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2021 Dec 30
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It’s been a good 3.5 billion years or so since life kicked off on this planet, but each lap of the Sun still brings fresh wonders from the animal kingdom to light. This year we’ve been treated to tool-making cockatoos, self-decapitating sea slugs and a record-breaking chameleon not much bigger than a fingernail. Here’s ten of our favorite animal-related science stories from 2021.
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Amazing animals 2021
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A tiny new species of chameleon has been discovered, and it may be the smallest reptile in the world. Known as Brookesia nana, or the nano-chameleon, the petite species can perch on a fingertip and may have the smallest adult males of any vertebrate.
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Millipedes are frauds – despite their name being Latin for “thousand feet,” they usually only have a few hundred. But a newly discovered species is the first to earn its name with well over 1,000 legs, far more than any other creature on the planet.
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2021 Sep 07Wild cockatoos have been seen making sets of tools, each with their own design and purpose, and using them in a specific order to crack into fruit. This behavior places them in an exclusive club that previously only included humans and some primates. -
2021 Sep 04We’re big fans of the annual Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards – this contest always gives us a smile, and it’s a good-hearted organization focused on conservation. Now the finalists have been announced for 2021 – here are our favorites from the crop. -
2021 Aug 12Scientists have tracked the entire life of a mammoth that lived 17,000 years ago, right down to the week. By studying the isotopes in different parts of its tusk, the team figured out where in Alaska it was at any given point in its 28-year life. -
2021 Jun 07Scientists have revived microscopic animals that had been frozen in the Siberian permafrost for 24,000 years. The Bdelloid rotifers, or “wheel animals,” went right back to moving, eating and reproducing like the Ice Age was only yesterday. -
2021 May 20Tardigrades are some of the toughest known lifeforms, and it’s been proposed they could seed life through asteroid impacts. Now, researchers have tested the hypothesis by firing tardigrades from a gun into sand, and checking how well they survived. -
2021 Mar 08It’s normally a leg here or a tail there, but scientists have now discovered one of the most extreme examples of limb regeneration ever seen in an animal – sea slugs that voluntarily detach their own heads and then regrow an entire body from it. -
2021 Jan 06Exactly how some animals, such as birds, can detect magnetic fields remains a mystery. Now researchers in Japan may have found a crucial piece of the puzzle, making the first direct observations of live, unaltered cells responding to magnetic fields. -
2021 Nov 24An animal welfare bill in the UK will now include crabs, octopus, and lobsters after a review concluded they should be considered sentient beings. The review found strong evidence these invertebrates are capable of feelings such as pain and distress. [Editor’s Note: ALL animals are.]
