The Hawaiian bobtail squid hunts at night near the surface. Seen from below, its silhouette should stand out against the moonlight. But it houses glowing bacteria in a special organ and adjusts their light to match the glow from above, making its shadow vanish. Every morning it vents about 95% of the bacteria, which regrow during the day.
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.