In many woodpeckers, the tongue is far too long to fit in the beak. It is supported by the hyoid apparatus, a chain of bone and cartilage that runs from the throat, loops around the back of the skull and over the top toward the front of the head. Shot out of the beak, this sticky, barbed tongue fishes grubs out of tunnels deep inside the wood.
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.