Picture the Australian wilderness at dawn: the soft glow of sunlight dances across gum tree leaves, a gentle breeze stirs, and beneath the surface, life pulses with secrets. Here, three remarkable creatures—wombats, koalas, and kangaroos—move quietly through their daily rituals, bound by ancestry yet shaped by wildly different lives. Their stories are stitched together by ...
Have you ever gazed into a dazzling aquarium or watched a wild river teeming with life and thought, “Look at all those fish!”? It feels so natural to lump goldfish, salmon, and sharks under one simple label. But here’s the shocking twist: to biologists, there simply isn’t any such thing as a true scientific group ...
Imagine a world of darkness, where sunlight never reaches and the pressure is crushing—yet in this abyss, life flourishes in dazzling forms. Deep beneath the ocean’s surface, vents spew scalding, mineral-rich water into the cold, inky black. These hydrothermal vents are like underwater volcanoes, but instead of destroying, they spark entire ecosystems. It’s a place ...
A splash in the quiet of a forest stream. A gentle trickle disrupting the silence. For a beaver, these are not just background sounds—they are urgent calls to action. It’s astonishing to realize that the fate of an entire ecosystem can hinge on the rustle and whisper of water. Beavers, those unassuming architects of the ...
Imagine peering into your backyard and spotting a creature whose ancestors once thundered across ancient landscapes alongside towering dinosaurs. It sounds unbelievable, but every time you hear a rooster crow or watch a hen scratch in the dirt, you’re witnessing one of nature’s most astonishing evolutionary success stories. Chickens, the humble birds we take for ...
Imagine a creature basking on a sun-warmed rock, its scales shimmering in the light, barely moving—yet, somehow, staying alive even when submerged underwater or buried in mud. It seems almost magical, but for some lizards, this ability to survive in impossible conditions is real science, not fantasy. The world of reptilian respiration is full of ...
Imagine being able to fly through pitch-black caves, dart between tree branches at midnight, and snatch a tiny insect out of the air—all while barely seeing a thing. For bats, this is not just a superpower; it’s daily survival. On Bat Appreciation Day, we peel back the curtain on one of nature’s most mesmerizing mysteries: ...
Have you ever wondered what it sounds like when a gorilla is truly happy? Imagine wandering through a misty rainforest and hearing not only the rustle of leaves but a surprisingly melodic hum, a soft rhythmic croon that seems to bubble up straight from the heart of the jungle. This isn’t a human song—it’s a ...
A hush falls over the African savanna as a group of elephants stands quietly around the bones of one of their own. Their trunks gently brush over the weathered ivory, lingering in a scene that feels heartbreakingly familiar, almost human. What draws these giants back to the resting places of their kin? Why do they ...
Imagine walking through a lush, green habitat in a zoo and coming face-to-face with a creature you’ve never seen before—a species so new, it doesn’t even have a name yet. The world’s biodiversity is astonishing, with millions of animal and plant species still undiscovered. But as habitats vanish and the climate changes faster than ever, ...
Nelleke van Niekerk, BSc Food Science (Biochemistry)
Linnea H, BSc Sociology
