First, the "run-in." Henri Kretschmer was motorbiking a backroad in Ontario, Canada last month when he came across the very first moose he'd ever seen, as the narration in his self-filmed video attests – a young bull moose, to be exact, which initially cantered away from Kretschmer's oncoming dirt bike. But only initially: The moose quickly turned round and charged the biker, who halted just before the bull lowered its head and slammed right into him with its velvet-coated antlers.

The moose promptly vanished into the roadside woods, and, after waiting a few moments, Kretschmer began righting his knocked-down bike. But the bull reemerged and charged again, prompting Kretschmer to back up amid spindly conifers while the moose swaggered around far too close for comfort.

Kretschmer was eventually able to return to his machine and continue on, the moose evidently exited from the scene. In the video, the biker said that he was "really sorry for the moose" and "didn't want to hurt it," noting (with admirable awareness) that his actions—namely, motoring along pretty closely behind the animal as it trotted down the road—were ill-advised.

The moose, it's worth noting, doesn't appear visibly injured; there would surely have been a better chance of that had the bike still been gunning forward when the bull rammed it.

Indeed, while more space should have been given to the deer in this case, motorbiker and moose alike were lucky they didn't collide while both were in motion. Moose-vehicle collisions are a real danger across the vast range of the giant deer in both North America and Eurasia, and motorcyclists are especially vulnerable to the severest consequences. At the beginning of this month, a biker who struck a moose on the Glenn Highway in south-central Alaska was hospitalized with "life-threatening injuries." Last October, a similar crash in Massachusetts, USA had tragic results: the deaths of both the motorcyclist and the moose.

Kretschmer's video demonstrates in plain terms that a moose feeling threatened or simply riled can be plenty cantankerous, and plenty swift. Folks who dismiss the big brown beasts as ungainly (or see them as dimwitted goofs, ala Bullwinkle) can get a very rude surprise indeed, as moose are about as aggressive as cervids come. Along with the general edginess of bulls in rut, that's in large part due to the moose's anti-predator behaviour: If a wolf pack or brown bear can't be outpaced, the moose is likely to opt for a stand-and-fight approach.

All the more so if we're talking about a cow moose and her offspring. A mother moose defending her calf is nothing to be trifled with. Take, for example, an incident we profiled back in 2023, when the riled-up guardianship of a mama moose in Alaska proved more than a match for a persistent black bear eyeing her pair of progeny.

But a moose calf separated from its mother, even by a short distance, quickly becomes much more vulnerable to carnivores. And some other recent videos show how risky a time of year it is for such little ones, given both grizzly and American black bears are definitely keyed up for snatching newly born ungulates—from deer fawns to bison calves—during this window.

A couple out to do some brook-trout fishing last month in Piscataquis County, Maine, USA spotted a nervous-looking cow "calling and running back and forth along a side road," as the Bangor Daily News reported. Then the cause for the moose's distress became evident: A moose calf dashed out of the woods and down the road toward the couple's rig, a hefty black bear in hot pursuit.

The people drove toward the oncoming bear once the moose calf had galloped past them, thwarting the ursid's attempt. (Intervening in this sort of perfectly natural predatory event isn't generally advised—and, of course, that moose calf represented critical protein for the black bear—but this wouldn't be the first time human nature overrode a let-Nature-takes-its-course philosophy. No guarantees, though, that the bear would have succeeded in killing the calf even if it caught up—again, that mother moose wasn't, apparently, far away.) The couple then tracked down the cow moose and calf, confirming they'd reunited.

Much, much farther northwest on the North American continent, another moose calf—this one in the vicinity of Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve—found itself on the run from a bear late last month. Filmed by "Denali Dan," the calf, separated somehow from its mother, clattered onto the boardwalk at Denali Rainbow Village and dove between buildings. A minute later, a grizzly bear came loping and huffing onto the scene, quite obviously attempting to sniff out the calf's whereabouts—though, the Instagram video reveals, the young moose had "backtracked into the woods." (The griz was eventually encouraged by the human onlookers to leave the boardwalk vicinity, given it's not ideal for a bear to feel comfortable in such a setting.)

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Well, let's face it: In this opening stretch of the boreal summer, more than a few moose calves are meeting an early demise at the hands of bears (and wolves), and, on the flipside, more than a few are escaping predators to live another day—in large part due to their mothers' super-protective grit. (One might imagine that an ears-down, eyes-bulging, mane-bristling mother moose could be regular nightmare material for, say, your average black bear out there.)

