like. Hours of footage show moose slowly plodding through forests and wading across rivers. Viewers can’t get enough. 

Broadcast by SVT (Sweden’s public broadcaster), the event was first live-streamed in 2019. It was created as part of a wider "Slow TV" movement showing real-time footage of mundane activities; think knitting and train rides. Unlike other shows, there is no backing music, commentary, or editing. It is exactly what is caught on camera.  What started as a quirky local experiment quickly became a hit. A million viewers tuned in during the first year. Last year, that had increased to nine million. 

Deeply soothing

It seems there is something deeply soothing about watching the slow, lolloping animals wander through a pine forest along this ancestral route to their summer grazing spots. With 26 remote cameras and seven night cameras, the show cuts between the various spots to show what is happening. For large swathes of time, there may be no moose in the shot at all. 

Despite this, some viewers watch for almost 24 hours a day. Others admit to setting up separate screens so that they can have it on in the background as they work. Mega-fan Ulla Malmgren said she had purposefully stocked up on snacks, pre-prepared meals, and coffee so that she could watch the 20-day migration. 

Due to unseasonably warm weather, this year's migration started a week earlier than usual, but fans were ready. Some 77,000 are part of a Facebook group that provides updates on the migration. It is expected to last until May 4. With panoramic shots, long silences, and the occasional splash as a moose crosses a river, the live-stream is oddly hypnotic. 

Long lulls

SVT puts out notifications on their app when a moose appears on camera, so viewers don’t miss the excitement. Sometimes, hours pass with nothing but swaying trees and chirping birds. Then, suddenly, a moose appears — and the chat explodes with excitement.

The live stream focuses on a key stretch of the annual route in northern Sweden, where the animals are funneled toward a few river crossings. There are around 300,000 moose in Sweden, but they are notoriously shy creatures.

“We actually don’t see them very often,” explained SVT project manager Johan Erhag. "I think that’s one reason why it has been so popular. You bring nature to everyone’s living room."

So if you’re looking for a way to de-stress, or just need a weirdly captivating distraction, consider tuning in. No plot, no dialogue, just moose. 

BY RACHELLE SCHRUTE

In a groundbreaking leap reminiscent of Jurassic Park, scientists have successfully revived the dire wolf, an apex predator that vanished nearly 13,000 years ago.

The revival project, spearheaded by startup company Colossal Bioscience, used advanced DNA editing techniques. By sequencing ancient DNA samples recovered from fossils preserved in tar pits, researchers reconstructed a complete genome of the dire wolf, closely related yet distinctly separate from modern grey wolves.

Two male pups, Remus and Romulus, were born in October 2024, followed by a female named Khaleesi in January 2025. Fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones will likely recognize both the creature and the inspiration behind their names.

But are these really dire wolves or just genetically modified grey wolves? That “grey” area is up for interpretation.

While Stanford led the genetic effort, biotech startup Colossal Biosciences played a pivotal role in bringing the project to life. Known for its mission to resurrect the woolly mammoth, Colossal provided logistical support, funding, and proprietary gene-editing tools that accelerated the dire wolf program.

Colossal’s involvement also sparked public curiosity, thanks in part to its high-profile partnerships and unapologetically bold marketing. I mean, just take a look at the company’s website. It’s hard to decide whether it’s legit or a carefully crafted sci-fi movie promo.

CRISPR to the Rescue

Using CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology, the team introduced precise genetic edits into embryos of modern wolf relatives, effectively recreating dire wolf traits. After several attempts, the first litter of dire wolves was successfully born last fall in a controlled facility in Montana.

These animals are designed to thrive in rugged, challenging environments. The project’s next step involves assessing their viability in protected wilderness areas.

Dire wolves, once dominant across North America, were notably larger and sturdier than today’s wolves, capable of taking down massive prey such as bison and giant sloths. Their reintroduction could radically reshape modern ecosystems, presenting both exciting opportunities and ecological challenges.

The project has sparked vigorous debate within the conservation community. Supporters view it as a monumental achievement in species restoration, while skeptics caution about potential risks to existing wildlife.

Are they actually dire wolves?

Controversy has arisen regarding the authenticity of these revived animals. Critics argue that despite genetic editing, these creatures may simply be genetically modified modern wolves rather than genuine dire wolves.

Scientists at Colossal emphasize the precision of their genetic reconstruction and the clear phenotypic distinctions between these animals and contemporary wolves.

