In certain forests, male fireflies end up blinking on and off together, turning the undergrowth into a giant string of lights. Nobody conducts the orchestra: each insect slightly adjusts its rhythm to match its neighbors, and synchrony spreads from one to the next. The phenomenon inspires mathematicians who study clocks, neurons and even power grids.
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.