It may come as something of a surprise, then, to learn that rattlesnakes—majorly important predators of rodents, birds, and other small fare—do land on a few menus themselves (and not just those of humankind). Virginia opossums hunt rattlesnakes, for example. So do roadrunners—sometimes colloquially called "snake killers"—and kingsnakes, constricting colubrids that are dedicated killers of their own kin.

Another enthusiastic rattler-eater? The American badger, as videos lately captured at a rattlesnake den in Colorado by the group Project RattleCam demonstrate. Last month, a badger—one of several that were making frequent visits to the snakeden—was filmed taking out an adult rattlesnake:

And in November 2025, the Project RattleCam livestream revealed a badger making short work of a baby rattler it caught above ground:

While they're not opposed to consuming plant matter here and there, American badgers are mainly carnivorous—significantly more so than the European badgers they superficially resemble (but which are only distant mustelid cousins). With their oversized front claws and squat bodies, they're superstar diggers, and other fossorial critters are their primary fodder. Burrowing rodents especially—including prairie dogs, pocket gophers, and voles—serve as dietary mainstays. But badgers will happily scarf on invertebrates, ground-nesting birds, lizards, and—you got it—snakes of all descriptions.

A partnership between California Polytechnic State University, Central Coast Snake Services, and Dickinson College, Project RattleCam stages livestream cameras at rattlesnake dens not only in Colorado but also California and Pennsylvania. It's part of a research effort, but also a form of outreach: encouraging community science on the part of livestream viewers as well as increased awareness of and appreciation for a creature that's widely, and unjustly, feared.

The den in Colorado is occupied by prairie rattlesnakes, a very widespread, midsized rattler species of western North America with a distribution roughly mapping out the Great Plains. Rattlesnake dens function as "hibernacula" in colder climates: snug wintertime hideyholes, occupied communally (and often shared with other species of snakes, in fact). They're also summertime maternal shelters and rookeries for gravid females.

It's worth emphasizing that the badger/rattlesnake relationship isn't solely a one-way predatory deal. American badgers excavate and maintain numerous burrows within their home range, from transient summertime snooze-zones to more consistent natal and winter dens. Abandoned badger holes become welcome underground habitat for plenty of other critters, rattlesnakes included.

But back to the predatory thing: American badgers aren't the only mustelids that'll chow down on serpents. Likely the best-known snake-eater of the weasel clan—and surely the most 'meme-fied' mustelid—is the honey badger, or ratel, of Africa and parts of southwestern and southern Asia. The only representative of its genus (like the American badger), the honey badger is the dictionary-opposite of a picky eater, and among the mass of food items it'll omnivorously inhale are numerous kinds of scaly slitherers. Those include some very formidable ones, such as black mambas, Cape cobras, and African rock pythons. (For the ultimate example of turning the tables on an antagonist—and, hey, a helpful reminder to never give up—dig this death-defying ratel's run-in with a rock python.)

Venomous snakes, in fact, may compose up to a quarter of the honey badger's diet in some areas. Studies show the ratel bears some innate venom-resistance: Genetic mutations prevent cobra-venom alphaneurotoxins from binding to receptors on the honey badger's muscle cells, thwarting the otherwise devastating effects of the snakebite. Analogous genetic protection has been identified in a number of other unrelated mammals, including hedgehogs and some mongooses—both of which consume snakes—as well as pigs (which'll also nosh on snakes opportunistically, but maybe evolved the resistance more for self-defense).

In North America, the aforementioned opossum boasts its own molecular protection against the venom of pitvipers, and kingsnakes appear to be resistant to rattlesnake bites as well. Such immunities or partial immunities in snake-hunting mammals hints at an evolutionary arms race that may shape the potency of serpent zootoxins.

It's not clear whether American badgers possess such built-in buffers against snake venom, but they certainly seem to be hardy. In a comment on one of the YouTube videos featured above, Project RattleCam suggested some form of immunity was probable. "It has not been shown in the lab," the group wrote, "but they survive bites readily." Trail-cam footage from Colorado shared by Project RattleCam (but not from its livestream feed) shows a badger gobbling up not one but two full-grown prairie rattlers. When the badger returns to the rattlesnake den for its second course, its face is noticeably puffed up, suggesting it'd been bitten but, to all appearances, is acting rather blasé about it:

A demonstration, perhaps, that the honey badger isn't the only mustelid that "don't care."

Top header image: USFWS Mountain-Prairie
Page image: USFWS Mountain-Prairie

Well, here's some special footage (credited to Janek Joab) captured in April in Estonia, home to roughly a few hundred wolves belonging to Europe’s Baltic population. Shared over the social-media channels of the Voyageurs Wolf Project, a Minnesota, USA-based research program, it shows a dramatic interaction indeed: two wolves vigorously attacking a beaver along a nighttime stream.

Grey wolves and beavers overlap geographically across broad swaths of North America and Eurasia (and once overlapped a lot more), most extensively in northern temperate and boreal zones. Other carnivores will prey on beavers: everything from the red foxes and golden eagles that'll snatch the odd baby beaver to wolverines, pumas, and brown bears capable of dispatching full-grown individuals. These paddle-tailed, web-footed, tree-felling rodents aren't especially easy prey, though.

For one thing, they can seek refuge underwater or within the well-armoured lodges they commonly construct in both existing lakes, wetlands, and sluggish riverways as well as the backwater ponds they themselves form via dams. For another, they're hefty—they may weigh better than 27 kilograms (60 pounds)—and their epic incisors, which drill through bark and wood at an impressive rate, can also be defensive weapons. And they've got their own communal alert system: Famously, they'll thwack their broad, scaly tails on the water's surface ahead of diving to warn other beavers of potential threats.

Another recent non-Minnesota video shared by the Voyageurs Wolf Project demonstrates how hard it is for a smaller wild dog to subdue an adult beaver. That video, courtesy of the Traprock Ridge Land Conservancy in Connecticut, shows an ambitious coyote do its darndest to take down a beaver it comes across onshore in the snow:

Despite a whole lot of tail-tugging, though, the "songdog" comes up empty handed. As the Voyageurs Wolf Project notes in its caption: "Coyotes, unlike wolves, simply do not have the strength and size to routinely kill beavers, especially large adult beavers."

Grey wolves have been documented regularly hunting beavers across many parts of their shared range, from Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta to Belarus, Latvia, and Russia. Much recent research into how (and how much) wolves prey on beavers has gone down in the study area of the Voyageurs Wolf Project: the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem (GVE) of northeastern Minnesota, a heavily timbered and watery wildland on the doorstep of Canada that includes Voyageurs National Park as well as surrounding acreage. Tracking GPS-collared wolves, researchers have found that beavers are a major prey item here, especially in summer; beaver meat has contributed as much as 88% of the May diet of particular wolf packs.

Late spring and early summer represents a peak in wolf predation on beavers in the GVE, as the canids—commonly roving as singletons or in small groups as packs raise litters—target younger beavers dispersing to create new (or resurrect old) beaver ponds. As summer ripens, the seasonal flush of vulnerable white-tailed deer fawns sees many GVE wolves shift their focus away from beavers somewhat. But they resume intensive "beavering" again in late summer and fall, as the rodents spend fair amounts of time out of the water to rustle up food stores for the impending winter.

Beavers are significantly less vulnerable to wolves in the GVE (and many other higher-latitude reaches of the Northern Hemisphere) during the wintertime, on account they're cruising around under the icy roofs that form over their slackwater abodes and huddling within snowed-in lodges. Ungulates are often the go-to wolf nosh during those frosty months, with the timing of fall "ice-up" and spring "ice-out" determining when wolves are doing most of their yearly beaver-hunting. (That said, wolves continue to opportunistically snatch beavers in winter.)

The Greater Voyageurs research shows that wolves employ specialised hunting methods to try for beavers in that main spring-through-fall window. Those strategies are rather "un-wolfish" when one considers the classic running-prey-down mode pack-hunting canids are best known for. Wolves in the GVE often stake out in catlike ambush along beaver hotspots, such as lodges, canals, and feeding trails. Sometimes for a heck of a long time, too: The Voyageurs Wolf Project has documented wolves lying in wait for up to 30 hours at such spots.

