Field notebook
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Field notebook
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Permanent editions
Published facts keep their original date, evidence and correction trail. Drafts and withdrawn editions are never mixed into this index.
The herds that saved the bison from extinction were assembled by ranchers who also tried crossing them with cattle. That experiment left a genetic residue, and low levels of cattle DNA turn up in the great majority of bison alive today.
Bluefin are endothermic in a limited way. Counter-current heat exchangers called retia mirabilia trap the heat their swimming muscles produce, letting core temperature run well above the surrounding water and letting the fish hunt in cold northern seas.
The domestic chicken, now the most numerous bird on Earth, comes from the red junglefowl of Asian forest edges. Genetic work shows the lineage also carries genes from at least one other junglefowl species, notably the yellow-skin gene.
Rather than digging a hole, it shuffles its ribs to rock the body from side to side, displacing sand outward until the snake settles level with the surface, leaving only eyes and nostrils exposed.
A muskrat exhales beneath the ice, lets the bubble sit against the underside where it re-oxygenates from the water, and inhales it again. Combined with pushed-up feeding shelters called push-ups, this lets it forage all winter without surfacing.
African bullfrog males guard their tadpole shoals and, when the pool starts to dry, excavate a channel to connect it with deeper water so the young are not left stranded in mud.
The oceanic whitetip was once described as possibly the most numerous large animal on the planet above about 45 kilograms. Longline fisheries removed it so thoroughly that it is now Critically Endangered across its worldwide range.
Kingsnakes prey on venomous pit vipers, including rattlesnakes considerably larger than themselves. Their blood contains factors that neutralise viper venom, and their constriction is unusually strong for their body size.
Blind and buried in loose Namib sand, this golden mole uses a hugely enlarged middle-ear bone to sense low-frequency vibration. Wind moving through grass hummocks produces a signal it can follow to the termites beneath.
Blackbirds were forest birds until roughly two centuries ago. City populations now differ measurably from woodland ones in migratory behaviour, breeding timing, song frequency and stress physiology, in some cases with genetic differences alongside.
A mature nematomorph must reach water to breed, but its cricket host has no reason to go there. Infected crickets are markedly more likely to enter water, where the worm emerges and swims away.
A fringe of branching dermal lobes rings the wobbegong's entire head, dissolving the hard edge that would otherwise reveal a shark lying on coral. The animal waits, sometimes for hours, and strikes upward when a fish swims over its mouth.
Male barn swallows have longer outer tail feathers than females, and longer-streamered males pair earlier. The streamers extend beyond the length that is aerodynamically useful, so the advantage in mating is paid for in manoeuvrability.
Water buffalo milk carries far more fat and solids than cow milk, which is why the protected Italian cheese mozzarella di bufala campana must be made from it. The buffalo themselves are river-type animals kept in Campania.
Tiger beetles are among the fastest running insects relative to their size. At full sprint their eyes cannot gather enough light to form a usable image, so they chase in stop-start bursts and go effectively blind while moving.
The Baltimore oriole belongs to the New World blackbird family, alongside grackles and meadowlarks. The Old World orioles are a separate family on a different branch of the songbird tree, and the shared name records a colonial resemblance rather than kinship.
Using its five self-sharpening teeth and the abrasion of its spines, the urchin excavates a pit in stone and settles into it. In heavy-surf coastlines the pits accumulate until the rock surface is visibly pocked.
![Photograph of Dodo: Skeleton cast and model of dodo at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, made in 1998 based on modern research.[1][2]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F5%2F50%2FOxford_Dodo_display.jpg%2F1920px-Oxford_Dodo_display.jpg%3Futm_source%3Den.wikipedia.org%26utm_campaign%3Dimageinfo%26utm_content%3Dthumbnail&w=3840&q=75)
Genetic work on museum material places the dodo firmly inside the pigeon and dove family, with the Southeast Asian Nicobar pigeon as its nearest living relative. The bird was not a giant turkey or a peculiar ratite, but a columbid that lost flight on an island.
The first skins to reach Europe had the legs cut off in preparation, and the story grew that the birds never landed. Linnaeus fixed the misunderstanding in the scientific name Paradisaea apoda, which the species still carries.
Surveys of free-ranging white-tailed deer across North America found widespread SARS-CoV-2 infection and antibodies. The virus did not arrive once: genetic sequences show many separate introductions from humans, followed by deer-to-deer spread.
Most insect sound is made by rubbing body parts together. The Madagascar hissing cockroach instead forces air out through a pair of modified abdominal spiracles, producing a sound generated by breathing apparatus rather than by friction.
Hippocampus bargibanti was never spotted on the reef. It came to science in 1969 when a gorgonian sea fan collected for a museum was examined in the laboratory and two seahorses were noticed still clinging to it.
A reserve created in 1908 raised the last heath hen population from about fifty birds to some two thousand. Then fire, a hard winter, an influx of goshawks and a poultry disease reduced it to nothing by 1932, demonstrating how small populations fail.
Both sexes carry a bare throat sac that inflates until it is roughly the size of the head. It works as a resonating chamber, and the resulting booms and barks carry for kilometres through dense hill forest.