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Most biologists classify a species as solitary once individuals spend more than half their time without company, a threshold that rules out casual loners and points to something built into the animal’s biology.
Eggs pack more protein per bite than almost any other food source in nature, which is exactly why so many animals that eat eggs will go out of their way to find them.
Body size rarely predicts reproductive anatomy in the wild, and few facts illustrate that better than the handful of animals with big balls scattered across the mammal family tree.
Animals with fangs have unsettled people for as long as people have told stories.
Bite into an orange on the back porch and it quickly becomes clear that humans aren’t the only ones interested.
Animals that start with “X” are very rare in English.
Animals that start with U make a short list, but the history behind it is long.
Animals that start with P cover nearly every corner of the natural world.
Animals that start with V cover more ground than the letter’s short reputation suggests.
Most animals with red eyes have no red pigment in them at all.
Animals that start with S include a falcon that hunts the Mongolian steppe, a mole whose nose has 22 feelers, and a lizard wearing armor plates fused to its skull.
Animals that start with R include a raccoon raiding a Midwestern trash can, a roadrunner sprinting across the Arizona desert, and a rhinoceros whose horn is made of keratin, the same protein that makes up fingernails and hair.
The Gulf of Mexico stretches across roughly 600,000 square miles of warm, nutrient-rich water, and that warmth draws in an enormous range of marine life.
Squirrels live in nearly every American park and backyard, yet the different types of squirrels around the world run well into the hundreds.
A newborn hamster can become its own mother’s next meal within hours of birth, and a male spider sometimes cartwheels off his mate’s back just to avoid becoming dinner.
Animals that start with Z are scarce in English, and most borrow their names from one famous striped grazer.
Animals that start with O carry some of the most interesting naming histories in zoology.
Animals that live in water include far more than fish.
Animals that start with N include a rodent with a maximum lifespan exceeding 37 years, a crocodile that ancient Egyptians worshipped, and a game bird whose whistled name still drifts across Southern pastures.
The letter Q is one of the thinnest in the animal kingdom, and a working list of real animals that start with Q comes to roughly a dozen species.
