A team of scientists studying freshwater ponds on an Australian island observed a rather peculiar mosquito behavior – when feeding on frogs, mosquitoes would always go for the nostrils.

John Gould and Jose Valdez – the first with the University of Newcastle, in Australia, the other the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research – spent three years surveying approximately 60 freshwater wetland ponds on Kooragang Island, in New South Wales, Australia. During their research, they observed and photographed a total of 3977 amphibians, but upon returning to their laboratory and laying out all of their photos, they noticed something intriguing. Out of their thousands of photos, 12 of them showed mosquitoes feeding on various species of frogs, but in all of them, the mosquitoes were sucking blood from the animals’ nostrils.

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Northern US states are preparing for an invasion of incredibly intelligent and highly adaptable ‘super pigs’ that threaten to spill over the border from Canada.

Feral pigs have been the bane of North America’s flora and fauna for many years now, but a new breed of ‘super pigs’ is threatening to take the problems they cause to a whole new level. The result of cross-breeding domestic pigs with wild boars, these new feral pigs combine the survival skills of the wild Eurasian boar with the size and high fertility of domestic swine, a combination that is apparently nigh impossible to control. Not only are they capable of surviving cold climates by tunneling under snow, but they also devastate crops, feed on animals of all sizes, from quails and wild turkeys to deer and elk, and spread deadly diseases like the African swine flu and strains of influenza that can affect humans.

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The blue-tongued skink, a lizard native to the Australian continent, has a rather bizarre defense mechanism – it sticks its bright-blue tongue out to predators and they actually run away, sometimes.

A subspecies of Tiliqua scincoides, the blue-tongued skink is one of only five animals known to have blue tongues, the other being the chow chow dog breed, the giraffe, the Impala, and the Okapi. However, it is the only one known for using this distinct physical feature to intimidate predators. When a blue-tongued skink feels threatened, it will start sticking out its blue tongue rapidly, and the contrasting blue tongue against the pink background of its mouth will actually make some animals think twice before attacking it. It sounds weird, but there is a logical explanation behind this unique defense strategy.

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Tommy, a 13-year-old Brown Swiss from Cheshire, in Massachusets, was recently crowned the world’s tallest living steer, measuring an impressive 1.87m(6ft 1in).

Tommy the steer has been living with the Balawender family on their farm in Cheshire since he was just one day old, after being bought for just about $10. It’s safe to say that he is worth a bit more than that today, but the Balawender see him more as a member of the family than an asset, so they are not considering selling him. Brown Swiss cattle generally have large bodies for dairy cows, but they are considered a medium-sized breed, which makes Tommy somewhat of a freak of nature. A typical Brown Swiss cow weighs between 1,300 to 1,400 pounds, while bulls can reach 2,000 pounds. Tommy weighs about 3,000 pounds, which makes him heavy even for his breed, and he has the frame to match the weight – 1.87 meters (6ft 1in).

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It’s rare for any dog to reach 100 kilograms, let alone a stray one, but Krugets, a stray dog living in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, has become so fat that he can barely get up.

The Great Dane, the world’s largest dog breed, weighs between 300 (136 kg) and 400 pounds (181 kg), but for a midsize stray dog to weigh just under 220 pounds (100 kg) is somewhat of an oddity. Volunteers in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, recently found a stray dog so fat that he howled in pain every night, and barely managed to get up on all fours because of the unbearable joint pain. The dog had to be placed on a large scale by a number of people, and his weight reportedly stunned everyone. Krugets weighed a whopping 99.9 kilograms (220 lbs) and no one could understand how a stray could become so heavy.

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A French man traveling through Switzerland was stunned to receive a bill for 9,241 Swiss francs ($10,000) from the firefighters who rescued his pet dog after she became stuck in an underground pipe while chasing a fox.

A couple of months ago, Alian Chichignoud, a 25-year-old Frenchman traveling through Europe with his three pet dogs, went through a stressful ordeal after one of his pet dogs disappeared in Switzerland. Gaia, a 12-year-old Jack Russell Terrier, ran after a fox near the town of Vaulruz and didn’t come back. Gaia went missing on a Friday, and Alian and his other two pets canines, Bocka and Zuni, spent almost two days looking for her. It was only on Sunday morning that Boycka heard Gaia’s muffled cries coming from a grate on the side of the road and alerted his master. The dog had become stuck with the fox it had been chasing in a very narrow pipe, and Alian realized very quickly that he would need help to get her out.

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Bella, a 14-year-old feline from Huntingdon, UK, has claimed the Guinness Record for the world’s loudest purr by a domestic cat, with a noisy purr measured at 54.59 decibels.

The Spink family has had Bella for almost 15 years, and they’ve always suspected that she might have the world’s loudest purr. Friends and family would always wonder at her loud purring, and Nicole Spink’s late husband would complain that she was louder than the TV. One day, they decided to put Bella’s purring to the test – they downloaded a smartphone app to measure the cat’s purr and were blown away by the result. She was louder than the Guinness World record for the loudest purr by a domestic cat, so they applied for an official record attempt.

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Capitojoppa amazonica is a newly-discovered genus of parasitic wasps that stabs its victims with its giant ovipositor and sucks the blood out of them before laying its eggs inside.

