Curated category
Paraphyletic groups
- FoxA fox can leap straight up, twist in the air, and land squarely on top of its prey. It crouches low to vanish into the terrain, then drives off its hind legs…
- ElephantElephants are the largest living land animals on Earth, and yet a single one of them can crack open a peanut shell with its trunk without breaking the seed…
- DolphinDolphins range in size from Maui's dolphin, barely taller than a person at 1.7 meters and 50 kilograms, to the orca, a 9.5-meter apex predator weighing 10…
- CrustaceanA Japanese spider crab stretches its legs to a span of 3.8 metres and tips the scales at 20 kilograms. At the other end of the spectrum sits Stygotantulus…
- WolfThe wolf, Canis lupus, is the largest wild member of the family Canidae alive today. A pack of fifteen can bring down an adult moose.
- PteridophyteA pteridophyte produces neither flower nor seed. Its way of reproducing is hidden, which is why these plants earned the old label cryptogams, a word that…
- BryophyteBryophytes have been quietly colonizing Earth's land surfaces since between 510 and 630 million years ago, long before any flowering plant existed.
- AcanthodiiAcanthodii were the first jawed fishes to swim on Earth, and for roughly 200 million years they ruled the waters of every continent.
- RabbitRabbits have been sentenced to death by a name. On the Isle of Portland in Dorset, older residents still refuse to say the word "rabbit" aloud, substituting…
- AmphibianAmphibians are ectothermic, anamniotic, four-limbed vertebrates that make up the class Amphibia. A wildlife hospital receives a frog or toad for treatment…
- AgnathaAgnatha means jawless fish, and it names a group defined by something missing. These animals have no jaws. Around 500 million years ago, two kinds of…
- IbisThe ibis has been pulling mummies out of Saqqara for a century, and archaeologists are still counting: one and a half million ibis mummies found in a single…
- DuckDuck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl, yet the word itself carries a stranger origin than most people suspect.
- ReptileA reptile can go half a year without eating. A crocodile needs only a tenth to a fifth of the food a lion of the same weight requires, and it can wait out…
- WhaleWhales are the largest animals that have ever existed on Earth. The blue whale stretches to 29.9 metres and weighs 190 tonnes, a creature so vast that its…
- WaspWasps are among the most misunderstood insects on the planet. Ask most people what comes to mind, and a 2018 study found the answers were nearly always the…
- ArchaeaArchaea live at pH 0, the equivalent of thriving in 1.2 molar sulfuric acid, and one of them reproduces at 122 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature…
- FishThere are over 33,000 living species of fish, easily the largest group of vertebrates on Earth. That is more than all the amphibians, reptiles, birds, and…