Curated playlist
Paraphyletic groups
- FoxRussian scientists bred foxes for tameness and got floppy ears. Nearly fifty years of work also produced curly tails.
- ElephantAn elephant can crack a peanut shell without breaking the seed inside.
- DolphinThe orca, often called a killer whale, is actually a dolphin. So are pilot whales, in a group of some 40 species.
- CrustaceanCrustaceans range from a 3.8 meter crab to a creature only 0.1 millimeters long. Both belong to one huge group.
- WolfWolves have been driven from the British Isles entirely. Their range is now about one-third of its historic size.
- PteridophyteFerns are closer kin to seed plants than to clubmosses. That is why pteridophytes are not one true family.
- BryophyteBryophytes live on bare rock with no roots, flowers or seeds. Mosses, liverworts and hornworts make up this group.
- AcanthodiiAcanthodii looked like sharks but were built from a different toolkit. They wore tiny platelets, not shark skin.
- RabbitOn the Isle of Portland, older residents still refuse to say the word "rabbit".
- AmphibianA frog in a water-filled aquarium with no way out can drown, since adults generally cannot breathe underwater.
- AgnathaAgnatha, the jawless fish, cannot be a coherent group without swallowing all vertebrates.
- IbisOne gallery complex at Saqqara in Egypt held one and a half million ibis mummies.
- DuckThe word duck comes from an Old English verb meaning to dive. Dabbling ducks tip headfirst into water to feed.
- ReptileA crocodile is closer kin to a sparrow than to a lizard. Birds nest deep among reptiles.
- WhaleWhales in the Gulf of Maine return more nitrogen to the surface than all its rivers combined.
- WaspThe smallest known flying insect is a wasp that fits on a pinhead. Kikiki huna measures just 158 micrometres.
- ArchaeaArchaea were filed away as bacteria until 1977, when ribosomal RNA split them into their own branch.
- FishBy the rules of modern biology, you may be a kind of fish yourself. Four-limbed animals descend from bony fishes.
- PeafowlPeafowl are three species of large game birds, and the famous fan of the male is not a tail at all. It is a train of highly elongated upper tail coverts, each feather marked with an eyespot. Two of the species belong to the genus Pavo and…