Near hydrothermal vents, the tubeworm Riftia can grow over two meters long. It has no mouth and no digestive tract. Its red plume absorbs oxygen and hydrogen sulfide, a gas toxic to most animals, and delivers them to billions of bacteria housed in a special organ. Those bacteria harvest energy through chemosynthesis and feed their host.
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.