Animals

Neil the seal returns to sea, leaving trail of destruction

Salmon returning to the stream where they hatched are not following a map anyone drew for them: they are reading the chemical signature of their birth water on the final stretch, a scent memory formed before they ever reached the ocean

When elephants play, they rapidly copy one another’s trunk and head movements — a form of bodily mimicry resembling the contagious smiles and laughter seen in humans

A queen honeybee can live for several years, while worker bees may live for only six weeks in summer — and biologists still cannot fully explain the difference, because queens and workers share the same basic genome and are separated mainly by what they were fed as larvae

In 2023, researchers placed a GPS collar on a young bull elephant in Zambia. Two years later, his path stretched across four countries and six national parks, revealing the ancient routes elephants still remember, and the human borders now cutting through them

Scientists discover mysterious orange-lipped monkey species deep in Congo rainforest – all about the Likweli

The bees are dying – and nine other ways hotter weather is changing the British countryside forever

Dudhwa’s glowing fungi return with the monsoon

Do killer whales get a kick out of brutally bashing their dinner to bits?

These two orphaned mountain lion cubs have a new home at Zoo New York

British wading bird faces extinction as habitats disappear

Orcas smash fish into purée for their young (or are they just having fun?)

A polar bear’s fur looks white, but it contains no white pigment: its long guard hairs are transparent, hollow tubes that scatter light like crushed ice, while the skin underneath is black, helping absorb what little Arctic sunlight reaches it

My search for Britain’s 60th butterfly species

Golden Retriever gets stuck in a tree – and firefighters have the best reaction!

A border collie named Chaser learned the individual names of 1,022 toys and could retrieve them when asked. When shown a new toy among familiar ones and given an unfamiliar name, she could identify it by elimination—using a word-learning strategy strikingly similar to one seen in young children.

Prairie dogs don’t just warn their colony that a predator is near. Their alarm calls seem to encode what kind of animal is coming, and in some experiments its colour, size, and how fast it moves — all from a rodent’s squeak

Elephants hold what many consider funerals, returning repeatedly to the bones of their dead, touching the skulls with their trunks, sometimes standing in silence for hours at a site with no apparent purpose other than to be there

Matted dog is finally shaved after rescue – and her stunning features are revealed!

Cuttlefish passed a version of the marshmallow test, waiting up to two minutes for a better meal, and the ones that held out longest also learned fastest