For my part — I dunno.

As someone who spent a lot of time in college bent over a microscope, I’m torn. I genuinely geek out over the advances in genome sequencing. I also scream at the movie screen when people say, “It’s perfectly safe.”

I’m caught somewhere between awe and existential dread. On one hand, this is science doing precisely what science dreams of: resurrecting legends. On the other hand, I’ve seen every film that starts this way, and spoiler alert, it rarely ends with a happy woodland ecosystem or a fun amusement park ride in a Jeep.

We already have a hard enough time managing and conserving the wildlife that exists naturally on this planet as it is. Do we really need to meddle with introducing super wolves? What’s the gain? We can’t even decide what to do with the wolves we already have.

But here’s hoping our real-life reboot has fewer velociraptor vibes and more mutual coexistence. In any case, maybe keep an extra eye on your livestock moving forward and double-check to make sure your electric fences are working.

This article first appeared on GearJunkie.

When you think of dangerous animal encounters and surfing, you immediately think of sharks. But something completely unexpected attacked RJ LaMendola when he was surfing off Oxnard, California. Around 140 meters from shore, a sea lion chased him down and bit him.

Showing highly erratic behavior, the animal charged at him with alarming speed, mouth agape, and eyes locked onto him. Despite his efforts to evade the deranged sea lion, it bit him on the left buttock, dragging him off his surfboard and into the water. LaMendola managed to fend off the attack and paddle back to shore, where he sought medical attention.

Posting about the incident on Facebook, LaMedola said, “It started as an ordinary session…The ocean was calm, the rhythm of the swells familiar — until, out of nowhere, a sea lion erupted from the water, hurtling toward me at full speed…My heart lurched as I instinctively yanked my board to the side, paddling frantically to evade it as it barrelled forward, intent on crashing into me.”

Continued the attack

Even after the sea lion bit him and wrenched him from his board, it continued to pursue him as he tried to get back to shore.

“Its expression was feral, almost demonic, devoid of the curiosity or playfulness I’d always associated with sea lions,” he recalled.

Back on land, LaMendola drove himself to the hospital where the bite was treated. It should heal fully, but LaMendola is still shaken and concerned about getting back into the water. He contacted local wildlife authorities to report the incident. The attack comes amidst a growing number of incidents involving sea lions and dolphins in Santa Barbara and Ventura County. It highlights a growing environmental crisis along the California coast.

Sea lions and other marine mammals are displaying unprecedented aggression due to domoic acid poisoning. Harmful algal blooms flourishing along the coastline release a neurotoxin called Pseudo-nitzschia. The toxin accumulates in fish like anchovies and sardines, which are primary food sources for sea lions and dolphins. When these marine mammals chow down on the contaminated fish, they take in the toxin, which affects their brains and leads to seizures, disorientation, and aggressive behavior.

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A deadly plague

The current algal bloom has had devastating effects on marine life in Southern California. The Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro is caring for over 140 sick sea lions, with a further 45 at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center and another 15 at SeaWorld San Diego. Wildlife authorities in the area are being inundated with calls about dolphins and sea lions washing up on shore. Though they can treat poisoned sea lions, the same cannot be said for dolphins. Vets have to euthanize the beached cetaceans, as they rarely survive domoic acid poisoning.

These toxic blooms are worsening due to warming oceans and agricultural pollution. In 2023, thousands of marine mammals died, and this year's algal blooms could be even more devastating.

The birds of the Galapagos Islands gave Darwin some of his best evidence for evolution. Now some of those birds have evolved an extreme dislike of all the noise of this increasingly busy tourist destination.

A new study suggests that traffic noise affects the behavior of the Galapagos yellow warbler. The little yellow birds are altering their songs, and the males have become more aggressive. Think of it as the avian version of road rage.

Birdsong is a crucial tool for male warblers to defend territories from rivals. External noises, such as traffic, hamper the effect of their songs. Rather than fend off competitors with their vocal stylings, the little birds resort to physical aggression instead. 

Researchers from Anglia Ruskin University and the Konrad Lorenz Research Center carried out experiments at 38 sites across the islands of Floreana and Santa Cruz. Researchers played recorded bird songs in all those locations, mimicking an intruder. Some songs had accompanying traffic noise, and others did not. The responses varied significantly based on how close the birds lived to the road noise. 