But, as far as people are concerned, the motorbiker's experience last month in the Ontario bush underscores that now's as good a time as any for outdoorsgoers to bone up on moose awareness and safety protocol, which ought to be a year-round priority. For starters (and for a few more dramatic-moose-encounter videos), check out this Earth Touch News article on the subject.

Top header image: Nate Hughes Flickr

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

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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“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

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 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.

The footage, shared on the MalaMala Game Reserve YouTube page, shows a lioness slinking through a riverbed, her sights set on a herd of impala grazing nearby. However, she's not the only one interested in the potential quarry. A leopard, seemingly unaware of her rival predator, is targeting the same herd.

A group of tourists watching from a nearby vehicle can only guess at which predator might come out on top. The leopard appears only half committed to the hunt and breaks cover. As the impalas sound the alarm, it triggers a frantic chase. A second lioness sprints in from the sidelines to capitalise on the chaos and successfully brings down one of the herd members, leaving the leopard looking on from a rock on the river bank.

Realising that the hunt had gone the way of the lions, the leopard wisely retreats to the safety of a nearby tree to wait it out. 

This drone footage taken last November from Brazil’s Itapará River, therefore, might be deemed a bit surprising:

It shows a bouto—an Amazon River dolphin, known for the pinkish hide it develops in adulthood—brazenly nipping the tail tip of a good-sized—and comparatively good-mannered—black caiman.

The bouto is the largest of the world’s freshwater dolphins, reaching some 1.8 to 2.7 metres (six to nine feet) in length and weighing up to 158 kilograms (350 pounds). Inhabiting a broad range in northern and central South America, it cruises both main river channels as well as smaller tributaries and seasonally flooded forest. Huge flippers help it navigate shallows and maze-like floodwaters, and echolocation allows it to zero in on mostly bottom-dwelling prey—catfish and other piscivorous fare as well as crustaceans—amid the murk.

Not much is known about predation on the bouto, although the black caiman has certainly been suggested as a potential threat, as has the jaguar. There is, in fact, this footage showing an attack by a black caiman on a river dolphin:

As such, perhaps the bouto in the Itapará River drone video—which also has at least one companion—was engaging in the sort of predator-mobbing behaviour we see in many different organisms, from songbirds harassing owls to pilot whales ganging up on orcas.

Dr. Adam Rosenblatt of the University of North Florida, who’s studied both American alligators and black caimans, told me by email that occasional caiman predation on boutos occurs, but doubts that it's common. While the bouto in this footage may indeed be harassing a potential predator—or, hey, simply goofing around—it’s possible there was another impetus. Rosenblatt pointed out that the caiman has a tag on its tail, suggesting it’s been captured and marked in a scientific study. “The dolphin appears to nip the tail at the exact point where the tag is,” he said, “so maybe the dolphin was being curious about this foreign item it doesn’t normally see.”

He also noted that black caimans, formidable as they are, can be spooked by gangs of giant river otters, rather feisty top-level cooperative hunters that may confront caimans to protect their kits and, perhaps, when compelled by competition. Boutos are usually seen solo or in pairs—river dolphins overall tend to be less sociable than their oceanic relatives, including those that also range into freshwater habitats—but may gather to a dozen or more in the low-water season.

It’s not clear whether multiple dolphins might represent at least a “pestering” threat to a caiman. “It’s well known that even large caiman will actively avoid packs of river otters,” he said, “so maybe the same is true for groups of dolphins.”

Regardless of the significance of the interspecific behaviour captured in the drone video, it’s certainly a fantastic bird’s-eye look at two of the most charismatic freshwater beasts in the Neotropics. While populations of the black caiman were majorly hammered in the 20th century by the hide (and, to a lesser extent, meat) trade, the crocodilian has shown a cheering recovery in many parts of its range, though information gaps as to its status in some areas definitely remain. The IUCN Red List, meanwhile, classifies the bouto as Endangered and considers numbers to likely be on the downslide, with significant threats including intentional killing of river dolphins for use as bait as well as bycatch mortality.

Header image: Allan Hopkins

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.

The female chimp in question belongs to the central subspecies, one of four or five defined for this near cousin of ours. Gabon as well as the Republic of Congo is a stronghold for the central chimp, found across more than 700,000 square kilometres of Central Africa. Relying primarily on ripe fruits but also occasionally hunting mammals such as monkeys and duikers, central chimps have been the subject of productive research in Gabon, where, for example, the apes have been recorded tending to wounds with crushed insects and, in Loango National Park, conducting coordinated attacks on groups of western lowland gorillas and killing infant gorillas.

