Mountain chicken, guinea pig, honey bear, bearcat – 10 animals with completely the wrong names, misleading monikers and curious cases of mistaken identity
Common names for animals are often easier to remember than their Latin names, but they can often lead to confusion. Here are 10 animals with some very misleading names.
NASA officials sent over 2,000 baby jellyfish into space. Tens of thousands more came back to Earth
Scientists wanted to find out whether humans born in space still retained their sense of gravity. So they turned to baby jellyfish
A 'wandering meatloaf' and a 'two-headed snake' – meet 6 of Oregon's weirdest animals
There are some truly incredible creatures living in the US state of Oregon – here are some of the strangest.
The wildlife traveller's calendar: Plan your year around these wildlife spectacles
Seek wildlife holiday inspiration with this month-by-month travel calendar
10 incredible images and videos of ‘nature’s engineers’ that can build structures seen from space
Beavers are known as nature’s engineers due to their dam-making abilities, which transform landscapes
Dance, pluck… then paralyse: the riskiest date night in nature
When it comes to surviving a potentially deadly mating, it helps to have a plan
The 'Great Texas Freeze' killed thousands of beloved songbirds. Scientists are worried about what might happen next
North America’s largest swallow, the purple martin, was hit hard by winter storms in 2021. With erratic weather events becoming more common, experts are concerned about the bird's long-term survival.
It’s bigger than Florida, straddles 3 countries and is home to a snake as long as a great white shark
The Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland, is a refuge for some truly extraordinary animals.
“Hunger drives the lizard to make a second attempt.” Watch brutal BBC footage of an opossum fighting off a huge lizard to save her babies
In footage captured for the BBC TV film Komodo: The Deadly Bite, a monitor lizard tries to steal from an opossum nest
It's as long as a baseball bat, weighs the same as a Labrador and is preyed on by one of the world's deadliest animals
Learn all about one of the least known sea turtl - the flatback turtles
Birds
Birdwatching may slow ageing of the brain, say neuroscientists
Learning to identify birds could be beneficial for cognition as people get older, according to a new study.
It has a bizarre beak, is twice as heavy as a robin and uses animal hair to make its nest
Meet the common crossbill, the chunky finch with a taste for pine cones.
It has a bandit mask and punk-rocker crest – and can eat a whopping 1,000 berries a day
Meet the waxwing – the exotic-looking bird with a penchant for berries.
It's made from 1,500 tiny white feathers, bound together with spider silk and takes up to 3 weeks to construct
When it comes to intricacy, few animal nests can compete with those constructed by long-tailed tits. This is how they make them
These giants were planted by the Victorians. Now little birds sleep inside them
It’s easy to see how the treecreeper got its name…
Impaling on spikes, water bombing and stabbing – birds are more brutal than you realised. Here's 5 gruesome techniques they use to kill
Discover the brutal techniques used by some British birds to catch their prey - from impaling on spikes through to stabbing
How to identify wildlife
Red squirrel vs grey squirrel: Think you know how they differ? Think again as the differences between these two squirrels will surprise you
We take a look at how the red squirrel differs to its American grey cousin
Brown rat or water vole: How to tell the difference between these two lookalike-rodents
When all you've seen is a flash of brown fur, it can be hard to know whether it was a water vole or rat. Though the two species tend to live in different habitats, there are areas where they overlap, potentially leading to cases of mistaken identity. So how do you tell rats and water voles apart?
Mink or otter? What's the difference between these two slippery, semiaquatic lookalikes?
How do you tell the difference between otters and mink?
LRPs, PG Tips and Jizz: Cracking the secret language of birders
You’re sitting in a hide and overhear other birders talking. The conversation ranges from ‘LRPs’ and ‘roosting Leos’ and you scratch your chin as you try to decipher their code – welcome to the world of birding jargon.
It's the fastest animal in the world and its deadly claws can catch prey mid-air: Meet one of the world's most incredible birds of prey
Peregrines are the ultimate urban predator. Learn all about them, including how to spot them ‘stooping’ to catch prey
Save 30% when you subscribe to BBC Wildlife Magazine, plus receive Simon Barnes’ latest release, Spring is the Only Season
Save 30% when you subscribe to BBC Wildlife Magazine, plus receive Simon Barnes’ latest release, Spring is the Only Season
Plants
It’s longer than a blue whale, is thousands of years old and drinks fog – meet this weird ‘living fossil’
This living fossil (having unchanged for more than 200 million years) can survive some of the harshest conditions on Earth
Plants play techno, chimps drum and one creature uses its minuscule penis as a bow – why music isn’t just for humans
It’s not just the hills that are alive with the sound of music – ponds and oceans thrum with tunes, too
It’s taller than Big Ben, can live for thousands of years and even regenerates after an entire forest burns down
Did you know the tallest tree species in the world can grow to more than 100 metres? Learn all about them
Does a tree know it's being eaten?
Can a tree protect itself if being eaten?