The terrifying insect was discovered by scientists from the University of Utah while surveying the National Reserve of Allpahuayo-Mishana in Peru. They laid large netted devices called malaise traps to capture as many flying insects as possible. Among the creatures caught in their traps was a bright yellow wasp with a giant almond-shaped head and tube-like organs sticking out of it. Scientists concluded that the specimen, an adult female, was a new ‘solitary endoparasitoid’ – meaning it lays a single egg inside the body of its host (caterpillars, beetles, and even spiders). The egg hatches in a matter of days, after which the wasp larvae start to consume the host’s inside.

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Chicago’s McCormick Place, the largest convention center in North America, was recently responsible for the deaths of at least 1,000 small birds that crashed into its thick glass walls.

According to the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors (CBCM), a volunteer conservation project dedicated to the protection of migratory birds, on October 5, the carcasses of at least 1,000 small birds, including  Tennessee warblers, hermit thrush, and American woodcocks were found around McCormick Place. They all died after colliding with the iconic building’s transparent glass walls, which birds simply cannot detect. The CBCM said that this was the highest number of crash-caused bird deaths that the group recorded from the grounds of one building in a single day. Unfortunately, the number of deaths may actually be much higher, because many birds continue to fly after suffering serious injuries only to die hours later.

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For the past five months, the people of Pravia, a town in Spain’s Asturias Region, have been under constant siege from flocks of crows who mindlessly attack their homes and vehicles.

The town of Pravia has no less than six crows proudly displayed on its historic coat of arms, so it’s safe to say that people here have been living in harmony with the birds for centuries. That is not the case anymore, however, as large flocks of blackbirds now attack the homes and vehicles of human residents for some unknown reason. The people of Pravia started reporting groups of birds mindlessly flying into their windows repeatedly until the impact caused them to bleed in May of this year, and things have been getting worse ever since. No one knows exactly why the crows are targeting people’s homes and vehicles, but they are relentless in their attacks, pecking at and flying into windows until they start to bleed.

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The aptly named Methuselah, a lungfish at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco, is the oldest fish held in captivity, with an estimated age between 92 and 101 years.

Methuselah arrived on US soil in 1938, on a steamboat from Australia, along with 230 other fish. Today, she – scientists believe it’s a female, although they can’t be sure – is the only living fish out of all the ones that left the steamboat. She was only a little fish back then, but she kept growing as the years passed and the aquarium life seemed to suit her. The people peering at her through the glass wall didn’t seem to stress her out one bit, and she still enjoys peering back at visitors to this day. She was originally given the unofficial title of oldest fish in captivity back in 2017, when experts estimated her age at 84. However, more recent tests showed that Methuselah is even older than previously anticipated – at least 92 years old and up to 101.

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Peanut, a chicken from a no-kill farm in Michigan, is the current Guinness Record holder for the ‘world’s oldest chicken’, at 21 years, 156 days, and counting.

Chickens have an average life expectancy of five to eight years, so Peanut is somewhat of a Methuselah of the aviary world. On January 28, 2023, she was officially crowned the world’s oldest chicken by Guinness World Records, at the ripe age of 20 years and 272 days. She has since turned 21 and is chasing the title of oldest chicken in recorded history. But the craziest thing about Peanut is that she almost never existed. 21 years ago, her owner was getting ready to throw a batch of rotten-looking eggs a hen had abandoned into an alligator pond when she heard a faint chirp from one of them.

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The head of a property agency in Iran was recently arrested for helping a couple with no human heirs transfer the property rights to their apartment to their pet dog.

The unnamed Iranian businessman ended up in jail and had his real estate firm shut down earlier this month after a video showing him officiating an unusual property transfer went viral on social media. In the short clip, the man can be seen preparing paperwork which is then signed by a human couple, and then by their pet dog, Chester. Well, technically, the owners just took the pooch’s paw, put some ink on it, and then put it on the contract, but we guess that’s what counts as a canine signature. The agent can be heard describing the property, and once the deal is done, Chester’s owners can be seen hugging and congratulating the dog. Iranian authorities didn’t share their happiness, though…

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A UK woman has become somewhat of an online sensation thanks to the family of adorable foxes that has been showing up on her doorstep every day for the last 25 years for treats.

Sharon Hughes has been welcoming foxes on her porch in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, for the last quarter of a century, but thanks to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram she can now share the daily feeding ritual with the rest of the world. One of the woman’s clips, where she throws the furry rascals treats like sausage rolls for breakfast, recently got so much attention that UK media contacted her to get the full story. Apparently, it all started 25 years ago, when a couple of foxes showed up in her garden. She threw them something to eat, and they came back for more the next day. Sharon says she is now on the fourth generation of foxes, eight curious and hungry critters who visit her every day except for two months during mating season.

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A team of Dutch researchers has discovered that magpies and crows are using metal spikes designed to keep them away from certain urban areas to reinforce their own nests and keep intruders at bay.

Scientists have known for a while that magpies and crows are some of the most intelligent birds in the world, but even they were baffled by their amazing ability to adapt to hostile urban environments. It’s not unusual for birds to use human trash and debris as tools and building materials for their nests, button see them use the very things we humans use against them was nothing short of baffling for researchers at the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, in the Netherlands.

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