After the egg is laid, the female heads out to sea to feed while the male balances it on his feet under a fold of skin through about two months of polar night. Counting courtship, he goes without food for nearly four months and loses up to 40% of his body weight. Huddled by the thousands against blizzards, males take turns in the warmer center of the group.
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.