Tool use—for example, using sticks for pounding honeycombs, extracting honey, and probing logs in search of prey—has been recorded among chimps in Gabon’s Loango and Moukalaba-Doudou national parks. Now, this newly released camera-trap footage shows it’s also a skill practiced on the Batéké Plateau.

The use of a stick to investigate the trail camera is also an intriguing behaviour that wasn’t noted in a 2019 survey of the responses of naive African apes—chimps, bonobos, and gorillas—to camera traps. While the researchers in that study predicted that chimps would display the most curiosity toward camera traps on account of their more diverse diet and habitat preferences, in fact it was the bonobos and gorillas that “demonstrated a stronger looking impulse toward the camera trap device compared to chimpanzees, suggesting higher visual attention and curiosity.”

The study authors speculated that possibly the remote cameras simply didn’t provoke enough excitement or fear in chimps to warrant close interest. Of the three ape species, bonobos showed the most fearful responses to the camera traps—a reflection, perhaps, of the more egalitarian bonobo society, where the “allocation of risk is predicted to be spread more evenly within the group” as compared to chimps and gorillas, where one or a handful of individuals serve as leaders.

Chimps—classified as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)—and western lowland gorillas (Critically Endangered) are among a number of primate species recorded in Batéké Plateau National Park, also home to several kinds of monkey—from moustached monkeys and northern talapoins to mandrills, first documented in a 2017 camera-trapping survey—as well as pottos and galagos.

The park lies in southeastern Gabon and encompasses a striking landscape of ecological frontiers. It marks where the northwestern edge of the Batéké Plateau itself—a highland of sandstone and ancient sand dunes that sprawls across some six million hectares of Gabon, Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola—subsides to the great low-lying Gabonese rainforest. The Plateau, which includes domes and escarpments cut by rolling foothills and river valleys, harbours extensive tracts of grassland and savannah, with gallery forests—some of which finger into the highland from the bordering rainforest—threaded through as lusher ribbons of tall trees and dense understory.

A local manifestation of the extensive Western Congolian Forest-Savanna Mosaic, the Batéké’s blend of grassy glades and parkland intermixed with riverine forest makes for a fascinating faunal mashup. Here, historically, lions, spotted hyenas, waterbuck, and other savannah and woodland species shared the greater landscape with rainforest denizens such as forest elephants, forest buffalo, forest duikers, sitatunga, and red river hogs—and, of course, those two great apes (though chimps in places can be savannah-dwellers).

Camera-trap surveys undertaken around when the park was established in 2004 and subsequently have made some major discoveries, not least (thanks to camera traps set up for chimps) the presence of a male lion in 2015 (which we reported on here and here): the first well-documented observation in Gabon since 1996. Genetic analysis of hair samples gathered from this lion suggested it may have been a holdout of the so-called Batéké lions that formerly seemed to specialise in this savannah/woodland country rather than a disperser from West/Central African prides in Cameroon or the Central African Republic, separated from Gabon by dense rainforest.

Indeed, the trailcam investigated by the chimp was part of an effort by ANPN and Panthera to monitor for big cats in the park, and, according to Panthera, happened to be in the same area where the 2015 lion was documented. Panthera and ANPN are collaborating on a lion translocation for Batéké Plateau National Park—the first of its kind in West or Central Africa—which is scheduled to begin this year.

Top header image: David C, Flickr

And there’s been plenty of bear action already, as it happens: enough to justify something of a springtime “bruins-back-in-action” roundup.

In Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park alone—part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in the Northern and Middle Rocky Mountains of the U.S.—grizzly bears have been very much in the news in recent weeks. On May 13th, park biologists there found the carcasses of two yearling grizzlies that showed signs of having been preyed upon by another bear—likely a boar, given male bears represent one of the starkest threats for cubs. The killed yearlings appear to have belonged to a tagged sow, Grizzly Bear 1063, who was observed—alone—in the vicinity as park officials conducted followup monitoring.

“While it is incredibly sad to see a grizzly bear lose its cubs,” Grand Teton National Park Bear Biologist Justin Schwabedissen said in a news release, “predation by other bears is a natural source of cub mortality in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and has previously occurred in Grand Teton.”