Beavers have a keen sense of smell, but not terribly good vision, so wolves mainly position themselves at these stakeouts downwind and close enough to where the buck-toothed beasties come ashore—or waddle along their foraging corridors—that they've got a decent shot of snatching them via just a short burst of speed.

Research out of the GVE suggests wolf predation doesn't significantly impact the overall beaver population, which is ample, but can shape the geography of beaver activity and the significant ecological ripple effects thereof. For example, wolves may squelch the creation of some wetlands by picking off a proportion of the young dispersing beavers questing for new habitat. Given all the effects a beaver dam can have on stream and riparian function—from expanding soggy habitat to slowing flow and modifying water chemistry—this wolf impact has landscape-level implications. But those are landscape-level implications that have been a reality for a long, long time, and are part of the grand choreography of northland ecology.

Top header image: Stefan Rusche/Flickr

The video diary in question comes from wildlife filmmaker Casey Anderson and an arduous dayhike high up in the Absaroka Range of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) in the western United States. Posted last month to his Endless Venture YouTube channel, it documents a notable ursid tradition that, in fact, is about to get back underway over the next couple of months in this Rocky Mountain fastness.

Anderson and cameraman Riley McClaughry observed a whopping 47 grizzlies before noon on one day in August 2025. "That even broke my all-time record, which included one day in Alaska at some of the hottest salmon streams where I saw 46 bears in one day," Anderson told the Wyoming news publication Cowboy State Daily.

And the dozens and dozens of grizzlies captured in Anderson's video were hanging out in a spectacular but austere landscape: barren rockfields and tundra slopes above timberline in the Absarokas, a rugged volcanic range that exceeds 13,000 feet and forms some of the roughest and most alpine scenery in the GYE.

Why were so many grizzly bears congregated in that windswept realm at the top of the world? Well, as tends to be the case with the omnivorous bruin, food was the draw—but food of rather a surprising character. All those grizzlies had mountaineered their way up to the talus in quest of an insect: the army cutworm moth, to be exact.

The army cutworm—also known by the catchall name "miller moth"—pursues a remarkable life history. Found widely in western North America, it comes into the world as a hungry (hungry) caterpillar down in lower elevations, including the vast croplands and rangelands of the Great Plains. The label "cutworm" refers to the larval form's habit of browsing plants—including commercial crops such as wheat and alfalfa—down to the ground.

Those squiggly caterpillars, which have overwintered upon hatching in the preceding fall, undergo metamorphosis in late spring, turning into the adult "miller moth" with a taste not for vegetative matter but for nectar. And those full-grown moths aren't fans of the summer heat that builds over the Plains. Their predilection for colder temperatures and their thirst for the sweet stuff of flowering plants compels army cutworms on an impressive migration, which in the case of Great Plains moths sees them wing hundreds of miles westward—and upslope—to the subalpine and alpine heights of the Rockies.

They seek out particular mountainscapes that deliver the magic mix of phenological window, flowering-plant diversity, and rockland shelter that summering moths require. Often, as in the high Absarokas, these are wind- and sun-exposed westerly and southwesterly slopes that don't accrue a heavy, long-lasting seasonal snowpack and melt out early. Supping on flower nectar at night, the heat-adverse moths clamber into the cool depths of scree and talus—the frost-shattered and gravity-riven gravel and boulder fields occupying much square footage in the high country—to snooze the sun-dazzled day at 10,000-plus-feet away.

As Robert Chaney noted last year for Mountain Journal, radar tracking shows that army cutworms summering in the GYE mountains may be coming from points as distant as Nebraska and the Northwest Territories of Canada.

Many Greater Yellowstone grizzlies—and, indeed, others in the Middle and Northern Rockies—muscle their way up above timberline in midsummer to "greet" these far-traveling bugs in the form of scarfing them down. Scarfing them down by the tens of thousands per day, in fact.

Why such a fuss, on the bears' parts? Well, no documented griz food packs such a caloric punch—close to eight kilocalories per gram—as the fraction-of-an-ounce army cutworm. Feeding among the ground-hugging blooms of the high country and snoozing in the rocks, the moth fattens up, becoming 70 percent or more lipid content. The army cutworm is, in the memorable description of researcher Erik Peterson (via Glacier National Park Conservancy), "bear butter." It's thus a standout among other top-quality, lotta-bang-for-your-buck bear nosh such as stone-pine nuts, acorns, fish, and meat.

Those army cutworm moths are gorging on nectar to fuel late-summer and early-fall flights back down to the lowlands in order to lay eggs. The grizzlies, in turn, are hoovering them up with an eye toward the next winter's big sleep. Indeed, the alpine aggregations of army cutworms in high summer coincides with the opening stretch, for grizzly bears, of hyperphagia: a period of intensified feeding aimed at really packing on the pounds before it's time to retire to dens and nap away (and fast away) the cold, snowy months.

When you consider that the army cutworm is so fat- and protein-rich, so utterly calorie-loaded; that it idylls on particular mountainsides in such dense concentrations; and that it's a heck of a lot easier to subdue than an elk or a bison (both important food sources for Greater Yellowstone grizzlies, but especially in the form of scavenged carrion), it's not surprising that so many bears go mountain-climbing in the summertime.

As the late, venerable grizzly researcher David Mattson explained, the bears most heavily feed on moths in the early morning and the evening, when army cutworms are returning to or embarking from their talus hideaways, respectively. They'll often nap in a daybed during midday and afternoon, when the moths are mainly deep down in the rocks. But, as Anderson's video shows, grizzlies will also go "mothing" into the daytime, employing their massive strength—powered by the shoulder muscles that form their distinctive humps—to lift up cobble and boulders and slurp up aestivating army cutworms.

Studies from both the Greater Yellowstone and Glacier National Park to the north in northwestern Montana show that goodly proportions of the total local grizzly population may spend extended periods of time in the summer slurping moths in very concentrated areas. The energy boost represented by each army cutworm, and the fact that the moths are so abundant within those high-elevation hotspots, help explain why bears gather in dense numbers this time of year, even though nothing short of a human being is so risky to a grizzly bear as another grizzly. That's certainly true of grizzly cubs, yet mother bears with litters rub shoulders with dangerous adult males (boars) among the "moth gardens" above timberline: all focused on inhaling as many of the bear-butter packets as possible, while they're available.

Indeed, while we think of grizzly bears as mainly solitary beasts, a variety of high-quality, concentrated, and seasonally available food resources see them congregating in close quarters. That includes salmon streams in places such as southern Alaska, northwestern British Columbia, and northeastern Russia as well as fruiting berry thickets and the supersized carcasses of beached whales.

Kerry Gunther, Yellowstone National Park's lead bear biologist, told the Union-Bulletin in 2022 that he marveled at the sight of a dozen-ish grizzlies eating moths in close quarters. "Seeing that many bears close together with no conflicts," he said, "they had a hierarchy worked out."

Grizzly bears, like most other ursids, happily eat a variety of insects and other invertebrates, and in fact the army cutworm isn't the only one that'll lure them up into higher elevations. As David Mattson pointed out, large numbers of the now-extinct grasshopper species called the Rocky Mountain locust, infamous for crop-hammering swarms in the U.S. West and Midwest, were sometimes wafted up into the mountains and entombed in snowfields and glaciers. There is more than one "Grasshopper Glacier" in the Rockies (including in the GYE), and historical reports suggest grizzlies likely scavenged—and perhaps still scavenge—melted-out locusts from these icy reservoirs.

There have been concerns for some years now about increasing human use of the high-elevation backcountry some Rocky Mountain grizzlies use in summer to feast on army cutworms. Climbers aiming to "bag" peaks are among the relatively few user groups who've typically been up in these mostly roadless, farflung heights, but there are indications that an increasing share of visitors may be making the journey specifically to see these bear aggregations, spurred on by social-media imagery and other online hype.

