Curated playlist
Mammals of Africa
- CaracalFor centuries, spectators watched the caracal, a wild cat of Africa and Asia, tear through flocks of pigeons for sport. Caracals were placed in arenas with the birds, and people bet on which cat would kill the most. This pastime probably…
- HyenaHyenas look and hunt like dogs but are actually closer to cats. Their dog-like look came from convergent evolution.
- Capra (genus)Why can't scientists fully sort out the wild goat family tree? DNA showed look-alike ibexes are not close relatives.
- GiraffeA giraffe's neck has the same seven vertebrae as almost every other mammal. Each one is over 28 centimeters long.
- HippopotamusUntil 1909, naturalists grouped hippos with pigs. Their closest living relatives are whales and dolphins.
- CheetahIn under three seconds, a cheetah can accelerate from a standstill to 97 kilometres per hour. The animal is Acinonyx jubatus, the only living member of its genus and the fastest land animal on Earth. Yet in 2021 the global population was…
- DromedaryThe dromedary, Camelus dromedarius, has not lived wild anywhere on Earth for nearly 2,000 years. The animals alive today are domesticated, or the feral descendants of domesticated ones. Even so, this one-humped camel is a working presence…
- ZebraCharles Darwin once wrote that "a female zebra would not admit the addresses of a male ass until he was painted so as to resemble a zebra." He wrote that in 1871, and it shows how much attention the animal's coat drew from naturalists.…
- AardvarkThe aardvark, known to science as Orycteropus afer, can lick up as many as 50,000 insects in a single night. That count was actually recorded, and it hints at how unusual this animal is. It is a medium-sized mammal of Africa that digs for…
- Honey badgerIn 2007, while British forces occupied Basra Governorate in Iraq, rumours spread of man-eating badgers. The animal behind the story was the honey badger, Mellivora capensis. Some accounts even claimed that British troops had released the…