Change of tune

Warblers near roads were aggressive when the combined sounds of rival bird songs and traffic played. They approached the source of the sound, increased their physical displays, and prepared to fight. By comparison, birds in quieter, more remote areas showed far less aggression. Researchers believe this is due to their unfamiliarity with traffic noise.

The warblers also changed their singing because the traffic noise masked their normal birdsong. To counteract this, the clever birds adjusted the frequency of their singing so that their calls were still audible over ambient traffic.

“We have to think about noise pollution even in places like the Galapagos,” co-author Çaglar Akçay told The Guardian. "The results of the study are clear: Human-induced noise pollution is affecting wildlife behavior, even in remote and protected regions like the Galapagos."

Shark researchers at Australia's University of Auckland were surprised recently to see an orange octopus perched atop a mako shark. They sent up their drone and captured a delightful if mystifying video.

'Sharktopus'

The research vessel was near the northern coast of New Zealand, studying shark feeding, when they spotted a large short-fin mako shark just underwater.

The patch of orange on top of its head confused them. Marine scientist Rochelle Constantine initially thought they were seeing a shark entangled in fishing gear. They sent up a drone to look closer, and that's when they realized the orange blob was a living animal.

The Maori octopus is one of the biggest octopuses in the southern hemisphere and can weigh 12 kilograms fully grown. Known for being rather ill-tempered and aggressive, they usually live on the seabed. Mako sharks, meanwhile, prefer shallower waters. The two species shouldn't even have met, yet alone interacted in this peculiar way.

The "sharktopus," as the amused researchers dubbed it, is a previously unrecorded phenomenon. Octopuses are famously intelligent, enough to work cooperatively with other species, and may act as strict leaders of mixed fish-octopus hunting parties. But researchers aren't sure whether the octopus intended to ride on a shark's head.

World's fastest shark

Like many octopus species, the formidable Maori octopus has a paralyzing neurotoxin that it uses to hunt. It can grow up to a meter long and may go after larger animals than itself, grasping with its strong, thick arms.

Not mako shark large, though. Also known as the blue pointer or bonito shark, the shortfin mako can be up to four meters long and 570 kilograms. They are also the world's fastest shark, hitting speeds of up to 50kph. The Maori octopus would have to make full use of its strong arms to hold on for dear life.

The Gulf where they recorded the sharktopus is considered an important shark conservation area. It is the home and breeding ground of many shark species, including the endangered shortfin mako. For Constantine, the encounter is a reminder of the mystery and wonder of the ocean.

Millions of years ago, a group of adventurous iguanas did something no one expected. They crossed the Pacific Ocean from the Americas to the islands of Fiji on giant rafts of vegetation.

The iguanas in Fiji and Tonga have always been an evolutionary puzzle. Iguanas are native to the Americas and the Caribbean, but somehow millions of years ago, a small group of them made it all the way to Fiji. There was never land bridge between the two distant places. So how on Earth did they get there?

Evolutionary biologist Simon Scarpetta of the University of San Francisco and his colleagues think they have solved the mystery. They believe the reptiles caught a lift across the ocean on a platform of trees, plants, or debris. These rafts occasionally break off from coastlines and drift out to sea as floating islands. Animals on them may wind up in new and unexpected destinations. In the case of the Fijian iguanas, researchers believe they made a record-breaking trip by drifting over 8,000km across the Pacific Ocean.

“You could imagine some kind of cyclone knocking over trees where there were a bunch of iguanas and maybe their eggs, and then they caught the ocean currents and rafted over," Scarpetta told The New York Times. 

Masters of survival

It is quite rare for vertebrates to survive such trips. But iguanas can go weeks without food or fresh water, making them well-suited for long voyages of deprivation. They have been seen rafting before, but their journeys have never been this long. In 1995, a group of about 15 iguanas were spotted hitching a ride 320km between Caribbean islands aboard hurricane debris. The team thinks their slow metabolism and rainwater allowed them to survive the incredibly long journey to Fiji. 

There have long been two hypotheses about these out-of-place reptiles. First, that they rafted over from the Americas; and second, that a now-extinct ancestor drifted over from Asia or Australia.

Scarpetta and his team studied the evolutionary history of over 200 species of iguanas and lizards. The four species in Fiji are most closely related to the desert iguanas of Mexico and the American Southwest. That is clearly where they came from, although the timing of their great voyage remains uncertain.

"This suggests that as soon as land appeared where Fiji now resides, these iguanas may have colonized it," Scarpetta said. "Regardless of the actual timing of dispersal, the event itself was spectacular."

