Silkworm Moth
Everything about the silkworm moth: Bombyx mori's 5,000 year domestication, flightless blind adults, single 900 m silk fibre, 3,000-5,000 cocoons per kilogram of silk, and the Chinese Silk Road legacy.
January 2025
Ghost Mantis
Everything about the ghost mantis: size, habitat, dead-leaf camouflage, colour morphs, diet, reproduction, pet care, and the strange facts that make Phyllocrania paradoxa one of the most cryptic insects in Africa and Madagascar.
Common Blue Damselfly
Everything about the common blue damselfly: size, habitat, diet, the wheel-position mating ritual, nymph life, vision, flight, taxonomy, and the strange facts that separate Enallagma cyathigerum from its dragonfly cousins.
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
Everything about the eastern tiger swallowtail: size, habitat, caterpillar mimicry, osmeterium defence, female dark morph, hybrids, and the strange facts that make Papilio glaucus one of North America's most recognisable butterflies.
Goliath Beetle
Everything about the Goliath beetle: size, weight, habitat, diet, lifecycle, Y-shaped combat horn, giant larvae, and the strange facts that make Goliathus goliatus the heaviest known insect on Earth.
Carpenter Bee
Everything about the eastern carpenter bee: size, wood-boring nests, solitary life cycle, buzz pollination, nectar robbing, territorial males, and the strange facts that make Xylocopa virginica a master carpenter of the insect world.
Army Ant
Everything about the army ant: biology, colony structure, nomadic raids, bivouacs, bird followers, reproduction, and the strange facts that make Eciton burchellii one of the most formidable social predators on Earth.
Great Auk
Everything about the great auk: size, habitat, diet, behaviour, extinction timeline, surviving specimens, and the strange facts that made Pinguinus impennis the original penguin and the clearest marker of human-caused extinction.
Plesiosaur
Everything about plesiosaurs: size, habitat, diet, discovery by Mary Anning, four-flipper flight stroke, live birth, extinction, and why Nessie is not one -- a full reference to the ancient long-necked marine reptiles.
Pulmonoscorpius
Everything about Pulmonoscorpius kirktonensis: the 70-centimetre Carboniferous scorpion from East Kirkton, Scotland, its book-lung breathing, oxygen-driven gigantism, terrestrial lifestyle, and extinction in the early Permian.
Argentavis
Everything about Argentavis magnificens: size, wingspan, thermal soaring, diet, Miocene habitat, discovery in Argentina, and the strange facts that made this teratorn the largest flying bird ever known.
Diprotodon
Everything about Diprotodon optatum: size, habitat, diet, the Lake Callabonna mummified herd, the 46,000-year-old extinction, the Bunyip oral tradition, and why this 2-tonne wombat-relative was the largest marsupial that ever lived.
Aurochs
Everything about the aurochs: size, habitat, domestication, cave art, the 1627 extinction in Jaktorow Forest, Heck cattle, and modern back-breeding programs working to resurrect Bos primigenius.
Brachiopod
Everything about brachiopods: lophophore feeding, chitin-phosphate shells, the 540-million-year fossil record, the end-Permian mass extinction that wiped out 95%, and Lingula -- the living fossil genus that has survived half a billion years largely unchanged.
Cave Bear
Everything about the cave bear: size, diet, habitat, Pleistocene range, Drachenloch bone accumulations, Neanderthal coexistence, ancient DNA, and the extinction of Ursus spelaeus around 24,000 years ago.
Ichthyosaur
Everything about the ichthyosaur: temporal range, anatomy, dolphin-like convergent evolution, live birth, Mary Anning's 1811 discovery at Lyme Regis, Ophthalmosaurus giant eyes, and why these extinct marine reptiles vanished 30 million years before the dinosaurs.
Opabinia
Everything about Opabinia regalis: the five-eyed, clawed-proboscis Cambrian oddity from the Burgess Shale whose 1975 reconstruction was so strange that delegates at the Paleontological Association meeting laughed out loud.
Spinosaurus
Everything about Spinosaurus: size, temporal range, semi-aquatic lifestyle, 1.8 m sail, fish diet, Kem Kem fossils, Ernst Stromer's lost specimen, and why this theropod was longer than Tyrannosaurus rex.
American White Pelican
Everything about the American white pelican: size, habitat, cooperative fishing, the 11-litre gular pouch, migration, reproduction, conservation, and the strange facts that make Pelecanus erythrorhynchos one of the largest flying birds on Earth.
Superb Lyrebird
Everything about the superb lyrebird: size, habitat, mimicry, courtship, tail display, and the strange facts that make Menura novaehollandiae the largest songbird and the finest vocal mimic on Earth.
Osprey
Everything about the osprey: size, habitat, fishing behaviour, reversible outer toe, spiny footpads, migration, reproduction, conservation, and the strange facts behind Pandion haliaetus, the planet's only fish-specialist raptor.
Little Penguin
Everything about the little penguin (also called fairy penguin or little blue penguin): size, habitat, diet, burrow nesting, the Phillip Island penguin parade, Maremma dog guardians, the 2016 species split, conservation, and the strange facts that make Eudyptula minor the smallest penguin on Earth.
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
Everything about the sulphur-crested cockatoo: size, habitat, intelligence, mimicry, bin-opening culture, dancing to music, and the strange facts that make Cacatua galerita one of the most cognitively gifted birds alive.
Eurasian Eagle-Owl
Everything about the Eurasian eagle-owl: size, habitat, diet, hunting, booming call, ear tufts, reintroduction success, and the strange facts that make Bubo bubo the world's largest owl by wingspan.
Sandhill Crane
Everything about the sandhill crane: size, habitat, migration, courtship dance, subspecies, reproduction, conservation, and the strange facts that make Antigone canadensis one of the oldest bird lineages alive.
Sword-billed Hummingbird
Everything about the sword-billed hummingbird: size, Andean cloud forest habitat, Passiflora co-evolution, hovering flight, strange perching posture, and the facts that make Ensifera ensifera the only bird with a bill longer than its body.
Ostrich
Everything about the ostrich: size, habitat, speed, eggs, anatomy, reproduction, and the strange facts that make Struthio camelus the largest living bird and the fastest runner on two legs.
American Crow
Everything about the American crow: size, habitat, diet, intelligence, face recognition, cooperative breeding, West Nile virus impact, and the strange facts that make Corvus brachyrhynchos one of North America's most studied birds.
European Bison
Everything about the European bison (wisent): size, habitat, diet, behaviour, reproduction, the 12-founder recovery, Bialowieza Forest, rewilding, and the strange facts that make Bison bonasus Europe's largest land mammal.
American Bison
Everything about the American bison: size, habitat, diet, behaviour, reproduction, conservation, and the strange facts that make Bison bison the national mammal of the United States.
Wombat
Everything about the wombat: size, burrows, cube-shaped droppings, backward pouch, reinforced rear-end defence, three species, and the strange biology that makes Vombatus ursinus one of Australia's most unusual marsupials.