Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2025 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

Secrets of the Sea From seaweed to sea bacon, this six-part series explores the amazing science that is happening around our coastline and reveals the hidden worlds we don’t see – both underwater and on land. Catch up on BBC Sounds The Incredible Wildlife of Hidden Forests Step into the heart of the forest, where every rustle, call and echo tells a story. Discover how animals survive, thrive and interact in one of the world’s most magical habitats. Catch up at youtube.com/bbcearth BBC Inside Science As a new warning is released by scientists that trying to offset our carbon emissions by planting trees alone won’t work, the weekly science series investigates the role the Earth’s forests are playing in the fight against climate change. Catch up on BBC Sounds Keep…

THE AUSTRALIAN BOGONG MOTH USES THE stars of the Milky Way to navigate during its annual migration, according to research reported in the journal Nature. It’s the first invertebrate known to use the stars for long-distance travel. Every spring, billions of bogong moths escape the blistering heat of south-east Australia by migrating up to 1,000km to a cluster of cool caves in the Australian Alps. There, they lie dormant until autumn, when they make the return leg to their breeding ground. How the insects travelled to the caves had previously been a mystery. “Our research showed that the moths use Earth’s magnetic field but that they also must be using some sort of visual cue,” says Andrea Adden from the Francis Crick Institute, who took part in the study. Looking…

UNLESS YOU’VE BEEN LIVING ON Mars for the past five years, you will know there is a problem with excess nutrients – well, pollution – in Britain’s rivers. The vast majority of this is down to agricultural run-off of fertilisers and livestock manure (cattle slurry, for example, though chicken dung is a big issue for some rivers such as the Wye). But a small yet important contribution comes from human waste, too. Of course, that’s largely down to the failure of our water companies to upgrade their infrastructure, but legislation currently going through parliament is intended to resolve the problem of what we do about new houses that create an additional burden on our creaking sewage system. “Proposals in the bill will require some house-builders to pay into a kind…

I HAVE SPENT MOST OF MY life thinking bats were largely solitary creatures, apart from when they gathered in roosts in attics and, classically, church belfries. When I eventually saw fruit bats flying in vast flocks to and from their roosts in Australia, I was blown away. Of course, I had seen images and footage before, but the sight of these huge bats winging over my head was awe-inspiring – so much so that I’d forget they were bats and find myself misnaming them as birds. Little did I know that there’s an even more impressive bat phenomenon that occurs every year around a bridge in Austin, Texas, USA – the annual roost of the Mexican free-tailed bats. This large family within the bat tribe contains some 110 species that…

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER Shane is a photojournalist from Canada who specialises in documenting the marine environment. He was the overall winner of the 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.…

KNOWN FOR ITS ASSOCIATION WITH perfume, musk is a strong-smelling substance produced by the glands of muskrats, some civet species and musk deer. In adult male musk deer, the material is produced by a gland located on the abdomen. The gland is found in a hair-covered sac that’s commonly called a musk pod. The word ‘musk’ comes from the Persian moschos and the Sanskrit muska, both of which mean testicle – what ancient people thought the gland resembled. The musk itself is stored in a paste-like form in the sac. It has a pungent scent that the animal uses to attract females, mark its territory and repel rivals. Urine from the male musk deer passes over the musk pod, collecting small amounts of the substance. During the rutting season, the…

THERE WOULD BE LITTLE POINT IN having the ability to lethally poison a predator if you accidentally poisoned yourself and ended up just as dead. In the case of poison dart frogs, they dodge being poisoned twice in the process of protecting themselves. Initially, the frogs ingest a toxin from the ants, mites and centipedes they consume, which have been eating poisonous plants. Though research on the subject is ongoing, scientists believe the ant toxins don’t harm the frogs because of a protein in their gut, which is released as the ants are digested and interacts with the poison. Essentially, this protein binds to the toxins and carries them through the frog’s bloodstream to the skin, where they end up in structures known as granular glands. These glands produce secretions…