And in a happy development, a subsequent Grand Teton National Park social-media post revealed that Grizzly Bear 1063 was seen later that week in the company of her third, very much alive, cub, whose fate till then hadn’t been accounted for:

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A post shared by Grand Teton National Park (@grandtetonnps)

The loss of two young bears to a boar grizzly is an ancient event; death by vehicle falls in another category of mortality, of course—a more tragic, and much more recent, one associated with human development and activity. On May 6th, a subadult (reckoned at five years old) male grizzly, Grizzly 1058, was found dead in roadside willows near Grand Teton’s Buffalo Fork River, apparently struck on Highway 26. This discouraging development echoed the demise of his mother: the world-famous, much-photographed sow Grizzly 399, who’d given birth to 1058 as part of an astonishing litter of quintuplets in 2020. Last October, a vehicle killed 399 in the Snake River Canyon south of the national park, snuffing out what had become one of the most celebrated grizzlies anywhere and an exceptional matriarch.

On a cheerier front, the start of May saw one of 399’s go-to suitors—the big boar nicknamed “Bruno,” who’s thought to have sired a slew of progeny—trying his hand (paw) at ice-fishing for trout at Oxbow Bend along the Snake River in Grand Teton. His somewhat clumsy but semi-successful efforts were documented by a Roam Wild Photo Tours group, which, according to Cowboy State Daily, observed the grizzly’s on-the-ice tactics for some 45 minutes:

Shortly thereafter at Oxbow Bend (once again as reported by Cowboy State Daily) onlookers filmed a stout-hearted coyote slink through the snow behind Grizzly 610—one of 399’s full-grown daughters—and give her a nip in the rear end, apparently on account the bear was pilfering one of the songdog’s food caches:

That’s not the only ursid/canid run-in caught on film in the Rockies this spring. Last month, photographer Cory Tilley posted some atmospheric footage of a freshly emerged grizzly crossing (peaceful) paths with a black wolf amid swirling April snow:

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A post shared by Cory Tilley (@corytnaturephotography)

Earlier yet, on the last day of March, the Old Faithful/Upper Geyser Basin webcam in Yellowstone National Park captured a herd of bison run off a grizzly likely quite fresh out of its den and roaming the still-snowy landscape of the Yellowstone Plateau:

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A post shared by Yellowstone Forever (@ynpforever)

Most northern bear species such as the brown bear—of which the grizzly is a North American subspecies—are facultative hibernators. Indeed, bears are the biggest of all hibernators, a motley assortment of critters that also includes many rodents as well as certain shrews, bats, and dwarf lemurs. Besides their sheer heftiness, bears are unusual among this company in that they don’t as significantly reduce their body temperature during their winter sleep, though their metabolism majorly slows down; they also frequently rouse themselves, and may even leave the den here and there during hibernation season. (The ability of hibernating bears to maintain their muscle mass and bone strength despite months of lethargy has long fascinated medical researchers curious about the potential applications for human health and well-being.)

As observations of bears out and about on the snowpack and in dense flurries attest, the shaggy beasts are plenty resilient in the cold; the ultimate impetus for winter denning is likely the seasonal food shortage, given succulent plant matter, including young shoots and fruits, as well as insects are dietary mainstays for the omnivorous brown and black bears.

That said, the cozy refuge of a den is a good place to bring forth tiny, helpless cubs, as mother bears do in the dead of winter. Polar bears—the most carnivorous of all ursids—find good hunting out on the wintertime sea ice; pregnant sows are typically the only ones that hunker down for the season, bringing forth a new generation in the security and warmth of a snow den—much appreciated by the pipsqueak polar-bear cubs, which lack insulating subcutaneous fat and have but a thin coat of fine fur. (As part of a new study on maternal denning in Svalbard polar bears, some great remote-camera footage came out earlier this year showing sows and cubs emerging from their winter dens.)

Warming spring temperatures and the onset of snowmelt appear to be triggers for bears to exit their dens for good, as a remote camera in the Sierra Madres of Wyoming captured an American black bear doing back in April:

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How climate change will affect the denning patterns of bears is an open topic of research.

Meanwhile, a brand-new study out of the Brooks Range of Alaska shows that the Arctic grizzlies there—which tend to emerge in late April in concert with the melt-off of snowcover—spend an average of a whopping 206 days a year in their winter dens, with one griz staying snoozing and sequestered for 233 days: close to what biologists reckon is the physiological limit of a bear’s torpor duration. “These are some of the longest denning durations ever reported in the world, and reflects the difficult living conditions for bears in the Brooks Range,” the study authors wrote in a National Park Service article.

