This Mexican amphibian regrows entire limbs without scarring, as well as its spinal cord, parts of its heart and even regions of its brain. Cells around the wound temporarily revert to a more flexible state and rebuild the missing tissues. The irony: this champion of regeneration is critically endangered in the wild.
In 2022, a young tagged bar-tailed godwit flew from Alaska to Tasmania in about 11 days of nonstop flight, covering 13,560 km without eating, drinking or landing. Before departure, these birds pile on huge fat reserves and shrink their digestive organs, which are useless during the journey.
To escape rivals, a dung beetle rolls its ball of dung in a straight line. At night, it holds its course using the glowing band of the Milky Way. In a planetarium, researchers showed that beetles rolled straight under a starry sky but wandered aimlessly when the galaxy was switched off. It was the first animal known to navigate this way.