Despite their reputation, sexual cannibalism in praying mantises is real but far from systematic. In a field study of the European mantis, it occurred in only about 31% of observed matings. The image of a female who always devours the male comes partly from captivity, where hungry females and males with nowhere to escape skewed the picture.
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.