Wild equids as hoofed banners

First-come permanently-served on the Balearics

Wild equids as hoofed banners

Probe under the shell of a land so near and yet so far for testudines.

Frogs look up from water and down from trees.

Wild equids as hoofed banners

Ants can be abundant and diverse and yet too slow-breeding to feed ant-eaters.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Sam Wilson

Are catastrophes a temporary part of the natural process of addition to local biotas? Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Stan Sheb

The ostrich uses the same advantages as used by flying birds, namely greater mobility and heat-tolerance than those of mammals, to compete as a herbivore…

Some seed-dispersal by animals transcends the usual rewards of sugary fruit-pulp or oily arils. 

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Wallpaperhi

New Zealand’s strange bats provide clues to why mammals did not predominate on this archipelago.

The absence of gopher-like mammals in Australia provides insights into why certain animals did not evolve on this island continent.

Pretending false infection makes for an edgy immune system.

The most checkered of bears is the least likely to be worth attacking naively.

Why evolution has produced termitefrogs but not termitebirds.

Amphibians hop to paternal care.

Fatherly slime provident not primitive.

White eyes in red apes.

How to stay out of focus by gnu-immersion Photo by Uli Sauer Prof. Mumblebard claims: “As this photo in Ngorongoro Caldera shows, the plains zebra is attracted to gnus. The reason is that there is safety in numbers, the particular benefit being the vigilance of the gnus against predators.”  (NAÏVE) Robin and the Honey Badger respond: “Gnus, with their […]

Frogs look up from water and down from trees.

A mutilator of more than just bamboos.

Lurid froglets that ogle darkly.     

Tads don’t lose their pole after all.

The simplest frog is more manipulative than the cleverest lizard. .

Ferments give amphibs their cool edge.

The evolutionary compass of amphibian tails.

Why have tadpoles excused themselves from New Zealand?

The human hand as living fossil.

Building a life on wet combustion.

What it takes to drought-proof 3-centimetre hooves.

Only the gaudiest butterflies survive a feathered gauntlet.

Looking past plumage at the tell-tale of tails.

The mythical snarl of dental sabres.

Achtung felid claws!

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Despite its rusty colour, urine is revealingly rust-free.

Fishes with figurative claws. .

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Why micro-meta-genitals evolved in fishes.

A plankton-siever with only the rudest of Jaws.

Hormonal ossification is elementary.

Polly want some credit now.

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Calciferol, vital but not vitamin.

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Gaudiness hiding in plain sight.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Kevin Law

Food beliefs have fallen on the buttered side.

Cancer rewinds the cooperative evolution that promoted multicellular organisms.

Height of woodlands and savannas is aimed at resources scarcer than sunshine.

How moa elbowed mammalian herbivores out of New Zealand.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Walter Lawry Butler

A black-and-white case of evolutionary skullduggery?

The evolutionary potential of myrtles is easy to miss in unfamiliar lands.

There must be good reason why the kidney is twice as energy-intensive as the brain or liver, making it the most costly of organs. 

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Patrick Guenette

Convergence is unexpected where environmental differences hide in plain sight.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Otter Adrift

Megaherbivore digestion seems inefficient until its cream-skimming tactic is recognised.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Getaway

Herbivores outpace carnivores by walking rather than by fleeing.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Getaway

A streamlined head is only part of the explanation why birds avoid using external pinnae to locate sounds.

These birds are more far-fetched that even the least likely of furred imposters.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Simon Woolf

Why these are the largest islands without native terrestrial mammals.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: 2009 Infoqis Publishing Co.

One of the first adaptations of evolution should have been a non-random process of mutation.

Sisters share deadly signals that have hidden in plain sight.

Interpreting the marsupial lion as cat-like does not stand up to scientific scrutiny because there is little cat-like about its skeleton and, particularly, its teeth.

Unsheath the hidden weapon of an Australian carnivore with desultory canines.

Warthogs and baboons are the reserve greenkeepers of the African savannas, maintaining grazing lawns when the ungulate migrations suffer catastrophe.

Potassium, the mineral of fruit-juice, can be unaffordable for mere seed-wrappings.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Hans Hillewart

Ponder the resources that really matter under the shade of the energetic living dead.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Niel Marshman

Notoryctids are primitively pouched but at the cutting-edge in other aspects.

Peahens were less likely than human protectors to select for these false eyes.

Do-it-yourself defecation of the choicest coffee seeds would sort the dogs from the civets.

Thumbnail image: © Copyright  Leendertz

Tree-felling, ponding, and silt-damming all eventually produce big grazing.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: NOAAA Photo Library

Why even the most serpentine fishes can’t help but be engulfed by real sea serpents.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: NOAAA Photo Library

What is served by racial discrimination may be cultural rather than physical adaptation.

An exceptional wingspan made resilient by violent nurturing.

Thumbnail image — © Copyright: Geoff Hutchinson

Numbat  and aardwolf  both specialise on eating termites, but of fundamentally different productivities.

Birds originated from dinosaurs, but equating them with dinosaurs falls off a logical tightrope.

Colouration seeks no camouflage where it advertises safety in numbers.

This lemur-killer shows that the mammalian clitoris is used for more than sexual stimulation.

What it takes to drought-proof 3-centimetre hooves.

The retention of body stripes in greater kudu is no ancestral accident.