The oldest shark fossils, tiny scales, date back more than 400 million years. The first trees only appeared around 385 million years ago. That means sharks were cruising the oceans before a single forest grew on land. Since then, they've survived several mass extinctions, including the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
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.