Curated playlist
Carnivorans of North America
- Red foxThe red fox, Vulpes vulpes, occupies a range of nearly 70 million square kilometres that stretches north as far as the Arctic Circle. It is the largest of the true foxes. It is also among the most widely distributed members of the order…
- Polar bearUnder its white fur, the polar bear has black skin. The hairs are clear and only look white as they scatter light.
- CoyoteIn 2026, a coyote, Canis latrans, swam to the southern edge of Alcatraz Island. To get there, it crossed more than a mile of water from the nearest land in San Francisco. A swim like that would surprise anyone who pictures the coyote only…
- SkunkSkunk odor reached Darwin's ship, the Beagle, as it neared Monte Video. The wind blew offshore.
- WeaselEarly-modern Germany set aside three weeks just for killing weasels.
- Grizzly bearWhen Meriwether Lewis and William Clark first described the grizzly bear, they wrote its name as grisley. That spelling can be read two ways. It can mean grizzled, as in hair tipped with grey. It can also mean grisly, something that…
- RaccoonThe raccoon, Procyon lotor, has been known to live more than 20 years in captivity. In the wild, its life expectancy is only 1.8 to 3.1 years. That gap is strange for a mammal native to North America that is famous for adapting to almost…
- WolverineThe wolverine known as M-56 began his famous journey as a young male, tagged by Wildlife Conservation Society officials in Wyoming near Grand Teton National Park. Researchers tracked him south for almost three months. In June 2009 the…
- StoatThe stoat, known to science as Mustela erminea, is a small meat-eating member of the mustelid family. By 2024, the Orkney Native Wildlife Project had spent £7.9m trapping more than 6,300 of them. Stoats have lived on that archipelago north…
- Sea otterThe sea otter, Enhydra lutris, carries up to 150,000 strands of fur on a single square centimetre of its body. That is the densest coat of any animal. The sea otter is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North…
- CoatiThe coati takes its name from the Tupian languages of Brazil, where the full form, coatimundi, means lone coati. That is a strange label for an animal that spends so much of its life in noisy company. The coati is a slender-snouted mammal…