Nature isn’t just red in tooth and claw – sometimes it’s downright bizarre. Across the animal kingdom, evolution has equipped creatures with an astonishing armoury of unconventional, often outrageous defence strategies. Some wrap themselves in mucus sleeping bags, others weaponise their own skeletons or bodily fluids – and a few simply out-slime anything that dares […]
Category: Wildlife
Game of tiny thrones: Parasitic ants grab power by turning workers against their queen
Queens of some ant species have evolved an unusually hostile mode for colony takeover: they infiltrate colonies of other ant species and manipulate the worker ants into killing their own queen — their mother — then accepting the intruding queen as their new leader, according to a recent study. In the world of ants, where […]
Gruesome death ordered for 172 bears as hunt ritual is approved for first time in more than a decade
As many as 172 black bears are at risk of death in Florida after a judge approved the first hunt in a decade. Leon County Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey rejected a request from Bear Warriors United, a Central Florida-based nonprofit, to halt this year’s hunt, saying the group had failed to show a ‘substantial likelihood […]
Can mountain lions make a comeback in the US north-east? One group hopes so
Last summer, a wildlife photographer saw, or believed he saw, a mountain lion in South Burlington, Vermont. While it’s possible, it is also remarkable: the apex predator was rendered extinct in northern New England in 1881 and the nearest confirmed breeding population is in North Dakota, 2,000 miles (3,200km) away. But there could be in […]
Black wolf snake discovered on remote Indian island. It’s over a metre long and eats other reptiles
A striking new species of wolf snake has been uncovered in the forests of Great Nicobar, the southernmost of the Nicobar Islands – an archipelago found off the northern tip of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. The glossy black snake reaches about a metre in length and is harmless to humans. It feeds on reptiles, […]
Snakes That Eat Poison Frogs Prove How Wild Evolution Can Be
Some animals have figured out how to eat deadly prey and not just survive but even turn those poisons into survival tools. According to the BBC, certain royal ground snakes (Erythrolamprus reginae) in the Colombian Amazon have evolved astonishing tactics to deal with toxic poison dart frogs. In experiments, a group of these snakes were […]
8 brutal, jaw-dropping great white shark moments captured in photos and film that expose their raw, explosive power and deadly ferocity
Awesome ocean moments reveal the raw power and regal beauty of nature’s most formidable ocean predator Great white sharks are the ocean’s ultimate ambush predators – immense, lightning-fast and armed with rows of razor-sharp teeth powered by a bite force of up to 1.8 metric tonnes. They move with astonishing speed, capable of explosive bursts […]
The land deal threatening a vital piece of Bolivia’s Chiquitano dry forest
A large forest in eastern Bolivia is on the verge of being sold to an international agriculture company, raising concerns that it might be razed to make room for new cropland. The 30,019-hectare (74,179-acre) plot in Bolivia’s northeastern Chiquitano dry forest has been sustainably managed for years. But now the land is on the verge […]