A persistent legend claims the daddy longlegs has the world's most potent venom but fangs too short to pierce skin. Not true: harvestmen aren't spiders at all, have a single fused body and no venom glands whatsoever. The myth probably comes from confusion with cellar spiders, which share the nickname and whose venom is harmless to humans.
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.