YOU’LL KNOW ALL ABOUT IT IF you get stung by a bullet ant (Paraponera clavata), a species named after the fact that the pain from its venom feels as if it has been inflicted by a gunshot. Some insect bites are unpleasant but short-lived experiences – not this one. The bullet ant is also known as the hormiga veinticuatro, meaning ‘24-hour ant’, across its Spanish-speaking range in Central and South America, which refers to the full day of pain that can follow being stung. One of the largest ant species in the world, the bullet ant also has one of the longest foraging ranges and is fiercely territorial. How big can it grow? The bullet ant grows to around 2.5cm long. Its stinger is long compared to its body, measuring…

“WHEN YOU’RE HIKING IN THE Australian bush, your eyes home in on every distant blob. Everything looks like an echidna. Or at least that’s what you hope. Then you blink yourself back to reality, because it turns out to be a grassy tussock, a cowpat or a stump. I’m an Aussie born and bred, but I’ve only seen a few of these spiny monotremes in my three-decade lifetime – and those sightings were fleeting. Occasionally they turned up unexpectedly on the farm where I grew up, sometimes I’ve had to slow down for them on the highway. Echidnas are iconic but they’re notoriously elusive. Even when you do come across one, an echidna usually offers a prickly reception. Tucking its legs and snout beneath its body, it enters what can…

The broadcaster, naturalist and tour guide shares the most breathtaking seasonal events in the world FOR THE DEDICATED WILDLIFE enthusiast, catching up with the ‘biggest fish in the sea’ should represent nothing less than a life highlight. But despite the whale shark’s vast size, it remains a mysterious and elusive species. Facts and figures vary widely surrounding both the size and age that this animal of superlatives is capable of reaching. However, the general consensus appears to be that mature individuals can reach around 18m in length and potentially live to more than 100 years of age. Being a truly pelagic species, constantly on the move between feeding and breeding grounds, the whale shark has a broad distribution across the tropics. But it is most commonly encountered in warm oceans…

PARENTHOOD IS A JOURNEY THAT WE humans share with countless other living beings on Earth. Yet when it comes to rearing young, the paths that all parents follow are as varied, complex and inspiring as the animals themselves. Over the years, many series have been made about animal babies. These have often given an outsize role to their young protagonists, yet it’s the parents that are the real heroes in the story of growing up. It is the parents that have the agenda, who determine the direction of another life story. Their choices mean the difference between success and failure in a game where the stakes are nothing less than the future of life itself. What could be more dramatic? PARENTHOOD WAS FOUR YEARS in the making, filmed in 23…

THE CONGO RAINFOREST IS ONE of the most biologically rich and ecologically important places on Earth. Stretching across six countries and spanning more than two million km², it’s home to more than 400 species of mammal, including western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants. Yet much of this biodiversity remains hidden behind a veil of vegetation, rarely glimpsed by human eyes. Over the course of a year, I set out on a project to lift that veil with a suite of camera-traps deep in the forest. My focus was on Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, in the far north of the Republic of the Congo – one of the last truly pristine corners of the Congo basin. The project wasn’t just about creating striking images. My goal was also to document seldom-seen…

AUSTRALIA HAS A REPUTATION for being full of deadly wildlife – and with good reason. The vast antipodean island is home to an impressive list of dangerous critters. Sharks, spiders and snakes get most of the bad press, but those are just the start. The tentacles of the box jellyfish (frequently found around the Northern Territory coast) contain thousands of stinging cells, each preloaded with its own harpoon-like venom delivery system. The country is also home to an animal with one of the most toxic venoms on the planet: the blue-lined octopus. And there’s the platypus. It’s one of the few living mammals to produce venom, which males inject into rivals via spurs on their hind legs. If you’re looking to apportion blame, direct your ire towards the Earth’s tectonic…