Hummingbirds are famously the smallest birds in the world, but they are also surprisingly aggressive with each other. Because they are so territorial, you would never think of them as living amicably in colonies. Yet one unusual species in Ecuador is nesting in colonies in the High Andes.

When ornithologist Gustavo Cañas-Valle stumbled upon this fraternization among the Chimborazo Hillstar hummingbirds, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“It was mind-boggling," he said in a statement. "Finding them nesting in the same location was amazing. Then I realized that males and non-reproductive females were also roosting in the same space as reproductive females." That, he said, was even stranger.

Hummingbirds are especially territorial during feeding and nesting. Females typically nest alone, while males ferociously defend their territories, sometimes to the point of fatal confrontations. The discovery of these hummingbirds that are so chummy with each other suggests that they have adapted because of environmental pressures.

Not like penguins

“Hummingbirds are not a species like penguins where you see hundreds of them together,” co-author Juan Bouzat explained. "These are hummingbirds that live in the High Andes, above 10,000 feet, in a very, very harsh environment above the tree line."

Cañas-Valle identified 23 adult birds and four chicks nesting and roosting within a single cave. This particular cave sits over 3,600m above sea level. Nearby vegetation is almost nonexistent, shelter is sparse, and temperatures at that altitude can be frigid despite its location on the equator.

Cañas-Valle and Bouzat wanted to determine whether this sociability was solely due to the harsh conditions and a lack of nesting sites or if it also occurred elsewhere.

The research duo scoured the area, identifying several places where solitary nesting would be possible. While some were in use, a large proportion were not. Instead, 80% of the active nests they found were within colonies. The study suggests that the birds prefer to live together rather than were forced to.

Bird colonies usually exist because the individuals benefit from living together.

“Somehow, they get a benefit...from the social group,” said Bouzat.

Exchanging information?

What that benefit is remains up for debate. Cañas-Valle regularly saw hummingbirds leaving and returning to the cave together. He speculates that the members of the colony may be exchanging information about the location of food and mates.

The situation is so unusual for hummingbirds that some experts question whether the birds are actually showing colonial behavior. Cañas-Valle and Bouzat understand the skepticism. Cañas-Valle joked that it took years just to convince his colleague.

“It took me probably two years for Juan to say, ‘Well, Gustavo, you convinced me. We can call this gathering of nests a colony from now on,’” he said. “I was thinking,’ Finally.’ That was a priceless moment.”

Disease tops nobody's list of Antarctic dangers. "The great advantage of this place is that one never gets ill," said Robert Falcon Scott. His contemporary, Douglas Mawson, even suggested that the icy continent would be an ideal place for tuberculosis sufferers to recover due to the lack of germs.

A lot can change in a hundred years.

Deadly new strain

It's been over five years since a new, deadly strain of Avian flu, called HPAI H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, began decimating global bird populations. There have been significant outbreaks in the UK, Europe, South Africa, and the Americas. The disease targets not only birds but also pinnipeds like seals, walruses, and sea lions. Last year, it finally landed on the Antarctic Peninsula.

But scientists could do nothing, not even monitor the situation. During the long, black winter, they were unable to study the progress of the disease. As soon as conditions allowed, a research team about the Australis crossed the Drake Passage into Antarctic waters. They were led by Spanish virologist Antonio Alcamí, who had identified the first case a year earlier.

The ship, equipped with a state-of-the-art lab, visited dozens of sites along the peninsula's coast and in the Weddell Sea. What they found wasn't encouraging.

Widespread infection

In total, they collected and tested 846 samples, and 188 tested positive for H5N1. The infected animals were from nine bird and four seal species. The animals they tested had a high viral load, making them highly infectious to other animals around them. Carcasses, especially, are a vector, and because of this the skua, a carrion-bird, has been especially hard hit.

The disease has spread geographically, too. The virus was present in 24 out of 27 sites they visited, ranging down the arm of the peninsula and across various Antarctic and subantarctic islands, including South Georgia. The older infections were on the north side of the peninsula, where visitors observed lower populations, especially of the skuas. On the south side, the outbreak is more recent, and visitors can see dead and dying seabirds.

No infections have been confirmed on the Antarctic continent beyond the peninsula, but that doesn't mean H5N1 isn't there. Researchers have already observed unusual mortality among bird populations further east along the Princess Astrid Coast.

