Around 50 million years ago, early whales such as Pakicetus were wolf-sized land mammals that hunted at the water's edge. Within roughly ten million years, their descendants had become fully marine. Whales still carry remnants of hip bones, and their closest living relative is... the hippopotamus.
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.