Every week, nature unveils its quirks in unexpected ways — whether through bizarre new animal behavior, the sighting of a creature thought to be extinct, or an uncanny interaction between species that defies the usual rules of survival.
Here are our best wildlife oddities of the week.
Crows Hold Grudges for 17 Years: Don’t get on the wrong side of a crow. Like the proverbial elephant, it won’t forget. A new, decades-long study shows that the intelligent black birds can hold a grudge against humans for up to 17 years. Crows also tell their kin about the threatening human in question, and they too will take up the grudge.
In 2006, environmental scientist John Marzluff wore a “fearsome” mask and trapped seven crows. Before letting them go, he tagged them with leg rings. Over the years, he sporadically walked around his university campus in the mask, feeding the crows. In one of these strolls, he encountered 53 crows, and 47 began scolding him. This is a far greater number than the seven crows he initially trapped. Clearly, the crows somehow spread the word.
Marzluff continued this study until 2023, regularly going out in the mask. In 2013, seven years after trapping the crows, the number of birds who were aggressive toward him reached an all-time high. After that, it decreased until finally, in 2023, not a single crow scolded Marzluff on one of his walks.
The orcas hit the belly of a whale shark and flip it over in the water. Photo: Kelsey Williamson
Orca strategy
How Orca Pods Hunt the World’s Largest Fish: At up to 18m long, whale sharks are the world’s largest fish. Taking on such gigantic prey is difficult even for orcas, but they have devised a strategy to prey on at least the younger sharks.
Despite their shark heritage, whale sharks are the gentle giants of the ocean. They have almost no defense against orcas except for their size and deep-diving skills. Researchers have followed an orca pod off the coast of Mexico for six years and captured footage of them hunting whale sharks.
The orcas start by swimming into the whale shark at high speed and then flipping it over so it is belly-up in the water. In this upside-down position, it seems to enter a state of immobility, as if paralyzed by fear. The orcas then rip open its abdomen and begin eating its internal organs.
Researchers think the orcas hunt the large sharks for their nutrient-rich, fatty livers, as with some other species of shark.
Creepy but useful
Little Bird Tricks Swarm of Ants: Safari guides in South Africa have captured footage of a small hornbill bird tricking ants into cleaning its feathers. The little bird sits quietly on top of an active ant colony and lets them swarm over her entire body.
This sounds like most people’s worst nightmare. But the bird cleverly uses the small army of ants to clean its feathers, a process known as “anting.” As the ants crawl over the bird, they secrete formic acid, which kills off the parasites within the feathers. Like the little hornbill, some birds passively sit and let the ants get on with it. Others actively rub ants over their feathers to rid themselves of the pesky parasites.
Photo: Screenshot
Woman Killed by Wild Boar: A wild boar has killed a 76-year-old woman in Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province. The boars had been damaging crops, and four people from the nearby village tried to take matters into their own hands.
They took hunting dogs into the mountains to chase the wild boars away from the crops. But one of the boars, chased by the dogs, ran towards a local farm and entered the yard. It was here that the boar attacked the woman. She sustained serious injuries and died later in hospital.
