This underground rodent breaks the rules of mammal biology. In the lab, it survived 18 minutes with no oxygen at all by switching to a fructose-based metabolism, a bit like a plant. It lives more than 30 years, ten times longer than a mouse of similar size, very rarely gets cancer and is insensitive to certain kinds of pain, such as acid burns.
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.