Surfing penguins, fishing leopards and rarely seen sharks, this year has produced some pretty wild videos. We're taking a trip down memory lane and revisiting some of 2024's wildest clips. Strap in ...

Cat-fishin' leopard

African sharptooth catfish are hardy survivors, but even these resilient fish are vulnerable during the dry season. In the winter months, many of the waterholes and pans in South Africa's Greater Kruger National Park begin to dry up leaving masses of catfish thrashing about in what little water remains in the shrinking pools. For opportunistic predators like leopards, a mass of catfish writhing in a pool of "mud soup" presents an opportunity too good to pass up.

monster from the depths

The megamouth shark – a sluggish but arresting-looking filter-feeder that basically puts the head of a majorly oversized frog on the body of a mackerel shark – only emerged on the scientific radar in 1976. That's an astonishingly late date for such a big animal, thought to reach at least five metres in length and possibly more. Since then, fewer than 300 megamouths have been documented, most of them dead, stranded or net-tangled specimens – which makes this footage, taken in Taiwan on June 7, 2024, so remarkable. The clip was captured by shark biologist and documentary filmmaker Bee Smith who spotted not not one, not two, but three megamouths while on a recent expedition.

Surfin' Bird

This clip, captured earlier this year and shared on multiple platforms to the delight of thousands, shows a young penguin confidently clambering onto the back of a bodyboarder where it perched for a while before finding its way onto a board belonging to Aden Kleve, the owner of a Bodyboard South Africa, a company that specialises in teaching bodyboarding lessons. A pointing, smiling Kieve can be seen steadying the board while the penguin bobs up and down over some gentle waves. 

Mega Mammal Interaction

On the parched, white-sand expanses of Namibia's Etosha National Park, waterholes are often where the bulk of the action takes place. Water-dependent species like elephants and rhinos congregate around the life-giving pools sometimes jostling for prime position. All that activity can spark some unusual interactions. While on a recent safari, a group of tourists encountered something truly unexpected at one of Etosha's waterholes: a lion/rhino/elephant showdown that raises more than a few questions. The incident, which was filmed by Kim Hathaway and uploaded to the Latest Sightings YouTube channel earlier this year, took place at the Aus waterhole in the southwest of the park. We took a deep dive into what might be going on in an article published at the time

GOLF COURSE CARCASS KERFUFFLE

A noisy showdown between lions, hyenas and a crocodile is hardly the sort of thing golfers expect to encounter on the links, but on the Skukuza Golf Course in the heart of South Africa's Kruger National Park, wild sightings are pretty much par for the course.

Croc vs Mamba

South Africa's Kruger National Park has played host to all manner of dramatic predator/prey interactions over the years – many of which have been caught on camera. Cobras brawling with monitor lizards, porcupines fending off leopards, or impalas clashing with wild dogs, hippos and crocs – tourists to the park have witnessed all manner of showdowns. Add to that list a recent, high-ranking sighting that's just about the equivalent of a celebrity boxing match: a clash between Africa's biggest reptile and the continent's largest venomous snake.

Egg-carrying Squid

Okay, so this one was filmed a while back, but it surfaced recently when researchers realised that they may have recorded something extra special. Back in 2015, an MBARI research team working off Mexico's Gulf of California steered their remotely operated vehicle (known as Doc Ricketts) through the murky depths hoping to glean more info about the biology and distribution of the area's deep-sea inhabitants. At a depth of 2,566 metres, the team spotted a squid drifting through the gloom, a cluster of eggs cradled in its arms. A decade or so later, researchers suspect the egg-carrying squid is a brand new species.

Lions vs Dogs

Imagine checking your security-camera footage and seeing this? The nighttime CCTV video, captured August 11, comes from the village of Thordi in the western Indian state of Gujarat, home to the world’s only remaining wild Asiatic lions. The footage shows two male lions squabble with a pair of dogs on the other side of a cowshed gate, which the big cats swipe and bash with impressive force.

Black Penguin

Picture this: You’re a photographer disembarking onto the rocky shores of Saint Andrews Bay on the windswept island of South Georgia. Amid a waddle of 500,000 tuxedo-clad king penguins, one stands out like a fashion rebel on a monochrome runway. When Belgian wildlife photographer and seasoned expedition leader Yves Adams stepped ashore on a recent tour of the island, he was lucky to have his camera close at hand to capture photographs of an ultra-rare all-black king penguin.

Eagle-Eating leopard

Ever the opportunists, leopards will sink their claws into just about anything that lingers too long. Still, a bateleur – a large eagle native to the open savannahs of sub-Saharan Africa – is an unusual catch even for these famously unfussy eaters. Recently released footage from the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, a semi-desert stretch of protected land that straddles the borders between South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, shows a determined leopard stalking and catching an adult bateleur.