Along with the skua, crab-eater seals have been particularly affected by recent outbreaks. On Joinville island, where crab-eaters are common, the local population was devastated.

What about penguins?

One animal that hasn't been dying off is penguins. Both Adelie and Gentoo penguins have tested positive for the virus, but many infected individuals appear healthy. The virus is so thick in the air at their colonies that the researchers detected it using an air pump.

There were some suspicious penguin die-offs last year, which researchers think may have given the surviving birds immunity.

This is good news for penguins but presents a substantial risk to human visitors. Avian flu can infect humans who come in contact with infected birds. Of all Antarctic birds, the cute and friendly penguin is most likely to approach, or be approached, by humans.

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) established the Antarctic Wildlife Health Network database to monitor the spread. According to SCAR President Yeadong Kim, they are "deeply concerned with the evolving situation" in Antarctica.

With the fall of Antarctica, Australia is now the only uninfected continent.

Perched 44 meters up in a Jeffrey pine tree in California, two bald eagles have become the stars of a live-streamed saga. Earlier this week, the pair -- nicknamed Jackie and Shadow -- became new parents to two tiny eaglets while thousands of people tuned in to watch.

The non-profit Friends of Big Bear Valley (FBBV) installed high-definition cameras near the eagles' nest to give an unfiltered view into their world. Positioned discreetly to avoid any disturbance, these cameras operate around the clock.

Jackie and Shadow's journey has been anything but smooth. In previous years, viewers have watched ravens scavenge their eggs and harsh weather conditions thwart their breeding efforts. In both 2023 and 2024, Jackie laid eggs but they didn't hatch. Despite these setbacks, the pair rebuilds their nest for each breeding season, and every year, more viewers tune in.

Jackie has laid three eggs for the second year in a row, shocking experts.

“I’m very excited and a little bit surprised,” Sandy Steers, executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley, told the Los Angeles Times. "Last year, it happened for the first time, and it’s so rare to have her lay three eggs again."

Since early March, viewers have waited impatiently to see if any of the eggs will hatch. In general, only 50% of bald eagle eggs hatch. This is often due to the high altitude, low oxygen, and cold temperatures. This year, Jackie and Shadow beat the odds.

Cracks appear

Cracks started to appear in one of the eggs on March 2. Although it's been three years since her last chick, Jackie immediately knew what was happening.

“Jackie was obviously feeling the movement underneath her as she kept looking down and standing up to roll the eggs much more than usual," said the FBBV in a statement. "Shadow happily got a turn on the eggs to give Jackie a morning break.”

The first eaglet emerged on March 3, and the second poked its head out through the eggshell on March 4. The live stream captured these moments in real time, allowing thousands of viewers to share the joy.

In an unbelievable turn of events, cracks started showing on the third egg on March 6. Hatching is not the quick process most imagine it to be. It can take a few days for a hatchling to fully make it out of the shell. Everyone is now waiting with bated breath to see if the third eaglet will hatch.

Next time you’re thinking about pond swimming, look for signs of beavers. A new study shows that these industrious rodents improve water quality, making wild swimming safer. 

Among nature’s best engineers, beavers build dams that slow the flow of water and create small pools. These dams act as natural filters. They trap pollutants and keep harmful agricultural runoff out of our waterways. Stillwater pools allow sediment and pollutants to settle rather than flow downstream, significantly reducing harmful chemicals in the water. 

"These ponds act as natural traps for pollutants and silt, especially when muddy or contaminated water flows in from upstream," co-author Nigel Willby told The Times. "[This] benefits downstream ecosystems."

The University of Stirling study found that water passing through areas inhabited by beavers had fewer pollutants compared to those without. Their dams cut pollution by up to 95%. This is particularly good news for wild swimmers, who risk infections and illnesses when dipping into contaminated water. 

A cheap and simple solution

Agricultural pollution is an ongoing issue across the UK. Pesticides, fertilizers, and sewage often pour into rivers, destroying many once-popular wild swimming spots. Beavers might be the most cost-effective solution to this issue. Their dams require no maintenance and work around the clock. The reintroduction of beavers in certain areas has already shown very promising results.

Fishing enthusiasts also benefit from their presence since cleaner water means healthier fish populations. Often, excessive nutrients from agricultural runoff cause algal blooms on the surface of the water. This blocks the sunlight from aquatic plants, depleting the oxygen in the water and eventually suffocating underwater life. 