In a May 30 interview with Yellowstonian's Todd Wilkinson on this subject, retired longtime head of grizzly recovery for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Chris Servheen said, "Bears at moth feeding sites have a human visitor problem. They are very vulnerable at these sites and the bears using them need solitude, and to be left alone. They have no visual cover and cannot find habitat security when people are there and approaching them. Increasing numbers of people at such sites will displace bears, increase stress levels for the bears that do not immediately run, and drive the most vulnerable bears off these sites."

One way to prevent people from stressing grizzlies seasonally congregating at critical food sources? Close off the area in the question. That's what the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have done in the wilderness area they manage in Montana's Mission Mountains, prohibiting human visitation during the summer moth-munching window in that mountain range (which happens to be one of the first places this grizzly foodway was scientifically documented).

In his video, Anderson, to his credit, does head off any response to it that might suggest Yellowstone grizzlies are somehow overpopulated, and stresses that the great bear—despite its ferocious reputation—isn't out to harm people.

The lofty moth gardens that Greater Yellowstone, Glacier, and some other grizzlies visit each summer might be thought of as sacred ground for bears, representing as they do such a crucial energy source. Given the stakes, they're surely best thought of as a high mountain gathering place for grizzly bears that, for the most part, humans—practicing a kind of etiquette of the wild—ought to leave be during that special window of time.

The shortlisted images were chosen from 60,636 entries from 113 countries and territories, in addition to the 100 winning images announced in October 2025. A judging panel of international experts scrutinised the entries to produce a shortlist that is captivating, enlightening and, in some cases, truly heartbreaking.

“No matter where you are in the world, it’s time to join the jury and vote in the Nuveen People’s Choice Award to select the photograph set for display in our flagship exhibition here at the Natural History Museum," says Dr Douglas Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum, London. "Whether showcasing fascinating behaviour or platforming a powerful story, this year's selection of images is truly exceptional, and we can't wait to see which one will be chosen as the public's favourite!”

You can vote for their favourite image online or via digital screens in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London. Voting closes on Wednesday 18 March 2026.

To view the full collection and vote online, visit the Wildlife Photographer of the Year website.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London

When a grizzly bear attacked a group of fourth- and fifth-graders in western Canada in late November 2025, it sparked more than a rescue effort for the 11 people injured – four with severe injuries. Local authorities began trying to find the specific bear that was involved in order to relocate or euthanize it, depending on the results of their assessment.

The attack, in Bella Coola, British Columbia, was very unusual bear behavior and sparked an effort to figure out exactly what had happened and why. That meant finding the bear involved – which, based on witness statements, was a mother grizzly with two cubs.

Searchers combed the area on foot and by helicopter and trapped four bears. DNA comparisons to evidence from the attack cleared each of the trapped bears, and they were released back to the wild. After more than three weeks without finding the bear responsible for the attack, officials called off the search.

The case highlights the difficulty of identifying individual bears, which becomes important when one is exhibiting unusual behavior. Bears tend to look a lot alike to people, and untrained observers can have a very hard time telling them apart. DNA testing is excellent for telling individuals apart, but it is expensive and requires physical samples from bears. Being trapped and having other contact with humans is also stressful for them, and wildlife managers often seek to minimize trapping.

Recent advances in computer vision and other types of artificial intelligence offer a possible alternative: facial recognition for bears.

As a cultural anthropologist, I study how scientists produce knowledge and technologies, and how new technology is transforming ecological science and conservation practices. Some of my research has looked at the work of computer scientists and ecologists making facial recognition for animals. These tools, which reflect both technological advances and broader popular interest in wildlife, can reshape how scientists and the general public understand animals by getting to know formerly anonymous creatures as individuals.

New ways to identify animals

A facial recognition tool for bears called BearID is under development by computer scientists Ed Miller and Mary Nguyen, working with Melanie Clapham, a behavioral ecologist working for the Nanwakolas Council of First Nations, conducting applied research on grizzly bears in British Columbia.

It uses deep learning, a subset of machine learning that makes use of artificial neural networks, to analyze images of bears and identify individual animals. The photos are drawn from a collection of images taken by naturalists at Knight Inlet, British Columbia, and by National Park Service staff and independent photographers at Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska.

Bears’ bodies change dramatically from post-hibernation skinny in the spring to fat and ready for winter in the fall. However, the geometry of each bear’s face – the arrangement of key features like their eyes and nose – remains relatively stable over seasons and years.

BearID uses an algorithm to locate bear faces in pictures and make measurements between those key features. Each animal has a unique set of measurements, so a photograph of one taken yesterday can be matched with an image taken some time ago.

In addition to helping identify bears that have attacked humans or are otherwise causing trouble for people, identifying bears can help ecologists and wildlife managers more accurately estimate bear population sizes. And it can help scientific research, like the behavioral ecology projects Clapham works on, by allowing individual tracking of animals and thus better understanding of bear behavior.

Miller has built a web tool to automatically detect bears in the webcams from Brooks River that originally inspired the project. The BearID team has also been working with Rebecca Zug, a professor and director of the carnivore lab at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, to develop a bear identification model for Andean bears to use in bear ecology and conservation research in Ecuador.

Animal faces are less controversial

Human facial recognition is extremely controversial. In 2021, Meta ended the use of its face recognition system, which automatically identified people in photographs and videos uploaded to Facebook. The company described it as a powerful technology that, while potentially beneficial, was currently not suitable for widespread use on its platform.

In the years following that announcement, Meta gradually reintroduced facial recognition technology, using it to detect scams involving public figures and to verify users’ identities after their accounts had been breached.

When used on humans, critics have called facial recognition technology the “plutonium of AI” and a dangerous tool with few legitimate uses. Even as facial recognition has become more widespread, researchers remain convinced of its dangers. Researchers at the American Civil Liberties Union highlight the continued threat to Americans’ constitutional rights posed by facial recognition and the harms caused by inaccurate identifications.

For wildlife, the ethical controversies are perhaps less pressing, although there is still potential for animals to be harmed by people who are using AI systems. And facial recognition could help wildlife managers identify and euthanize or relocate bears that are causing significant problems for people.

A focus on specific animals

Wildlife ecologists sometimes find focusing on individual animals problematic. Naming animals may make them “seem less wild.” Names that carry cultural meaning can also frame people’s interpretations of animal behavior. As the Katmai rangers note, humans may interpret the behaviors of a bear named Killer differently than one named Fluffy.

Wildlife management decisions are meant to be made about groups of animals and areas of territory. When people become connected to individual animals, including by naming them, decisions become more complicated, whether in the wild or in captivity.

When people connect with particular animals, they may object to management decisions that harm individuals for the sake of the health of the population as a whole. For example, wildlife managers may need to move or euthanize animals for the health of the broader population or ecosystem.

But knowing and understanding bears as individual animals can also deepen the fascination and connections people already have with bears.

For example, Fat Bear Week, an annual competition hosted by explore.org and Katmai National Park, drew over a million votes in 2025 as people campaigned and voted for their favorite bear. The winner was Bear 32, also known as “Chunk.” Chunk was identified in photographs and videos the old-fashioned way, based on human observations of distinguishing characteristics – such as a large scar across his muzzle and a broken jaw.

In addition to identifying problematic animals, I believe algorithmic tools like facial recognition could help an even broader audience of humans deepen their understanding of bears as a whole by connecting with one or two specific animals. 

Emily Wanderer, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Top header image: Dan Hutcheson, Flickr 

The one with the chimpanzee using a stick

Marvellous footage captured in January of this year in a farflung corner of Gabon’s Batéké Plateau National Park shows an inquisitive female chimpanzee probing a camera trap with a stick:

Captured by Gabon’s National Agency for National Parks (ANPN), global wild cat conservation organisation Panthera, and Gaboma Multimedia & Production, the video not only shows a great ape that just a few decades ago was thought to be rare or extirpated from the region, but also documents the first chimpanzee tool-use in this part of Gabon.

Full story here

The one with the leopard stalking a civet

A daytime showdown between a leopard and a civet is anything but ordinary. In fact, it's downright crazy.