Now that bears are roaming about again, vacationers getting a jump-start on the busy summer tourism season in the national parks of western North America and other corners of Northern Hemisphere bear country need to abide by proper bear-safety practices. These include everything from carrying (and knowing how to use) bear spray—here’s a primer video from Yellowstone National Park—to storing food and garbage in bear-resistant vehicles, storage containers, or devices, whether you’re in a front-country campground or backpacking deep in the wilds.

Speaking of, on May 15th, Yellowstone National Park officials had to euthanize the first grizzly there in some eight years on account the animal—a 400-pound, 11-year-old boar—had been wrenching out bear-resistant trash cans from their concrete footings and upending 800-pound bear-resistant dumpsters in some highly trafficked areas. Yellowstone’s long-serving Bear Management Biologist Kerry Gunther said in a park news release, “It’s unfortunate that this bear began regularly seeking out garbage and was able to defeat the park’s bear-resistant infrastructure. We go to great lengths to protect bears and prevent them from becoming conditioned to human food. But occasionally, a bear outsmarts us or overcomes our defenses. When that happens, we sometimes have to remove the bear from the population to protect visitors and property.”

Another reminder for the 2025 “bear-active” season: The death of Grizzly 1058 in Grand Teton National Park by vehicle strike shows the importance of slowing down and always remaining keen-eyed on roadways passing through prime wildlife habitat.

Header image: Knight725/Flickr

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“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.”

Offshore from Bremer Bay, the submarine Bremer Canyon is part of a regional network of underwater chasms—the Albany Canyons—gouged in the continental shelf and slope between Cape Leeuwin and the Esperance area. Funneling nutrient-rich Southern Ocean currents, the shelf-incising Bremer Canyon is a hotspot of biological productivity and diversity—and, in summer and fall, host to the greatest seasonal gathering of orcas documented in the Southern Hemisphere.

While the several hundred orcas hunting here commonly target such prey as beaked whales, tuna, and squid, pygmy blue whales—part of a rejuvenating Indian Ocean stock—sometimes land on the menu, as multiple Bremer Canyon predation events in recent years attests.

While pygmy blues are the smallest of the four blue-whale subspecies, they’re still enormous animals, reaching lengths of some 24 metres (79 feet). The victim in this most recent event was reckoned at 18 metres (59 feet). In 2021, Naturaliste Charters photographed some 50 to 70 orcas over Bremer Canyon kill an estimated 16-metre (52-foot) blue whale after an hours-long attack. And as Ian Dickinson wrote about here at Earth Touch News, Bremer Canyon orcas killed two pygmy blues—one of them 20 metres (66 feet) long—in the space of a couple of weeks in 2019.

These ambitious attacks on pygmy blues involve dozens of orcas, which, among other areas of the blue’s body, commonly target the jaws—the tongue apparently being a prized delicacy.

It’s unclear the degree to which orcas might attempt to kill a full-grown blue whale of the larger subspecies, which are the biggest of all beasts: Antarctic blues may exceed 30 metres (100 feet) and weigh 180 metric tons. In 2017, drone footage captured a pod of orcas charging an adult blue in California’s Monterey Bay, but this didn’t appear to be a serious predatory attempt, and the blue speedily exited the scene.

Indeed, except in the case of the small minke whale, successful orca strikes on mature baleen whales haven’t been documented very often. Patterns of rake marks seen on baleen species suggest most are primarily vulnerable to killer whales as calves or juveniles.

But given some populations and ecotypes of orcas commonly hunt whale calves—and may opportunistically make a go at older individuals—the threat of killer-whale predation likely helps shape the lifeways of baleen whales. In response to that threat, these ocean giants tend to follow either a “fight” or “flight” strategy.

Earlier this year, a study published in Marine Mammal Science showed that most whale species that customarily flee from orcas—which include blue whales as well as such close cousins as the fin, sei, Bryde’s, and minke—sing at a frequency too low to be detected at distance by killer whales: an example, perhaps, of “acoustic crypsis,” allowing these rorquals to communicate with one another without advertising themselves to their primary predator.

By contrast, baleen-whale species that fight back against orcas—among them humpbacks, bowheads, grey whales, and right whales—generally sing at higher frequencies above 1,500 Hz, clearly audible to killer whales. These offence-makes-the-best-defence species also tend to be slower and more manoeuvrable than their “flight” counterparts, which are slender, streamlined, and impressively nimble.

