Welwitschia produces just two leaves in its entire life. They grow continuously from the base like a conveyor belt, while their tips shred in the desert wind, so the plant looks as if it has dozens. Some specimens are thought to be more than a thousand years old, making it one of the hardiest plants on the planet.
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.