The footage comes to us from Tamsyn du Toit who filmed the encounter recently on the western side of the Kruger National Park and shared her clip with Latest Sightings. An African civet – a raccoon-like omnivore in the same family as genets – is seen sauntering down a gravel road, seemingly unaware of a leopard slinking its way ever closer. The civet appears preoccupied, sniffing the air repeatedly, enticed either by the possibility of a tasty meal or by the scent-trail left by another animal. The leopard nestles into the long grass on the roadside, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Full story here.

the one with the crab-eating wolf

It's the sort of mystery that leaves ecologists hungry for answers: A submerged crab trap inexplicably hauled out of the depths, ripped open and the bait trap emptied – a few teeth marks the only clue that some sort of predator may be to blame.

It took almost a year and a set of remote cameras for researchers working on a wild stretch for coastline in British Columbia in Canada to identify the culprit: a wily sea wolf. The cunning canid was caught on camera in May last year wading into the depths, tugging on a buoy to which a crab trap was attached and yanking the entire contraption to the shore where it purposefully pulled it open and gobbled up the bait concealed in a cup within the trap. Ecologist Kyle Artelle, who published these findings in the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution alongside co-author Paul Paquet, described it as “highly efficient and focused behaviour.”

 Full story here.

the one with the venom-spraying scorpion

Venom, and the means by which animals dish it out, is wildly diverse and infinitely fascinating. Some sting, others bite, a few have venomous spikes, and then there's that elite group of animal assassins that have learnt to squirt their venom from a distance, usually (if not always) to deter an attacker. The latest species now confirmed to be a member of the venom-spraying guild is a newly discovered species of scorpion from South America, called Tityus achilles (which is a suitably cool name). And it's the first of its kind from that continent known to exhibit such specialised behaviour.

The species, described in a paper published late last year in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society hails from the Cundinamarca department of Colombia, in the mountainous Magdalena rainforest region. It joins just a handful of scorpion species from two genera found in Africa and North America that have been recorded spraying their venom.

Full story here.

the one with the orcas attacking a blue whale

Among the most titanic of predatory events possible here on Planet Earth—and one that’s only been witnessed a handful of times—played out off the southwestern coast of Western Australia on April 7: a “superpod” of orcas—likely more than 60 of them—taking down a pygmy blue whale. A local whalewatching company, Naturaliste Charters, documented the attack:

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A post shared by WHALE WATCHING TOURS | KILLER WHALE EXPEDITIONS (@naturalistecharters)

“We witnessed an incredible and rare event yesterday as multiple pods of orcas successfully hunted a blue whale in Bremer Canyon,” Naturaliste Charters posted to Facebook. “The intense ordeal lasted less than 40 minutes from when we first saw the blue at the surface to when the battle was over.”

Full story here.

BEARS: ULTIMATE SURVIVORS

Deep in the wilds of Canada and the frozen expanses of Alaska, polar, grizzly and spirit bears are all fighting to survive. Adapting to climate change and humans faster than anyone thought possible, these charismatic, captivating and often deadly predators still rule the cold north. Available free on Earth Touch TV.

Puffin Patrol

Puffins are full of character and are loved by people across the globe. But many aspects of their lives remain unknown and they have rarely been filmed in detail. This film explores the colourful and intriguing world of Atlantic puffins, offering viewers a front row seat to puffin life in eastern Newfoundland and remote locations in Wales and Maine. Available free on Earth Touch TV and via our video on demand platform.

wolf vs bear

The bears and wolves of northern Finland both have their individual hunting strategies down to a fine art. But how do they fare when physically stacked against each other? This film offers a unique glimpse into their relative strengths and weaknesses. Available free on Earth Touch TV.

Underwater Okavango

A unique look at the rich diversity of animal and plant life in the pristine waterways of northern Botswana – an area of astonishing biodiversity that surpasses any other freshwater system. Available free on Earth Touch TV and on our video on demand platform.

Cute to Killer

‘Cute To Killer’, is a fascinating one-hour special showcasing the development of four cubs in the heart of the Zimbabwean bushveld as they encounter whatever life throws at them. Documented by two cameras for three years from their birth, these four cubs have gone on to hunt impala, wildebeest and zebra. Catch the drama, action and stunning interactions in glorious high definition as these incredible cubs go from ‘Cute To Killer’. Available free on Earth Touch TV.

Just as humans have historically gathered during winter, many animals do the same. Animals may not be exchanging presents or decorating their nests and dens but a lot of species become more social in winter – even ones that are normally solitary.

Animals have more to worry about this time of year than bickering relatives or the last date for Christmas post. Winter poses severe challenges for wildlife, from freezing temperatures to a scarcity of food. One of the main reasons animals aggregate during the winter is to keep warm. Some species avoid these harsh conditions by migrating to warmer areas, such as cuckoos in the UK overwintering in central Africa. Others grow insulating coats (like mountain hares in the Scottish highlands), or develop a thick layer of blubber (grey seals and harbour porpoises for example) to keep the cold at bay.

But some animals come together instead. Brandt’s voles inhabit the grasslands and steppe of inner Mongolia, where winter temperatures drop as low as -30 °C and strong winds and blizzards are frequent.

During the summer months, the voles are largely solitary. However, throughout the long, harsh winters, they form small huddling groups of around four in the nesting chambers of their underground burrows to share body heat. Huddling conserves energy by reducing resting metabolic rate by up to 37% and limits heat loss.

Safety in numbers

Arctic hares live in one of the harshest environments on Earth in northern Canada where the long winters last up to nine months and temperatures can drop to -40°C. During this time, they abandon their solitary summer habits and form large aggregations of up to a hundred hares.

The purpose of this behaviour is not for thermoregulation, since they do not come into close contact. Rather, it is for safety against predators. When Arctic hares form winter groups, they are increasing vigilance against predators including Arctic foxes and wolves.

A major advantage for prey species living in a group is that each animal can spend less time on the lookout for predators (and more time feeding). This is crucial for Arctic hares in winter when food is scarce and they need more energy to keep warm.

Larger groups also cause predator confusion, making it harder for predators to target individual animals. The group dilution effect means that in the event of an attack each hare’s chance of being caught is reduced.

Information network

Rooks are highly social birds living in small flocks of typically ten or fewer  unrelated birds all year round. During the winter months many small flocks will join up to form huge colonies of hundreds or thousands of birds from the surrounding area.

Buckenham Carrs woodland in Norfolk has the largest rookery in Britain where an estimated 50,000 rooks have been gathering every winter for centuries. Each evening birds travel to the roost from across the Norfolk Broads, sometimes up to 20 miles, when the bare trees become foliated with rooks.

During the day, the rooks go off in smaller foraging groups and then return to the roosts each evening. Roosting closely together not only helps reduce heat-loss but also makes it easier to find food. These large communal roosts also function as information exchange centres about where the best places to forage are.

When rooks leave their roosts in the morning, they pay close attention to inadvertent cues given by other rooks such as their body condition (as an indicator of recent foraging success) and the direction in which they fly. Less successful rooks copy their more prosperous roost mates. Group foraging is more efficient and therefore reduces exposure to danger.

Water conservation

Another example of the benefits of winter groups is water conservation. Ladybirds enter a physiological dormancy, called diapause, which allows them to survive the winter months without feeding. During this period, they form clusters of hundreds or even thousands of ladybirds, which helps conserve energy, as clustered individuals have lower metabolic rates.

Moreover, these aggregations create a microclimate with more stable temperatures and higher humidity, which helps reduce the risk of desiccation, as ladybirds do not consume water during overwintering.

In addition, ladybirds gain extra protection when they form large clusters because their warning colouration, advertising their toxicity, is more obvious to predators.

In the UK, native seven-spot ladybirds aggregate under tree bark or leaf litter, whereas the non-native harlequin ladybird prefers houses and pack together in huge numbers around windows and in lofts during the winter.

Record warm temperatures for both spring and summer in the UK during 2025 may have led to a surge in insect populations. This may explain why many people have noticed large clusters of ladybirds around windows in their homes.

If you find a cluster of ladybirds in your home, it is best just to leave them alone as they pose no risk to people or wooden surfaces. Plus, long term data indicates insect populations are dwindling.

