Earth's biodiversity is vanishing at an alarming rate. This video from National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore shows what we stand to lose. 

Watch the video first and decide what you think this is - reportedly filmed by a ROV, perhaps at an oil drilling platform.  Then peek below the fold for clarification as to whether this is -



a) real or fake,

b) plastic or organic,

c) living or dead.

Fun fact: Female pandas are only fertile for about 24-72 hours, once a year. Miss that window, and you get no baby pandas. Of course, hitting the window doesn't mean you willget baby pandas. Pregnancy doesn't just happen when you put sperm in the right place at the right time. For instance, the average female human has, on her most fertile day of the month,a 9% chance of getting pregnant. 

On sunny days you can see these little black and white striped arachnids running about on walls and fences in search of prey.  Zebra spiders catch their food by literally jumping on it, and if there was an Olympic event for spider long jump these guys would be gold medalists.  They can jump more than 20 times their own body length!

A giant rat species last seen 37 years ago and feared extinct has been seen again on the Philippines island of Dinagat.

Crateromys australis, or the Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat, belongs to a family of tree-dwelling, leaf-eating rats found only in the Philippines and growing up to 2.5 feet long.

There’s no better way to kick things off after a holiday than with a celebration of the Inside Nature’s Giants series, which I had a small part in early on, including these shots from filming at RVC >3 years ago (!?!?); most of these animals spent multiple holidays inside The Freezers:

The cause of death of over 800 dolphins in the last four months on the shores of Piura and Lambayeque are still being researched, Gabriel Quijandria, Deputy Environment Minister said on April 20, 2012. 

a series of 4-7 year old children take the place of series narrator David Attenborough—or, as he is known here, "Dabud Abunburble." 

Foundations of complex language have been found in colonies of unusual furry animals called hyraxes.

Hyraxes, which resemble rodents but are more closely related to elephants or manatees, often cluck, snort, squeak, tweet and wail songs from the perches of their rocky colonies.

By recording hundreds of the animals’ songs and applying clever mathematics, researchers discovered that differences in note arrangement, or syntax, in hyrax songs vary as the distance increases between colonies — a surprising occurrence of dialect.

Ocean Tracks displays the tracks of selected marine animals tagged by the CSIRO and partner agencies.



Below the surface are lifelike animations of these amazing animals, from white sharks patrolling Australia's southern coast to southern bluefin tuna on their oceanic migrations.

 man has drowned after being attacked by a swan, which knocked him out of his kayak and stopped him swimming to shore. So how dangerous are these graceful white birds?

Anthony Hensley, 37, worked for a company that provided swans to keep geese away from property.

In this photo from Highwaywilding.org, a lynx is captured by a motion-sensitive camera overlooking a highway overpass.

Despite their relatively cumbersome wings, bats are champions of nocturnal aviation, a feat accomplished through an ingenious bit of aeronautical engineering.

Bats fold their wings inward while lifting them in flight, saving 65 percent of the energy that would be required to lift wings still outstretched, say Brown University researchers who used high-speed video to analyze the aerial kinematics of fruit bats.

Have you ever stopped and wondered what version of the world your beloved dog or cat sees the world in?  How is their perception colored and how do they perceive you?  Most of us take for granted the gift we are granted with sight, but it may surprise some of you to find out that many animals actually have much better vision than we do.

Freelance journalist Jessica Grose has a fascinating "long read" in Slate this week (and I'm not kidding about the long part, 8,000 words!) about Bear True Crimes: wild bears in and around Yellowstone National Park who, for one reason or another, attack humans.