Mammals

Mammals

Fascinating facts about our warm blooded friends - the mammals.
Hippos in Niger

“My stomach lurched as the hippo drifted in our direction, only her pink, sweaty face visible – like a shark’s fin.”

Oscar was on a river safari in Niger when one mother hippo began to approach the boat
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Spotted hyena at night

Huge carnivores are roaming the streets of this Ethiopian city. What they're doing could be saving people $100,000 USD per year

In the city of Mekelle, hyenas and other urban scavengers are helping save the waste disposal sector money while also curbing carbon emissions, new study finds.
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A tiger roars, bearing its teeth, with a blue sky behind it

Why cats have slit-shaped pupils, why some cats roar and some purr and the feline that can leap 9 metres – 19 wild cat facts that will boggle your mind

From cheetahs that can hit 94kmph to snow leopards that wrap their tails like scarves, the world of wild cats is full of unexpected quirks. Here are 10 facts about wild cats you (probably) won't know
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Why do cats have three eyelids?

Do cats really have three eyelids?

Why do cats, and other animals, have a third eyelid yet humans don't? Stuart Blackman explains
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Majestic orangutan close-up portrait photo with striking facial features with face flangs and long reddish fur, lush green foliage background.

It’s not just humans who love a strong jawline...

Trail camera image of a beaver

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
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Spanish Lynx

On the brink of extinction: 11 rarest cats in the world, from the beautiful Arabian leopard to the weird flat-headed cat

There are more wild cats out there than just lions and tigers. Get to know some of the world's most elusive and rarest felines.
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Pobe cheetah

“She’s seen something….” A cheetah mum must distract a prowling big cat away from her cubs. Will her risk pay off?

In footage captured for the latest series of Big Cats 24/7, we watch a tense encounter between a cheetah mum and a leopard under the cover of darkness
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Pigmy hippos

Night cameras film extremely rare pigmy hippos wandering though Ivory Coast rainforest

There are estimated to be fewer than 3,000 pigmy hippos left in the wild.
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Virgina opossum plays dead

“It secretes a matcha-coloured substance from its anal gland that smells of rotting flesh.” This animal is insanely good at faking death

Whether it’s to deter predators or to avoid mating, plenty of animals fake their own death
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Tiger cubs in Ranthambore

Extraordinary footage shows female tiger carrying newborn cubs up a cliff in India

Biologist and wildlife filmmaker Dan O’Neill sheds light on the rare behaviour, which he filmed in India's Ranthambore National Park.
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Sand cat beside its den

Scientists tracked 6 ‘ghosts of the desert’ through the Saudi Arabian wilderness. This is what they found

Sand cats leave no tracks. To find out more about these elusive felines, researchers fitted half a dozen of them with GPS collars.
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Caiman eye

“After nearly an hour of brutal fighting, it’s all over.” An otter family must defend its pups from a caiman. What happens next is extraordinary

In footage captured for the BBC TV programme Giant Otters of the Amazon, a caiman refuses to back down from fighting with a family of otters
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Tagged Vancouver Island marmot

“We did this. People did this.” How Canada’s rarest mammal was pulled back from the brink of extinction

Canada’s rarest mammal was on the brink of extinction but, in a remarkable conservation success story, it is on the road to recovery
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Arabian hare

It has huge ears and can run twice as fast as Usain Bolt - meet the amazing hare returning to Saudi Arabia's northwestern desert

20 Arabian hares have been moved to the Prince Mohammed bin Salman Royal Reserve as part of a project to restore populations in the area.
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Conservationists releasing a cheetah

“It’s a kind of Tinder for big cats.” Cheetahs were dying out in Africa, so conservationists tried something new

The cheetah is back – thanks to a smart release project that now sees populations flourishing in South Africa and beyond
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Close up of a tiger's face with bare teeth of Bengal Tiger

Do tigers get a taste for human flesh after a first bite?

Some tigers do become serial man-eaters. But the evidence suggests they are driven by necessity rather than preference.
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Humpback whale

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
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Sea otter BBC spy cam

“He approaches slowly.” Filmmakers built a robot otter and released it into the Alaskan sea. What it saw was astonishing

Filmmakers used a robotic camera to capture adorable close-up footage of sea otters.
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Tonkin snub-nosed monkey

Rare blue-faced monkeys seen swinging through remote forest in Vietnam

The critically endangered Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys were spotted during a recent population census in Vietnam’s Khau Ca forest.
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Why are giant pandas black and white?

Our expert explains why giant pandas are black and white.
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Doomsday Glacier

A rapidly melting ‘Doomsday Glacier’ and a monstrous deep-sea fish: 6 of nature’s doomsday signals that could warn of the end of the world

Whether these signs are rooted in science (like the Doomsday Glacier) or simply popular myth, they have been associated with the end of the world – or at least life as we know it
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Astonishing power and resilience of hippos revealed in 16 incredible photos

Dramatic images of hippopotamuses – from the muddy banks of the Luangwa River in Zambia to Botswana's vast Okavango Delta.
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Giraffe drinking at watering hole

Giraffes have ridiculously high blood pressure – much higher than humans. So why doesn’t it kill them?

Giraffes have incredibly long necks, but their lanky legs also have an important function
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