Reproductive advantage

In the cold prairies of Manitoba (Canada), red sided garter snakes congregate in communal, overwintering dens, sometimes by the thousand. Snakes rely on existing underground structures such as the abandoned burrows of chipmunks, disused wells or limestone sink holes to overwinter. These snakes detect and follow the pheromone trails left by other snakes, which leads them directly to the communal dens.

This seasonal assembly not only increases survival rate during the winter months but also facilitates mating success come the spring. The close proximity of males and females after emergence reduces the time spent searching for a mate during the short northern breeding season. Courtship begins immediately upon emergence from the dens. Multiple males coil around single females in a “mating ball” ensuring the chances of mating before the females disperse.

This seasonal social behaviour are adaptations for survival in harsh conditions. Similar to many animal species, early humans likely congregated during severe winters to share warmth and resources, illustrating a shared strategy for survival in challenging environments. Understanding this behaviour is vital as climate change alters winter severity and availability of food and shelter.

Anna Champneys, Senior Lecturer in Wildlife Conservation, Nottingham Trent University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Header image: Jukka Lämsä

“We spent four unforgettable days trekking through the misty Virunga Mountains in search of the gorilla families that call them home," Meth-Cohn told the competition organisers when recounting how he captured his award-winning image. "On this particular day, we came across a large family group known as the Amahoro family, they were gathered in a forest clearing where the adults were calmly foraging while the youngsters were enthusiastically playing. One young male was especially keen to show off his acrobatic flair: pirouetting, tumbling, and high kicking. Watching his performance was pure joy, and I’m thrilled to have captured his playful spirit in this image.” 

The winning image was selected from a pool of over 10,000 entries from 109 countries – the highest number to date in the competition's 11-year history. 

"We are so thrilled to celebrate the incredible talent and creativity showcased in this year’s Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards," said Stefan Maier, Senior General Manager of Marketing at Nikon Europe. "All of our category winners use joy, skills and imagination to capture the natural world, and Mark’s winning image perfectly represents the playful spirit of wildlife. At Nikon, we are incredibly proud to support these visual storytellers and provide them with the tools to share their unique perspectives, inspiring audiences everywhere to connect with and care for our planet’s remarkable wildlife."

Also walking away with accolades at this year's contest was Grayson Bell for his image of two wrestling frogs which earned him the Nikon Junior Photographer Award, Paula Rustemeier who topped the Nikon Young Category for her shot of a trio of playful foxes, and Tatjana Epp whose video of a 'surfing heron' was named the winner in the Nikon Video Category. 

In addition to the category winners, ten entires were recognised as Highly Commended for their creativity and composition. Here's a look at the full collection:

The roar of an African lion is one of the most iconic sounds of the animal kingdom. However, my new research suggests it should actually be separated into two distinct vocalisations: the full-throated roar, and an “intermediary roar” with a flatter, less varied sound. Making this distinction could have important implications for lion conservation.

The total population of wild lions in Africa is estimated to be between 22,000 and 25,000, but this number is half what it was 25 years ago. The main drivers of this decline are habitat loss and fragmentation, reduction in prey, and conflict with local people. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list, lions are now vulnerable to extinction.

My colleagues and I investigated roaring in lions to get better at distinguishing between their different vocalisations. But our findings may make it easier to monitor lions’ numbers, which in turn would make it easier to protect them.

You might think you know a lion’s roar from the clip used by MGM at the start of all its films – but that isn’t quite right. It’s actually a tiger’s roar dubbed on top of this famous piece of cinema. Compared with a lion, a tiger’s roar is often raspier and higher-pitched.

In fact, male and female lions produce what scientists call a “roaring bout”. Each begins with a series of soft moans, followed by a subsection of intermediary and full-throated roars, which finally subside into a repetition of grunts.

There is no set length of time a roaring bout will last (though most are between 30 and 45 seconds), and the number of vocalisations within each subsection does not keep to a strict formula.

The roaring bout is important behaviour. Not only does it signal to other lions in their pride where they are, but to unfriendly lions, bouts can be used to advertise territorial boundaries.

The loudest, most complex component of a lion’s roaring bout is the full-throated roar, which is an individually identifiable sound. Each lion’s full-throated roar is as specific to the individual as the pattern of spots are to a leopard (and as my 2024 paper found, their roar too).

Population density estimates are a key metric for identifying priority areas for conservation. If individual lions can be identified by their full-throated roars, then researchers could use this to count them.

However, picking out the full-throated roars from other vocalisations within a roaring bout is tricky. Even for those with expert ears, it is a subjective process which is prone to human bias.

The reason becomes clearer when you look at a spectrogram of a lion’s roaring bout – a visual representation of its sounds using an x-axis of time (seconds) and y-axis of frequency (hertz). The full-throated roar at the start of the mid-section of the bout rarely looks or sounds the same as the roar that occurs right before the grunts kick in. Which made me wonder: should these different roars be classified the same?

My colleagues and I leaned on AI to help us analyse our roar recordings. Perhaps this could help solve the issue of subjectivity, we thought, and classify lion vocalisations automatically, creating a tool so that other researchers always know which roar is right for counting lions.

We used supervised machine learning to classify the vocalisations which occur in a lion’s roaring bout into three call types: full-throated roars, grunts, and our newly identified intermediary roar.

From the spectrogram, we could see that the full-throated roar is loud, complex and arcs in pitch. The intermediary roar was a flatter sound with less variation – and it always followed the full-throated roars. Grunts were shorter and even more compact.

Using simple acoustic parameters – the duration of each vocalisation and its maximum frequency – we could then identify each call type with an accuracy of 95.4%. As the full-throated roars are unique to each individual lion, we wanted to test whether our AI analysis of full-throated roars was better at distinguishing between different lions than human hearing.

We found we could identify individual lions at an accuracy of 94.3% – an improvement of 2.2% over when human-selected full-throated roars were used. Using this technique for identifying full-throated roars could hopefully lead to more accurate population density estimates of lions.

It is exciting to discover the language of lions is more complex than previously thought. However, it is unclear what the communicative differences of the two roar types may be.

Scientists have long believed that lion roars may convey information relating to pride size, age and identity – but without Dr Doolittle to translate the meaning of moans, grunts and roars, this is still guesswork.

Therefore, it may take some time before “lion” appears as an option on Duolingo. For now, we should just celebrate the fact that AI can help us to discover more about wild phenomena as iconic as a lion’s roar.

Jonathan Growcott, PhD candidate in Environmental Intelligence, University of Exeter

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It took almost a year and a set of remote cameras for researchers working on a wild stretch for coastline in British Columbia in Canada to identify the culprit: a wily sea wolf. The cunning canid was caught on camera in May last year wading into the depths, tugging on a buoy to which a crab trap was attached and yanking the entire contraption to the shore where it purposefully pulled it open and gobbled up the bait concealed in a cup within the trap. Ecologist Kyle Artelle, who published these findings in the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution alongside co-author Paul Paquet, described it as “highly efficient and focused behaviour.”

The crab traps had been set by members of the Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) Nation to control invasive European green crabs, a ruthless crustacean that was introduced in California three decades ago and has since been steadily moving northward leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. To fight the crab scourge, the Haíɫzaqv Guardians have been placing specifically designed traps in the shallow intertidal zones as well as in deeper water, where they use coloured floats to mark their locations. Floats, it appears, that wolves have learnt to identify.

"We figured wolves or bears were getting to these traps because the traps were fairly accessible during low tide,” Artelle told The Guardian. “But we just couldn’t figure out what was attacking the deeper traps." The team initially suspected otters or seals, but it was only when they pointed a remote camera at one of the crab traps that the thief was revealed.

“We couldn’t believe our eyes. It was serendipity that we actually captured this behaviour. And it was, quite simply, inspiring,” said Artelle. Sea wolves are a subspecies found on coastal islands that mostly feed off marine prey like salmon, shellfish and seals. These canines (and others like them) have long been considered intelligent, but evidence of this has not been extensively documented in wild wolves. "This isn’t genetic," Artelle adds. "This is an entirely learned behaviour, and learned very fast, and likely shared among the group.”