Many conservationists are arguing for reintroducing beavers to more rivers and lakes. Some landowners worry that the dams may cause local flooding, but the overall benefits outweigh the drawbacks. 

Coyotes will scavenge from bins, hunt small vertebrates, and chow down on pretty much anything. But now we can add something new to their list of favorite meals. For the first time, scientists have captured footage of coyotes hunting harbor seals.

We know that land carnivores hunt marine mammals. It happens on coastlines around the world. On Canada's Ellesmere Island, arctic wolves occasionally prowl cracks in the sea ice, looking for sunbathing seals. But little is known about how common such interactions are.

In the last few years, Sarah Grimes, co-author of the new study, had noticed seal-pup carcasses on MacKerricher State Beach in California. Weirdly, they had all been dragged to almost the exact same spot and then eaten. What predator was devouring the pups was a mystery. Black bears, bobcats, mountain lions, and coyotes all stalk the region. Based on nearby tracks and droppings, Grimes had suspected coyotes but never had any proof.

Caught on camera

Then in 2023-24, the motion-trigger cameras recorded coyotes dragging the seals away from the beach on three separate occasions.

Since the new study, other researchers have come forward with photos of coyotes hunting seal pups elsewhere in California, as well as in Washington State and Massachusetts.

These are not simply opportunistic attacks. Most of the time, the coyotes start by eating the brain, tearing off the baby seals' heads to get to it. Between 2016 and 2023 scientists discovered the remains of over 50 pups that had been dragged away from the rookery on MacKerricher State Beach to nearby dunes and eaten this way.

Historically, seals in the area raised their pups on the islands. As the numbers of wolves and grizzlies fell in California in modern times, some seals moved to the mainland. In recent years, more seals are choosing rocky, hard-to-reach areas rather than more accessible beaches. It seems that the presence of land predators influences where seals raise their young.

The team is now interested in seeing if this coyote behavior also occurs at other seal rookeries.

Frankie Gerraty, lead author of the study, has long studied coyotes and worries this will only put people off coyotes even more.

“Coyotes have a PR problem,” he says. “A lot of people do not like coyotes, but everybody loves baby seals.”

A young Venezuelan packrafter briefly became a modern-day Jonah and Pinocchio when he found himself inside the mouth of a humpback whale. The whale released Adrian Simancas unharmed, and his father, Dall Simancas, caught the entire bizarre incident on video.

Adrian Simancas, 23, and his father Dall, 49, were packrafting through the Strait of Magellan between Tierra del Fuego and mainland South America. Dall, who’d been filming the waves, had his camera trained on his son when two massive jaws emerged from the water and closed around the little yellow inflatable and its lone passenger.

For a moment, the choppy waters are empty, with man, beast, and boat submerged beneath the waves. Then, Adrian reemerges, followed by the packraft, which he quickly swims for. A massive grey, finned back crests briefly beside him and then is gone.

Amazed at his lucky escape, Adrian later described his experience. The inside of the whale’s mouth, he said, was slimy against his face, and all he saw was dark blue and white. He thought he was going to die -- and then he was on the surface again, pulled up by his life vest.

Not technically swallowed

Despite thousands of years of mythology, it is not actually possible for a person to find themselves in the stomach of a whale.

"Ultimately, the whale spit out the kayak because it was physically impossible to swallow," said Brazilian conservationist Roched Jacobson Seba.

Despite their massive size, whales have very narrow throats, about the width of a human fist. They can stretch to be a bit larger, up to about 38cm, but a boat and its passenger are quite beyond their capabilities.

Only one whale can theoretically swallow a human. The sperm whale has sharp teeth and feeds on large squids and fish. This means it has a large enough esophagus to gulp down a human. Encounters with them are much rarer, though, and sperm whales have not swallowed any humans except in fiction. The leviathan in Moby Dick that nipped off Captain Ahab's leg was a sperm whale.

Being engulfed in the massive mouth of a humpback, however, is not off the table, as Simancas learned. He isn’t the first person to spend time in the slimy maw of a whale. In 2021, a humpback 'swallowed' lobster diver Michael Packard off Cape Cod. Like Simancas, he was soon spat back out. Californian kayakers in 2020 and a tour operator off South Africa’s Port Elizabeth in 2019 reported similar incidents. This even once happened to a confused harbor seal.

Probably unintentional

Researchers have weighed in on these engulfing incidents. They insist that the whales did not intend to have people in their mouths any more than the people intended to be there.

