The cloaca, the opening reptiles use for waste and egg-laying, is lined in some aquatic turtles with pouches rich in blood vessels. By pumping water in and out, they extract dissolved oxygen. One Australian river turtle gets a large share of its oxygen this way, allowing it to stay underwater for very long periods without surfacing.
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.