The scientific community is divided on whether the recorded behaviour constitutes tool-use, with some arguing that the 'tool' in this case was not created or manipulated by the wolf. As such, this represents a case of object use, not tool use. It's unclear exactly how the wolf learned this behaviour, but it's possible it witnessed humans setting and retrieving traps or it first encountered traps that were only semi-submerged and after discovering the bait cups, learnt to associate the traps and their colourful buoys with food.

What is clear, however, is that this wolf is the goodest boy. And its learned behaviour points to a species with advanced problem-solving skills and intelligence.

Header image: Katmai National Park and Preserve

If you’ve ever wondered why the giraffe has such a long neck, the answer seems clear: it lets them reach succulent leaves atop tall acacia trees in Africa.

Only giraffes have direct access to those leaves, while smaller mammals must compete with one another near the ground. This exclusive food source appears to allow the giraffe to breed throughout the year and to survive droughts better than shorter species.

But the long neck comes at a high cost. The giraffe’s heart must produce enough pressure to pump its blood a couple of metres up to its head. The blood pressure of an adult giraffe is typically over 200mm Hg – more than twice that of most mammals.

As a result, the heart of a resting giraffe uses more energy than the entire body of a resting human, and indeed more energy than the heart of any other mammal of comparable size. However, as we show in a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the giraffe’s heart has some unrecognised helpers in its battle against gravity: the animal’s long, long legs.

Meet the ‘elaffe’

In our new study, we quantified the energy cost of pumping blood for a typical adult giraffe and compared it to what it would be in an imaginary animal with short legs but a longer neck to reach the same treetop height.

This beast was a Frankenstein-style combination of the body of a common African eland and the neck of a giraffe. We called it an “elaffe”.

We found the animal would spend a whopping 21% of its total energy budget on powering its heart, compared with 16% in the giraffe and 6.7% in humans.

By raising its heart closer to its head by means of long legs, the giraffe “saves” a net 5% of the energy it takes in from food. Over the course of a year, this energy saving would add up to more than 1.5 tonnes of food – which could make the difference between life and death on the African savannah.

How giraffes work

In his book How Giraffes Work, zoologist Graham Mitchell reveals that the ancestors of giraffes had long legs before they evolved long necks.

This makes sense from an energy point of view. Long legs make the heart’s job easier, while long necks make it work harder.

However, the evolution of long legs came with a price of its own. Giraffes are forced to splay their forelegs while drinking, which makes them slow and awkward to rise and escape if a predator should appear.

Statistics show giraffes are the most likely of all prey mammals to leave a water hole without getting a drink.

How long can a neck be?

The energy cost of the heart increases in direct proportion to the height of the neck, so there must be a limit. A sauropod dinosaur, the Giraffatitan, towers 13 metres above the floor of the Berlin Natural History Museum.

Its neck is 8.5m high, which would require a blood pressure of about 770mm Hg if it were to get blood to its head – almost eight times what we see in the average mammal. This is implausible because the heart’s energy cost to pump that blood would have exceeded the energy cost of the entire rest of the body.

Sauropod dinosaurs could not lift their heads that high without passing out. In fact, it is unlikely that any land animal in history could exceed the height of an adult male giraffe.

Roger S. Seymour, Professor Emeritus of Physiology, University of Adelaide and Edward Snelling, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tube-Nosed Bats

The Philippines has some of the world's most distinctive mammal fauna and it proved that once again with the recent discovery of not one, not two, but six new species of tube-nosed bats. The recently described bat species, weighing in at just 4 to 14 grams each, form part of a collection gathered over many years, but only recently identified as unique species. "This latest research serves to illustrate how much remains unknown about the countless species with which we coexist," explains Dr. Judith Eger, Curator Emeritus of Mammals at the Royal Ontario Museum. "Expanding our knowledge of biodiversity is essential to understanding and managing our environment on behalf of humanity and the other species on which the vitality of our planet depends."

Researchers used a number of  morphological examination and genetic testing techniques to identify the new bats, which included examining tooth pattern, skull shape, fur banding and other visible characteristics. Tube-nosed bats are insect eaters and depend on forested areas for roosting. Like all bats, they play a critical ecological function, but are at threat from habitat destruction. Halloween wouldn't be the same without these winged mammals, so the more the merrier, we say.

Trapdoor Spider

Trapdoor spiders are made for Halloween. These ambush hunters spend their entire lives in underground silk-lined burrows sealed with hinged, camouflaged doors. When unsuspecting prey wanders by, they burst from their subterranean lairs to snatch a meal. Researchers at the University of California, Davis recently uncovered a brand new species of spider that was hiding in plain sight in Cali's coastal sand dunes. Aptostichus ramirezae was previously thought to belong to an already described species, but genomic DNA analysis revealed that what once looked like one is in fact two.

“While there are over 50,000 species of spiders worldwide, there are probably hundreds of thousands left to be discovered, even along the coast where new spider species may be hiding just underfoot of California beachgoers,” said senior author Jason Bond, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

"Death-ball" Sponge

Deep-sea creatures are fodder for horror-movie scripts, so the recent discovery of a carnivorous "death-ball" sponge is the perfect addition to our Halloween species roundup. The predatory sponge was just one of over thirty unknown species discovered by scientists sampling the depths of the Southern Ocean. Chondrocladia sp. nov. takes a spherical form and is covered in tiny hooks used to trap prey, a different approach to that of most passive filter-feeding sponges.

“The Southern Ocean remains profoundly undersampled,” said Dr Michelle Taylor, head of science at the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census, which carried out the expedition. “To date, we have only assessed under 30% of the samples collected from this expedition, so confirming 30 new species already shows how much biodiversity is still undocumented.”

Header image: The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census

Now in its tenth year, the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards attracted a record number of entries, with just under 10,000 in total from 108 countries, all competing for the top prize. Co-founded by professional photographers Paul Joynson-Hicks MBE and Tom Sullam, the awards aim to combine exceptional wildlife photography with humour to help promote wildlife conservation.  

"We had an awesome year last year and are absolutely delighted to be able to partner with the Nikon team again for 2025," says Tom Sullam, Comedy Wildlife Competition Co-founder. "Their ongoing support has supercharged the competition, reaching more people in more countries than ever before, helping us raise awareness of animal and habitat conservation and crucially, highlight the fundamental importance of having wildlife on our planet and in our lives. These inspiring and funny photos and videos do just that. It’s a privilege to be part of this exciting journey, making us all laugh and we can’t wait to announce the winners in December."

Here's a look at some of our favourite shortlisted images:  

Sometimes, doing research stinks. Quite literally.

Corpse plants are rare, and seeing one bloom is even rarer. They open once every seven to 10 years, and the blooms last just two nights. But those blooms – red, gorgeous and massive at over 10 feet (3 meters) tall – stink. Think rotting flesh or decaying fish.

Corpse plants definitely earn their nickname. Their pungent odors attract not only the carrion insects – beetles and flies normally drawn to decomposing meat – that pollinate the plants, but also crowds of onlookers curious about the rare, elaborate display and that putrid scent.

Plant biologists have studied corpse flowers for years, but as atmospheric chemists we were curious about something specific: the mixes of chemicals that create that smell and how they change during the flower’s short bloom.

While previous studies had identified dozens of volatile organic and sulfur compounds that contribute to corpse flower scents, no one had yet quantified those emission rates or looked at how the rates changed throughout a single evening. We recently got that opportunity. What we found opened a new window into the complexity and strategic behavior of a very unusual flower.

Meet Cosmo the corpse plant

Corpse plants are native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra but are considered endangered, even there. Several years ago, Colorado State University was given a corpse plant, or Titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum), to study. Its name is Cosmo – Titan arums are rare enough that they get names.

Cosmo sat dormant in the CSU plant growth facility for several years before showing signs that it was about to flower in spring 2024. When news came that Cosmo was going to bloom, we jumped at the opportunity to bring our atmospheric chemistry expertise into the greenhouse.

We deployed a series of devices for collecting air samples before, during and after the bloom. Then we measured chemicals in the air samples using a gas chromatography mass spectrometer, an instrument that is mentioned frequently on crime TV shows. Colleagues also brought a time-of-flight mass spectrometer that we placed downwind of Cosmo to measure volatile organic compounds every second.

