Fungus-growing ants, including the famous leafcutters, don't eat the leaves they harvest: they use them to feed fungal gardens, their only food source. They weed, fertilize and treat their crops using antibiotic-producing bacteria carried on their bodies. This form of agriculture appeared more than 50 million years ago, long before ours.
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.