As baleen whales, humpbacks take in huge gulps of seawater. Then they use the bristles in their mouths to filter for plankton, shrimp, and small fish. This is what they are after, and the rest, like paddlers, they soundly reject. When you are as big as a whale and maybe not paying attention, you can accidentally gulp down Adrian Simancas and his packraft along with your seawater and shrimps.

Accidents like these are why whale researchers warn people not to use silent craft, like kayaks and paddleboards, in waters where whales are active. Whale-watching boats keep their engines on at all times to alert the whales to their presence.

Adrian Simancas and his father don’t hold a grudge against the whale. At first, terrified, Adrian thought an orca was eating him. However, after he got free, he realized that the whale was probably “just curious.” Father and son said they plan to get back in the water soon, despite the engulfing.

There is good news for anyone afraid of sharks. Last year, there were only 47 unprovoked shark attacks, a 28-year low. The annual average over the last decade has been 70 a year.

The Florida Museum of Natural History pulls together the International Shark Attack File (ISAF) annually. This is perhaps not surprising since Florida has the highest number of unprovoked bites worldwide. Of the 47 attacks, 14 occurred in the Sunshine State. Eight of those were from a single county, Volusia, in the northeast part of the state.

Florida has more shark attacks per year than the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth countries on the list combined. This is likely due to the number of juvenile sharks in the area. It is also a known breeding ground for blacktip sharks.

“Some years see an increase in bites, followed by periods of decline in what appears to be a random cycle," ISAF’s Joe Miguez told CNN. "Because of this natural variability, we cannot attribute this year’s decline to any single cause.”

For an attack to make the list, the victims must not have initiated any contact with the animals. This includes situations where they are actually trying to help the sharks, such as disentangling them from fishing nets.

Only four fatalities

Swimmers and waders were the victims of half of all shark attacks in 2024. Surfers came next at 34%, and then snorkelers and free divers at 8%.

Of the 47 bites, only four were fatal. Actor Tamayo Perry died surfing in Hawaii, and three tourist fatalities occurred in Egypt, the Maldives, and international waters near the Western Sahara.

What is always clear from this yearly data is that the risk of being bitten by a shark is almost zero. The odds sit at about one in 28 million. You are more likely to be killed by lightning.

“The fact that numbers are even lower than last year reinforces the idea that humans aren’t natural prey or even likely targets for sharks,” said Neil Hammerschlag of the Shark Research Foundation.

The ISAF's top tips for staying safe include avoiding going into the ocean at night, dawn, or dusk. Sharks are harder to see and more likely to be feeding. You should also remove jewelry, which can resemble fish scales when light reflects off them.

While filming the BBC Winterwatch television series in Northern Ireland, the crew discovered a dead body.

It was a spider’s dead body, which is not nearly as alarming as other types of corpses, but it nevertheless presented a rather creepy mystery.

The spider was an orb-weaving cave spider, Metellina merianae, found deceased on the ceiling of an abandoned Victorian gunpowder store. A strange location for the reclusive, cave-dwelling spider, but even stranger was the condition of the body.

A crystal-like whitish growth entirely covered the victim's body, with only the legs sticking out from the pale and jagged fungal mass. Intrigued, the crew photographed the fungus and the spider it had consumed.

They sent the photos and the specimen to Dr. Harry Evans, an expert in fungi. He received the body, which had been carefully air dried in a sterile plastic tube, and set to examining it. A new article reveals the results of his investigation: They had found a new fungi species, one that infected and took over the bodies of spiders.

An accidental Victorian import?

Genetic analysis backed up Dr. Evans’ initial observations. His colleague at the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, microbiologist Dr. Alan Buddie, sequenced the DNA of the new fungus. He confirmed that it was a unique species of the genus Gibellula and sketched out an evolutionary tree.

The phylogenetic tree placed it in the same family as two species of fungus from Asia. leading to speculation about its origin.  Paul Stewart, Manager of Castle Espie, where the gunpowder store is located, proposed that it had come from Asia. During the 19th century, the British Isles engaged in a brisk trade with Asian markets. Could this fungus have entered Ireland over a century ago on gunpowder packaging and flourished in the dark, damp storeroom?

They needed more samples. An Irish caving specialist named Tim Fogg entered two different cave systems in Northern Ireland armed with delicate forceps and sterile collection tubes. He carefully noted the spiders’ locations and then sent them on to researchers. The fungus was present, which confirmed that it had not been imported in the 19th century but had been in Ireland for far longer than that.