To make each rare bloom count, corpse plants put vast amounts of energy into the show, producing large flowers that can weigh more than 100 pounds. The plants heat themselves up using a biochemical process known as thermogenesis that enhances emissions of organic compounds that attract insects.

Corpse plant emissions are notorious. While some local communities revered the plants, others would try to destroy them. In the 19th century, European explorers actively collected Titan arum plants and distributed them throughout botanical gardens and conservatories around the world.

Corpse plants are dichogamous: Each has both male and female flowers. Inside the giant petal-like leaf called a spathe, each plant has a central spike called a spadix that is ringed with many rows of tiny female and male flowers near its base. These female and male flowers bloom at separate times to avoid self-pollination, and they are the source of the smell.

On the first night of a corpse plant bloom, the female flowers bloom to attract pollinators that, if they’re lucky, are carrying pollen from another corpse plant.

Then, on the second night, the male flowers bloom, allowing pollinating insects to carry pollen off to another corpse plant.

The rare blooms and avoidance of self-pollination highlight not only why these plants are listed as endangered but also their need for efficient pollination strategies – exactly the chemistry we wanted to investigate.

Female flowers work harder

We found that the female flowers do most of the work attracting pollinators, as previous studies noted. They emit vast amounts of organic sulfur, plus some other compounds that mimic rotting smells to attract beetles and flies that normally feed on animal carcasses.

It’s this organic sulfur that really stinks from the female bloom: Methanethiol, a molecule in the same chemical family of compounds as the odors emitted by skunks, was the single most-emitted compound during Cosmo’s bloom.

We also measured many other organic sulfur compounds, including dimethyl disulfide, which has a garlic smell; dimethyl sulfide, known for an unpleasant scent; and dimethyl trisulfide, which smells like rotting cabbage or onions. We also measured dozens of other compounds: sweet-smelling benzyl alcohol, asphalt-scented phenol and fragrant benzaldehyde.

While previous studies found some of the same compounds with different instruments, we were able to measure the methanethiol and quantify the concentrations quickly enough to track the progress of the bloom overnight.

As Cosmo bloomed, we combined our instrument data with measurements of the air change rate in the greenhouse – meaning how fast it takes for air to move through the space – and were able to calculate the emission rates.

The volatile emissions added up to about 0.4% of the plant’s average biomass, meaning the plant, which we estimated to weigh about 100 pounds, lost a measurable amount of weight while producing those chemicals. That’s a lot of stench.

Floral trapping

The female flowers bloomed all night, but early the next morning the emissions rapidly stopped. We wondered whether this cutoff point just might be evidence of floral trapping: a pollination strategy employed by other members of Titan arum’s family.

During floral trapping, the floral chamber can physically close through movement of hairs or expansion of parts of the plant, such as the surrounding spathe. A physical closure of the floral chamber would not be easily visible to bystanders, but it could rapidly cut off the emissions the way we observed.

An Australian arum lily that smells like dung uses this technique. The carrion insects that come for the female flowers are forced to stay for the male flowers that bloom the next night, so they can carry off that pollen to find another female corpse bloom. Our evidence suggests that the corpse flower probably does too.

The second night, the emissions started back up – at much lower levels. The male flowers emit a sweeter set of aromatic compounds and far less sulfur than the females.

We hypothesize that the male flowers don’t need to work as hard to smell pungent in order to attract as many insects because insects are already there due to floral trapping. A 2023 study found that thermogenesis was also weaker during the male bloom: the spadix reached 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit (36 C) during the female bloom, but only 92 F (33.2 C) during the male bloom.

Stinkier than a landfill

We found that the corpse plant’s powerful emission rates can be an order of magnitude stronger than landfills – albeit only for two nights. These strong emissions are well designed to move far through the Sumatran jungle to attract carrion flies.

The odors are also resilient to atmospheric oxidation – the way organic compounds degrade in the atmosphere by reacting with oxidants in pollution such as ozone or nitrate radicals. Different compounds degrade at different rates – an important factor for attracting pollinators.

Many insects are attracted to not just one volatile compound, but by specific ratios of different volatile compounds. When atmospheric pollution degrades floral emissions and these ratios change, pollinators have a harder time finding flowers.

The female floral plume maintained a reasonably constant ratio of the major sulfur chemicals. The male plume, however, was far more susceptible to degrading in pollution and changing floral ratios in nighttime air.

These enigmatic plants put a lot of energy into clever pollination strategies. Cosmo taught us about their far-reaching scents of rotting meat, thermogenesis to increase emissions and floral entrapment, offering new insight into the corpse plant’s spectacular bloom.

Delphine Farmer, Professor of Chemistry, Colorado State University; Mj Riches, Postdoctoral Researcher studying Plant-Atmosphere Interactions, Colorado State University, and Rose Rossell, Ph.D. Student in Plant and Atmospheric Chemistry, Colorado State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The winning image, captured by Canadian photographer Liron Gertsman off the coast of Mazatlán, Mexico, was the result of over a year of meticulous planning. "I spent well over a year planning to capture my dream of a bird in front of the total solar eclipse," says Gertsman. "As the moon uncovered the sun’s edge at the end of totality, I captured this image during the ‘diamond ring’ phase — a moment that lasts mere seconds."

With more than 33,000 entries from around the world, the competition celebrates both the artistry and technical mastery of bird photography.

"Exceptional bird photography takes technical excellence, artistic vision, and dedication," says Will Nicholls, Director of Bird Photographer of the Year. "When everything comes together, you get a spectacular image like this one."

The Young Bird Photographer of the Year 2025 title went to 16-year-old Tomasz Michalski of Poland, for his striking silhouette of a black vulture.

Now in its tenth year, the contest has conservation at its core. This year, more than £5,000 was donated to the charity Birds on the Brink, supporting grassroots bird conservation projects worldwide. Photographers competed across eight adult categories, including Best Portrait, Bird Behaviour, Birds in Flight, and Urban Birds, as well as a Conservation Award, Portfolio Award, and Video Award. All winning and commended entries are published by Princeton University Press in a hardback coffee-table book (with a foreword by naturalist Nigel Marven).

With the passing of Dr Jane Goodall, the world has lost a conservation giant. But her extraordinary achievements leave a profound legacy.

Goodall was a world-leading expert in animal behaviour and a globally recognised environmental and conservation advocate. She achieved all this at a time when women were commonly sidelined or ignored in science.

Her work with chimpanzees showed it was wrong to assume only humans used tools. She showed us the animals expressed emotions such as love and grief and have individual personalities.

Goodall showed us scientists can express their emotions and values and that we can be respected researchers as well as passionate advocates and science communicators. After learning about how chimpanzees were being used in medical research, she spoke out: “I went to the conference as a scientist, and I left as an activist.”

As childhood rights activist Marian Wright Edelman has eloquently put it, “You can’t be what you can’t see”.

Goodall showed what it was possible to be.

Forging her own path

Goodall took a nontraditional path into science. The brave step of going into the field at the age of 26 to make observations was supported by her mother.

Despite making world-first discoveries such as tool use by non-humans, people didn’t take her seriously because she hadn’t yet gone to university. Nowadays, people who contribute wildlife observations are celebrated under the banner of citizen science.

Goodall was a beacon at a time when science was largely dominated by men – especially remote fieldwork. But she changed that narrative. She convinced famous paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey to give her a chance. He first employed her as a secretary. But it wasn’t long until he asked her to go to Tanzania’s remote Gombe Stream National Park. In 1960, she arrived.

This was not easy. It took real courage to work in a remote area with limited support alongside chimpanzees, a species thought to be peaceful but now known to be far stronger than humans and capable of killing animals and humans.

Goodall is believed to be the only person accepted into chimpanzee society. Through calm but determined persistence she won their trust. These qualities served Goodall well – not just with chimps, but throughout her entire career advocating for conservation and societal change.

At Gombe, she showed for the first time that animals could fashion and use tools, had individual personalities, expressed emotions and had a higher intelligence and understanding than they were credited with.