The study also notes that the “fight” species usually give birth, and frequently migrate, in coastal waters—relatively shallow nearshore environments where they can often stage successful group defence against persecuting orcas—whereas the “flight” types often breed and travel out in the open ocean. That deep, bluewater realm may improve their ability to outpace killer whales.

In a University of Washington press release about the research, faculty member and study author Trevor Branch said, “It just never occurred to me that some whales sing low to avoid killer whales, but the more I looked at this, the more I realized that every aspect of their behavior is influenced by the fear of predation.”

Top header image: timnutt, Flickr

An example of the diverse scavenging guild that can attend even smallish roadkill comes courtesy of a recent video compilation from northwestern Montana, USA. Posted by Janet Pesaturo of Winterberry Wildlife, the camera-trap footage shows the breakdown of a road-killed wild turkey:

After a weasel and especially some ravens work most of the carcass over, a striped skunk drags the measly remnants—mostly bones, gristle, and feathers, from the looks of it—into a hollow log Pesaturo notes in her post is a regular nap station for a puma.

In the footage compilation, other scavengers at the lean feast include a red fox and a bobcat, shown separately pilfering some of the scraps. Meanwhile, the burly puma commuting to its resting log appears to do little more than sniff at the dinner table. (We’ve written before here about the rich assortment of scavengers that capitalize on puma kills, incidentally.)

Striped skunks—which range throughout all of Montana, and indeed most of North America from southern Canada to northern Mexico—are omnivores with a strongly meat- and invertebrate-leaning diet, and they certainly happily tuck into carrion. This particular skunk’s decision to cache the turkey remnants inside a nook presumably redolent with puma aroma might seem surprising, as skunks definitely sometimes land on mountain-lion menus. But the infamous musk that skunks spray in defence gives them some swagger around bigger carnivores; as we’ve posted about in the past, striped and spotted skunks have been observed bullying and defending carcasses from pumas, despite the epic size difference.

(Perhaps the best-known eater of skunks in North America is the great horned owl, nests of which are sometimes drenched in skunk-musk perfumery. This footage shows a nighttime horned-owl attack on a striped skunk—though be forewarned it’s rather graphic.)

The turkey-scavenging footage also highlights the significance of roadkill as a wildlife-mortality factor. Montana is among the leading states when it comes to the number of wildlife-vehicle collisions per capita (as well as fatalities from such crashes), which is partly a reflection of the state’s abundance and wide distribution of wild animals, including plenty of large-bodied critters such as deer, elk, moose, pronghorn, and bears.

While road-killed ungulates are a regular sight in much of Montana (and elsewhere in North America) and much attention is rightfully paid to the danger highway-crossings pose in some areas to rare carnivores such as grizzlies, the (literal) impact of vehicles on birdlife is sometimes overlooked. As large birds that spend most of their time (and nest) on the ground—and which regularly file along and across roadways—wild turkeys are among the avifaunal groups most at risk of vehicle strikes. So are scavenging birds such as raptors and corvids drawn to roadkill, fruit-eaters winging among roadside plantings, and certain songbirds for whom de-icing and anti-slip treatments such as road salts and sand can be (toxic) attractants, among others.

Special wildlife-crossing structures such as overpasses and underpasses are one way to help critters following tried-and-true foraging routes and migratory corridors safely traverse roads, and indeed wild turkeys have been observed using them. Fencing, diversion poles, animal-crossing warning signs, and removing wildlife attractants along highway corridors are other examples of roadkill-mitigation efforts.

(And on that note, a closing PSA: Slow down and stay alert out on the blacktop!)

Top header image: Alan Krakauer/Flickr

These dramatic moments, captured on camera, spotlight a surprising truth: Seabirds, waterfowls, and other feathered folk often find themselves on the wrong end of the aquatic food chain, contending with underwater predators that range from orcas and crocs to sharks, seals, otters, and even bony fish.

How often do birds end up on the menu of underwater predators such as orcas and crocs? Well, in a word, frequently. In freshwater realms, everything from bullfrogs and large fish such as pike and catfish (at least one species of which will actually wriggle ashore to snag pigeons) to otters (Exhibit A, Exhibit B) and, yes, crocodilians will take birds opportunistically. (Though relationships can be complicated: Wading birds often nest in alligator-patrolled swamps and marshes—losing fallen nestlings to the reptiles, sure, but also benefiting from the built-in protection they provide from nest-raiding predators such as raccoons.)

