Nature & Animals

Creatures stranger than fiction.

7 rabbit holes

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  ParasitesThe fungus that turns ants into zombiesAn ant leaves its colony, climbs to a very particular height, bites into a leaf and never lets go. A stalk grows out of its head. This is Ophiocordyceps, and it is very real.4 stages · 56 min
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  Farm curiositiesWhy farmers feed magnets to cowsCows eat fast and don’t chew carefully, so they sometimes swallow nails, wire and other bits of metal with their feed. The metal can pierce the stomach wall and even reach the heart. The fix is strange but simple: the cow swallows a magnet, which stays in its stomach for life.2 stages · 16 min
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  ParasitesThe parasite that replaces a tongueA small crustacean swims into a fish’s gills, crawls into its mouth and starves its tongue of blood until it falls off. Then it clamps onto the stump and takes the tongue’s place. The fish goes on eating, using the parasite as its tongue.2 stages · 9 min
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  Biology puzzlesWhy elephants rarely get cancerEvery cell that divides can turn cancerous. An elephant has about a hundred times more cells than you, so it should get cancer far more often. It doesn’t. Neither do whales. This puzzle is called Peto’s paradox.2 stages · 12 min
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  OceanThe loneliest whale in the worldSince 1989, underwater microphones in the North Pacific have picked up the call of a single whale singing at 52 hertz, a pitch no other known whale uses. It travels alone and has never been seen. Nobody knows what species it is.3 stages · 31 min
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  ExtremophilesTardigrades, the toughest animals on EarthThey are half a millimetre long, have eight stubby legs and live in moss. Dried out, they can survive extreme heat and cold, huge doses of radiation and even the vacuum of space. Then a drop of water brings them back to life.3 stages · 22 min
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  Animal mindsThe alien intelligence of the octopusAn octopus can open jars, escape from tanks and recognise individual people. Most of its neurons sit not in its head but in its eight arms. It evolved intelligence on a completely different branch of life from ours, which makes it the closest thing to meeting an alien mind.2 stages · 19 min