Goodall was always an animal person and her love of chimps was in part inspired by her toy Jubilee, gifted by her father. She had close bonds with her pets and extended these bonds to wildlife. Goodall gave her study subjects names such as “David Greybeard”, the first chimp to accept her at Gombe.

Some argue we shouldn’t place a human persona on animals by naming them. But Goodall showed it was not only acceptable to see animals as individuals with different behaviours, but it greatly aids connection with and care for wildlife.

Goodall became an international voice for wildlife. She used her profile to encourage a focus on animal welfare in conservation, caring for both individuals and species.  

A pioneer for women in science

With Goodall’s passing, the world has lost one of the three great “nonagenarian environmental luminaries”, to use co-author Vanessa Pirotta’s phrase. The other two are the naturalist documentary maker, Sir David Attenborough, 99, and famed marine biologist Dr Sylvia Earle, who is 90.

Goodall showed us women can be pioneering scientists and renowned communicators as well as mothers.

She shared her work in ways accessible to all generations, from National Geographic documentaries to hip podcasts.

Her visibility encouraged girls and women around the world to be bold and follow our own paths.  

Goodall’s story directly inspired several authors of this article.

Co-author Marissa Parrott was privileged to have spoken to Goodall several times during her visits to Melbourne Zoo and on her world tours. Goodall’s story was a direct inspiration for Parrott’s own remote and international fieldwork, supported by her mother just as Goodall’s mother had supported her. They both survived malaria, which also kills chimpanzees and gorillas. Goodall long championed a One Health approach, recognising the health of communities, wildlife and the environment are all interconnected.

Co-author Zara Bending worked and toured alongside Goodall. The experience demonstrated how conservationists could be powerful advocates through storytelling, and how our actions reveal who we are. As Goodall once said:

every single one of us matters, every single one of us has a role to play, and every single one of us makes a difference every single day.

From the forest floor to global icon

Goodall knew conservation is as much about people as it is about wildlife and wild places.

Seventeen years after beginning her groundbreaking research in Gombe, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute with the mission of protecting wildlife and habitat by engaging local communities.

Her institute’s global network now spans five continents and continues her legacy of community-centred conservation. Researchers have now been studying the chimps at Gombe for 65 years.

Goodall moved from fieldwork to being a global conservation icon who regularly travelled more than 300 days a year. She observed many young people across cultures and creeds who had lost hope for their future amid environmental and climate destruction. In response, she founded a second organisation, Roots & Shoots, in 1991. Her goal was:

to foster respect and compassion for all living things, to promote understanding of all cultures and beliefs, and to inspire each individual to take action to make the world a better place for people, other animals, and the environment.

Last year, Roots & Shoots groups were active in 75 countries. Their work is a testament to Goodall’s mantra: find hope in action.

Protecting nature close to home

One of Goodall’s most remarkable attributes was her drive to give people the power to take action where they were. No matter where people lived or what they did, she helped them realise they could be part of the solution.

In a busy, urbanised world, it’s easier than ever to feel disconnected from nature. Rather than presenting nature as a distant concept, Goodall made it something for everyone to experience, care for and cherish.

She showed we didn’t have to leave our normal lives behind to protect nature – we could make just as much difference in our own communities.

One of her most famous quotes rings just as true today as when she first said it:  

only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved.

Let’s honour her world-changing legacy by committing to understand, care and help save all species with whom we share this world. For Jane Goodall.

Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University; Kylie Soanes, Postdoctoral Fellow in Urban Biodiversity, The University of Melbourne; Marissa Parrott, Honorary Research Associate in BioSciences, The University of Melbourne; Vanessa Pirotta, Postdoctoral Researcher and Wildlife Scientist, Macquarie University, and Zara Bending, Associate, Centre for Environmental Law, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

With their huge size and distinctive horns, rhinos are some of the most recognisable creatures on earth. But we're willing to bet there are a few weird and wonderful rhino facts you don't know...

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Top header image: Matthew Rogers, Flickr

The images were selected from record-breaking pool of 60,636 entries from across the globe and will form part of the final 100 photos set to showcase in an exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, from Friday, 17 October 2025.

"Now in its sixty-first year, we are thrilled to continue Wildlife Photographer of the Year as a powerful platform for visual storytelling, showing the diversity, beauty and complexity of the natural world and humanity's relationship to it," explains Dr Doug Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum. "With the inclusion of our Biodiversity Intactness Index, this year’s exhibition will be our best combination of great artistry and groundbreaking science yet, helping visitors to become inspired to be advocates for our planet."

The category and overall winners will be announced at a ceremony on 14 October hosted at the Natural History Museum by wildlife TV presenters and conservationists Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin.

Here's a sneak peek at some of the images in contention:

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.

As the annual humpback whale migration is underway with thousands of whales passing by the Australian coast, there are reports of dolphins joining the mass movement.

But this isn’t a one off. In fact, our new study, published today in Discover Animals, shows interspecies interactions between dolphins and whales are widespread and frequent around the world.

An astonishing interaction

There have been several reports of whale and dolphin interaction in the past.

One that astonished the public back in 2004 featured a humpback whale in Hawaii repeatedly lifting a bottlenose dolphin on its head.

Researchers suggested such close contact between whales and dolphins is likely very rare – and maybe related to care giving.

But other forms of interactions resembling joint feeding, play and harassment are now being frequently documented thanks to drone technology. Many are also featured on social media.

A ‘whale’s-eye view’ of the world

For our new study, we undertook an analysis of 199 independent whale-dolphin interaction events involving 19 different species. These interactions spanned two decades and occurred across 17 countries.

We drew from social media platforms – such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram – and footage contributed by citizens to get a variety of observations.

Each entry was carefully reviewed to identify the species involved, validate the interaction and categorise behaviours. Two additional cases came from camera tags attached to humpback whales. These offered an underwater “whale’s-eye view” of their encounters with dolphins.

We categorised behaviours such as rolling, tail slaps, bow riding, and rubbing, and classified dolphin positions relative to whale body parts such as head, flank and tail fluke.

Having fun or fighting?

The study contradicted earlier assumptions that interspecies interactions between dolphins and whales are very rare.

The most common interaction was dolphins swimming near the whale’s head (akin to bow riding). This accounted for 80% of observed dolphin positions. Humpback whales were the most involved whale species, while bottlenose dolphins led the dolphin side.

Based on videos we analysed, dolphins initiated most interactions through bow riding, swimming in formation, or even touching whales.

In more than one-quarter of the events, the whales responded in seemingly similar ways. For example, humpback whales often rolled, exposed their bellies, or gently turned toward dolphins.

Tail slaps and other signs of distress or aggression were rare (roughly 5% of cases).

As a result of this, we classified more than one-third of all interactions between humpback whales and dolphins as positive or possible social play.

The two camera-tag videos revealed previously undocumented interaction. Dolphins were observed following humpback whales not only at the surface but down to the ocean floor. They maintained eye contact or even touched the whales’ head – suggesting intentional, possibly social, engagement.

Reflecting advanced emotional capabilities

The findings reshape our understanding of how social marine mammals interact across species. They suggest interspecies interaction among marine mammals may be far more prevalent and complex than previously believed.

Dolphins may seek out whales as companions for stimulation, play or even courtship-like behaviour. Meanwhile, certain whale species, particularly humpback whales, may not only tolerate but also engage with dolphins in a social capacity.

This interspecies dynamic adds a new dimension to marine mammal social ecology and could point to cultural elements in whale and dolphin societies. The playfulness, cooperation and apparent enjoyment observed in many interactions reflect advanced cognitive and emotional capabilities.

The study also demonstrates the power of new technologies and community science. Social media and drones proved invaluable for collecting a range of diverse behavioural data that traditional surveys might miss.

Social media data has limitations, such as geographic and observer bias caused by different angles, heights, equipment and frequency of use of social media. But it does complement other data and helps uncover previously unknown behaviours.

Whales and dolphins don’t just coexist but also seek each other out. Future studies incorporating acoustic recordings and longer observation periods could further unravel the motivations and meanings behind these fascinating encounters.

Olaf Meynecke, Research Fellow in Marine Science and Manager Whales & Climate Program, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Top header image: Michael Dawes/Flickr