And how about those seabirds, waterfowl, and other avian clans that spend time along seacoasts and far out over the briny bluewater of the open ocean? We’ll acknowledge off the bat that penguins—the world’s sole remaining flightless seabirds—are eaten (or at least torpedoed in target practice) by an array of marine hunters, including various pinnipeds, sharks, and orcas. Here we’ll mostly focus on flying birds, which would seem generally less vulnerable to toothy underwater beasts.

Crocodilians & Seabirds

The Tárcoles River croc’s pelican lunch wasn’t really atypical. American crocodiles in Costa Rica have been observed—and caught on camera (multiple times)—feeding on brown pelicans before. An American croc on the mangrove coast of southwestern Florida was filmed making an unsuccessful strike on a pelican in 2019. (Indeed, not just in ocean surf and estuarine lagoons but also inland freshwaters, a variety of crocodilians, from Nile crocs to American alligators, will dine on pelican at any opportunity.)

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And any number of other seabirds may be taken by croc species tolerant of brackish and saltwater, such as American and estuarine crocodiles. American crocs will prey on cormorants around atolls and cays in Belize, for example. And last year, in a particularly unusual sighting, an estuarine croc snatched a pomarine jaeger—a feisty seabird that summers in the Arctic and winters out at sea—on a beach on Pelican Island in the northern Great Barrier Reef of Australia.

“We believe it is the first recorded meeting between an estuarine crocodile and a pomarine jaeger,” Queensland Department of Environment, Science & Innovation Senior Ranger Lee Hess said in a news release, “and unfortunately it was a long way to fly to end up like this.”

Orca "Games"

Circling back to the grebe-gobbling orca in Seattle, this isn’t the first time, by any means, that killer whales have been recorded seizing or otherwise messing with seabirds and waterfowl. That includes in the Salish Sea, where transient orcas chase, grab, and slap not just grebes but also common murres, marbled murrelets, scoters, common loons, rhinoceros auklets, mergansers, and brant geese, to name a few avian victims. These interactions, unwelcome and frequently fatal as they are for the birds involved, often (and maybe even mostly) appear to be non-predatory or at least non-consumptive. The whales—frequently juveniles—seem to essentially be playing with the birds, though of course this play can help a young transient orca hone its hunting chops for future goes after pinnipeds and other sea-mammals.

 Among numerous other corners of the world where similar apparent play has been recorded, a study written up in a 1990 Marine Ornithology paper documented orcas harassing many Cape and bank cormorants off the coast of southern Africa. The typical routine “involved a whale approaching from behind a seabird swimming on the surface, taking the bird in its mouth, diving with it, and then leaving the dead or dying bird floating on the surface,” the authors wrote, noting that “few if any” of the killed birds were actually eaten.

The study, which discussed fieldwork done in 1986, noted that across four days in April of that year a pair of orcas were estimated to have killed nearly 300 young cormorants. “In December between seven and 24 adult cormorants were taken per day,” the paper explained. “and in that month the whales preyed upon Cape fur seals in the early morning and late afternoon and ‘played’ with seabirds throughout the day.”

It should be noted that orcas have been observed actually feeding on (and not just roughhousing with) birds besides penguins, among them gannets, petrels, kittiwakes, guillemots, puffins, and eider ducks.

And it should also be noted that numerous kinds of seabird—from storm-petrels and kelp gulls to southern giant petrels and various albatrosses—will trail orcas in hopes of scavenging from their kills. Taken as a whole, the orca/seabird ledger probably shakes out in the positive for the birds, given all the fishy and blubbery scraps that killer-whale noshing produces.

Bird-Munching Mammals

What about other marine mammals? Besides hunting penguins in some areas—let us pause and acknowledge that living, breathing penguin nightmare called the leopard seal—pinnipeds can be proficient predators of seabirds. Cape fur seals, for example, may be significant mortality factors for fledgling cormorants and gannets in the waters of southern Africa. Indeed, capable of exploiting varied and novel food sources and mastering new predatory techniques, pinnipeds can rack up quite the avifaunal kill-count in local areas. One hungry walrus along Coats Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, for instance, appeared to successfully hunt 67 thick-billed murres in the course of one August day in 2002 (with its preferred feeding method being snorfling out the birds’ soft tissues and leaving the inside-out skin and skeleton). And some of this bird-hunting can take place on land: A single male New Zealand sea lion was recorded killing at least 128 nesting adult royal albatrosses on sub-Antarctic Campbell Island in January 2005, with an average daily predation rate of seven birds over the course of a number of weeks.

