A Collection of Wonders and Curiosities from the Animal Kingdom. Zoology, natural history and sometimes human history too. Amazing stories about amazing wildlife.
Lumholtz's Tree Kangaroo is one of only two species of tree kangaroo in Australia. Animals change, the world changes, the natural world is - almost - never standing still.
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Every year, the Bogong Moth undertakes one of the most extraordinary insect migrations on Earth in south-eastern Australia. The question for this episode is: how?
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There are several types of Supergiant Isopod in the deep sea - some of the most successful and effective scavengers on the planet. But why are they so very big?
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The Giant Clam has a secret trick that enables it to grow faster and bigger than any other bivalve mollusc in the world ...
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The Giant Armadillo is easily the biggest living armadillo, equipped with the biggest claw on Earth. And the fact of its size means it is significant - valuable - to a surprisingly wide variety of ot…
The Harlequin Beetle-Riding Pseudoscorpion: a tiny predator with an extraordinary way of moving from one hunting ground to the next ...
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The Golden Rocket Frog - an amazing little frog that lives only in one small corner of South America and whose life revolves around the very specific architecture of one - also amazing - plant.
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The Ochre Sea Star. A remarkable predator that can turn its stomach inside out through its mouth. And is also central to the story of a highly influential concept in ecology: it is the original Keyst…
The Pygmy Hippo. An animal - one of them in particular - that's been all over social media recently. But what do we actually know about this species, how do we know it and why is there something unus…
The Texas Horned Lizard has solved a tricky problem: how to eat insects that not only have a powerful bite but also some of the most painful and lethal stings in the world ...
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The infamous and fearsome (or not?) Bullet Ant. The first of three loosely connected episodes about ... pain.
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Remipedes! Upside-down-swimming, venom-injecting, cave-dwelling amazingness. Some of the strangest crustaceans ever discovered, living in some of the strangest places the world has to offer.
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Ants that can glide and Myrmeconema, a parasitic nematode that can change the appearance and behaviour of its host. What happens when the two of them meet?
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The Sumatran Rhino, the closest living relative of the extinct Woolly Rhinoceros, is the most vocal of all rhinos. This is the story of its extraordinary voice, and its journey through the twilight o…
The Cookiecutter Shark is famous for its gruesomely efficient parasitic attacks on whales, seals and big fish. But that is only a part of the story when it comes to this extraordinary, and extraordin…
The Giant Barrel Sponge: one of the simpler animals on Earth yet grows to enormous size over a crazily long life, exerts a big influence on reef ecosystems and, unlike a great many animals in our oce…
The Aldabra Giant Tortoise is an amazing survivor of a lost time - very recently lost - when giant tortoises dominated many of the islands in the Indian Ocean. Aldabra Atoll is the only place in the …
The Whip Spider Phrynus longipes is not a spider but one of the craziest-looking arachnids on Earth. They're also territorial and cannibalistic, so how do they manage to survive at super high densiti…
The Glacier Lanternfish is one of the most important fish in the world - part of arguably the greatest, and most under-appreciated, concentration of animal life on the planet. Which we can only reall…