Gibellula attenboroughii

At first, the new fungus was humorously known as Gibellula Bangbangus, in honor of the gunpowder storeroom. But ultimately, it received a new name, Gibellula attenboroughii, after legendary BBC presenter Sir David Attenborough. Without his work, the nature program that found the fungus would likely never have existed.

This is not the first species named after David Attenborough. Previous examples include a Peruvian frog, a long-beaked echidna, an Indonesian weevil, and a tiny marsupial from Australia’s early Miocene.

The fungus is certainly novel in other ways, however. It doesn’t just grow on its hosts, the cave-dwelling Irish orb-weaver, and its close relatives. It also controls them. Once infected, the spiders were swallowed up by a mass of fungus, growing out in thin tendrils and spikes. The fungus then changed the behavior of the hosts in order to propagate itself.

Usually a reclusive creature hiding in dark corners and waiting for prey, the cave spiders were forced to move, minds and bodies overcome by the invader. They were driven out into the open and allowed to die. The fungus then began releasing spores into the open air.

More zombifying fungi out there

The spiders were found dead on open ceilings and cave walls and even, perhaps, on a patch of moss beside a Welsh lake. A dead Metellina merianae spider turned up on the shore of Lake Vyrnwy in Wales in 2016, covered in fungus and exposed to the open air. Researchers now believe this, too, was Gibellula attenboroughii. 

The spider fungus of the British Isles, the new study argues, has been long neglected. This new discovery shows that more work is needed to understand the variety and extent of the fungal infections in British and Irish spider populations. Spiders are key to the ecosystem, and so their health is vitally important. Especially since more undiscovered Gibellula species likely exist.

Perhaps the most intriguing question to pursue, however, is how the fungus works. The fungal infection forces the spiders out into the open, but it isn’t clear how it does so. The infamous cordyceps fungus, which infects and controls Amazonian ants, works by taking control of the body, leaving the mind terrifyingly unaltered. Is this what is happening to scores of shy Irish orb-weavers? Is the fungus triggering hormonal changes that alter behavior?

We are left with unknowns. How are the spiders being controlled? Perhaps more importantly, just how widespread are these understudied arachnid fungi? For now, we can only be grateful not to be orb-weaving cave spiders.

Two thousand kilometers from the southern tip of South America sits the island of South Georgia, a Yosemite-sized piece of polar tundra boasting thriving communities of king penguins, elephant seals, and fur seals. Alongside this charismatic fauna, native birds like the South Georgia pintail duck and Antarctica's only songbird, the South Georgia pipit, coexist. And here, in 2021, Belgian nature photographer Yves Adams caught a striking yellow-gold penguin on camera.

Where normal penguins had black feathers, this one had neon yellow. The effect was probably caused by leucism, a genetic mutation that results in depigmentation. Because the penguin was never studied closely, though, it could also have been albino.

Mission yellow penguin

Yves Adams returned to South Georgia this year as an expedition guide, hoping to find his golden penguin once more. It was nowhere to be found.

But his expedition leader tipped him off to something even more extraordinary, Adams told IFLScience. Adams kept his eyes open, and his patience was eventually rewarded. In a flock of its peers stood a jet-black king penguin.

Besides the video above, Adams snapped a set of glamor shots of the penguin: standing solo, frolicking in the snow, and inspecting the ground with neck-elongating intensity.

Adam's black penguin is striking, but beyond that, it's also amazingly rare. In 2019, a National Geographic photographer snapped a shot of another black king penguin, this one with splashes of white on his wing. Partial melanism, when animals are mostly but not entirely black, is more common than complete melanism. Even for the 2019 penguin, an ornithologist made the journalist who contacted him swear an oath that the black penguin was real.

But Adams' new penguin isn't mostly black -- it's entirely black.

#blackoutpenguin

Up close, Adams said, the penguin's belly feathers have a greenish tint. He seemed healthy and fit in with the rest of the flock.

On Instagram, he wrote, "This one is for the penguin addicts!" In case the penguin addicts needed some help from the algorithm, he tagged the photos #gothicpenguin, #formalpenguin, and #blackoutpenguin.

The prize for his best hashtag, though, stays with his original golden penguin: #yellowpenguinlove. Well, just look at it -- it's yellow, and hard not to love.