Even sea otters, mostly known for crunching invertebrates such as sea urchins and mollusks (oh, and melting hearts via floating naps: you’re welcome), have been known to prey on seabirds here and there, including western grebes, gulls, common loons, cormorants, and surf scoters. Less surprising is the fact that North American river otters making their living in coastal marine environments can be adept predators of seabirds such as storm-petrels and gulls—even brown pelicans.

Shark Bites

Meanwhile, piscivory is one of the go-to dietary niches for birds, but what about the other way around? All sorts of sharks will snatch a floating or diving bird if they can, it probably goes without saying. Baitballs, floating carrion, and other common food sources regularly draw pelagic birds and sharks into close proximity. And young seabirds still mastering flight can be, if you will, sitting ducks for sharks. Fledgling albatrosses learning the ropes in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands certainly face a steep learning curve on account of tiger sharks, which seasonally beeline to atoll rookeries to hunt them.

An early 19th-century scientific report about the hunting style of the common thresher shark alleged a thresher in Dublin Bay tail-whipped a wounded diver (loon) and then consumed the bird. (Although that account faced skepticism, modern research shows threshers do indeed stun fish with their resplendently long upper caudal fins, and seabirds are considered probable menu items for the species.)

Great white sharks—occasional biters, if maybe not regular eaters, of penguins off southern Africa—are, like orcas, probably mostly a boon for seabirds as a reliable source of spoils. That said, scavenging seabirds might sometimes end up inadvertently in the crosshairs of a feeding great white. Researchers observing interactions between a white shark and seabirds attending to a fur-seal carcass in the Tasman Sea noted that larger birds—albatrosses and northern giant petrels—bobbed in the vicinity and did periodic flyovers of the shark-shadowed carcass, but didn’t actively feed. Citing similar behaviour among big-bodied seabirds elsewhere, they concluded perhaps those albatrosses and giant petrels fretted about getting targeted by the great white, whereas littler seabirds at the smorgasbord, including fairy trions and white-faced storm petrels—which showed less discretion dining as they did close to the shark—may have felt less threatened.

It’s not only seabirds and waterfowl that can end up sharkbait: Migrating songbirds making open-water crossings are vulnerable if, as often happens, exhaustion, injury, bad weather, or disorientation forces them into the drink. Dead or still alive, such doomed, waterlogged migrants become easy pickings. A 2019 study showed tiger sharks in the Gulf of Mexico swallowed a variety of migrating land birds, from barn swallows to yellow-bellied sapsuckers; the research even raised the possibility that a well-documented tiger-shark nursery in the northern Gulf might be situated and timed to allow baby sharks to feast on bird fallout there during the autumn migration.

Researchers inventorying the stomachs of Mediterranean blue sharks have found such land birds as common swifts, quail, pigeons, and mockingbirds (also swallowed by a Pacific blue shark off Baja California)—presumably eaten as migration fallout—as well as various seabirds. Even typically deepwater sharks get in on the action: In the same sea, blackmouth catsharks—which rise from the depths at night to forage closer to the surface—have been found with blackbirds and warblers inside of them.

Fish Food

Various bony fish will also eat birds if given the chance: by scavenging, of course, but also sometimes via active predation—or perhaps unintentional predation, as may have been the case with the Cory’s shearwater found in the stomach of an Atlantic bluefin tuna, which conceivably might have ingested the bird accidentally when both were going after baitfish.

A stomach-content analysis of Pacific cod off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands suggest those fish consume a decent share of seabirds such as auklets and murres, though it’s not clear how much of that comes from predation vs. seafloor-scavenging.

Another surprising bird-eater is the American monkfish or goosefish: A 2013 study showed that this bottom-dwelling ambush predator, also known as the “all-mouth” for its gaping maw, will eat the little auks called dovekies over the deeps of the Northwest Atlantic. The researchers suspect this predation likely occurs opportunistically when monkfish swimming in the water column—when migrating, for example—run into diving dovekies.

Eight-Armed Bird-Eaters

Speaking of unexpected aquatic bird predators, let’s end here: While cephalopods are usually on the losing end of avian encounters—squid are, needless to say, a big-time food source for many seabirds—remember that those brainy, always-scheming octopuses sometimes unleash their tentacles upon feathered quarry.

Top header image: timnutt, Flickr