The Migratory Locust: When a Herbivore Becomes a Plague The desert locust is, in its solitary phase, a harmless grasshopper. It lives alone, avoids other locusts, is cryptically colored to blend with its

The Cone Snail: The World's Most Venomous Gastropod The cone snail hunts fish. This is remarkable enough for a snail — but the mechanism by which it does so is extraordinary: it extends a flexible,

The Tardigrade: Life at the Edge of the Possible In 2007, tardigrades became the first animals confirmed to survive direct exposure to open space. Attached to the outside of a satellite, they were exposed

The Pistol Shrimp's Snap: Physics at the Threshold The cavitation bubble produced by the pistol shrimp's snap reaches temperatures comparable to the surface of the Sun — roughly 8,000 Kelvin — for a duration

The Clark's Nutcracker: Spatial Memory Beyond Compare Every autumn, a small bird in the mountains of western North America harvests seeds from whitebark pine trees, carries up to 95 seeds at a time in

Source: Wikipedia The Raccoon: Dexterity, Memory, and Urban Genius The raccoon's front paws contain nearly as many sensory nerve endings as a human hand, with over 80% of the area in the part of the brain

Source: Wikipedia The Tarsier: The World's Largest Eyes Relative to Body Size If a human had eyes proportionally as large as a tarsier's, each eye would be roughly the size of a grapefruit. The tarsier's

Source: Wikipedia The Komodo Dragon: Venom, Strategy, and Apex Predation For decades, scientists believed the Komodo dragon killed through septicemia — bacterial infection from its bite, allowing it to

Source: Wikipedia The Shark: Six Senses in the Dark Ocean The more remarkable story about sharks is not aggression — it is perception. The shark navigates and hunts through a sensory system so comprehensive

Source: Wikipedia The Dung Beetle: Navigating by the Milky Way On a moonless African night, a dung beetle climbs atop its carefully rolled ball of dung, performs a brief rotational dance, then rolls in

Source: Wikipedia The Sea Cucumber: Liquefying Itself to Escape When threatened, a sea cucumber can partially dissolve its own connective tissue, becoming soft and liquid enough to squeeze through gaps

Source: Totti — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons The Mudskipper: The Fish That Conquered Land A fish that climbs trees. A fish that fights territorial battles on land. A fish that digs burrows in mud and

Source: Charles J. Sharp — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons The Peacock Spider: Eight Eyes, Eight Legs, One Dance The peacock spider is approximately 5 millimeters long. Its abdomen is covered with iridescent

Source: Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons The Gorilla: Gentle Giant and Mirror of Humanity A silverback gorilla does not rule through aggression. He earns authority through decades of demonstrated

Source: Romano Gianluca — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons The Seahorse: The Male That Gives Birth The seahorse is the only animal on Earth where the male becomes pregnant and gives birth. The female deposits

Source: Nativeplants garden — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons The Firefly: Living Light and the Mathematics of Synchrony On a warm summer night, thousands of fireflies flash in synchrony across a Tennessee

![The Electric Eel: Living Battery of the Amazon] Source: Abcor, Inc. Walden Research Division — Public domain, Wikimedia Commons The Electric Eel: Living Battery of the Amazon In the murky, oxygen-depleted

Image: Gross, Vladimir; Mayer, Georg | CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons Tardigrades: The Indestructible Travelers of the Microscopic World In 2007, a small capsule was attached to the outside of a satellite

Image: Travouillon, Kenny J.; Cooper, Christine; Bouzin, Jemmy T.; Umbrello, Linette S.; Lewis, Simon W. | CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons The Platypus: An Electroreception Expert Hidden in Plain Sight

The Mantis Shrimp: Nature's Most Extraordinary Eyes Imagine seeing the world through eyes that process sixteen types of color receptors — compared to the three that humans rely on. This is the everyday