On the quiet It was early evening in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park and a pride of about 20 lions and cubs were resting up in the early evening. I spotted this contemplative little fellow, sitting apart from the other cubs, taking everything in. Richard Williams, Malvern Red alert Local red kite numbers have soared, thanks to Gigrin Farm in Powys, a rehabilitation centre that supplies beef to supplement the birds’ natural diet. I caught this one hovering before it swooped down to pick up food from the ground. Martyn Foss, Buckley Colour palette I’m fond of the macro world and was captivated by the colours around this beautiful garden tent-web spider resting on a leaf. Sritam Kumar Sethy, Balasore, India Time to shine On the dappled woodland floor of a…

ACROSS 1 Aniseed-scented wildflower in the celery family (6) 4 Songbird known for its murmurations (8) 10 Voracious boreal carnivore (9) 11 ___ Rica, Central American country noted for its biodiversity (5) 12 Eurasian river fish in the suborder Cobitoidei (5) 13 Farmland rail, now rare in the UK (9) 14 Lapwings, colloquially (7) 16 ___ flounder, Bothus ocellatus, Atlantic sea fish (4) 19 Cliff-dwelling cormorant (4) 21 Starch-rich South American plant in the spurge family (7) 24 Ancient spore-bearing plant in the genus Equisetum (9) 25 Civet-like New World predator (5) 26 Yellow-flowered leguminous shrub (5) 27 Arboreal rainforest mammals of South America (9) 28 South American songbird that may belemon-chested or rufous-crowned (8) 29 Trees in the genus Acer (6) DOWN 1 Yellow spring wildflowers (8) 2 ___…

FINDING NEMO JUST GOT TRICKIER. Why? Because it looks like clownfish are shrinking. The colourful fish, made famous by the popular animated film, can quickly reduce their size as a way to deal with heat stress, a study in Science Advances suggests. The finding could help to explain why other fish all over the world’s oceans are also getting smaller. Researchers studied 67 pairs of clownfish living in reefs off Kimbe Bay in Papua New Guinea during the marine heatwave of 2023. They measured the length of each fish every month over a period of five months and discovered, to their surprise, that three-quarters of them shrank during this time. Adult clownfish grow to be about 8cm long but these animals lost a couple of millimetres in the space of…

“THE STRANDLINE OF BRIGHTON beach is a heady mix of fascinating sea creatures, washed-up fishing gear and the remnants of parties and beach barbecues. I crunch my way over the pebbles at morning low tide, the wind whistling around my ears and the sea pushing and pulling at the shore. Rain hangs in the air like Cornish mist. It’s peaceful here: there are dogs and their walkers, runners and sea swimmers, the occasional reveller still holding on to the night. But, otherwise, it’s quiet. I pick up the empty egg cases of lesser spotted dogfish and common skate, a cuttlebone and a mussel shell. Crows fly high above and drop shelled creatures on to the stones below, where they smash to reveal edible flesh. Herring gulls pick over a long-dead…

OFF VENEZUELA’S COAST LIE THE ‘ABC islands’ of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, some of the driest places in the Caribbean. With unpredictable rainfall, cactus-dominated landscapes and rivers that flow only every few years, life here is shaped by scarcity. Fishing is the primary source of income for many south Caribbean islanders. Men often leave home for months. In their place, they leave a parrot “as a kind of surrogate husband and father”, says Jon Paul Rodríguez, professor of ecology at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Investigation. “The parrots become family members.” Edeline Berg grew up with a yellow-shouldered amazon – known affectionately as a ‘lora’ in Aruba. “I had a lot of pride in our lora,” she says. The large, handsome parrot sported a green body, vivid yellow face and…

How did your career start? I took an interest in birds when I was around four, saved money for my first binoculars at seven, got my first SLR at 12 and shot my first nature pictures for a national magazine at 15. Since 2002, I’ve been an all-round news journalist with NRK, the public Norwegian broadcaster, and nature, climate and conservation stories are part of what I cover. I mainly shoot birds, but occasionally landscapes, insects, flowers and mammals. Which of your images is most important to you? My kittiwake image from Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021 is probably one of the weirdest pictures that has ever been awarded. Lots of people don’t get it at all. It serves as a reminder to try novel approaches and trust your…

I’M PROUD TO ADMIT TO BEING AN Australian and I loved your article on wallabies on the Isle of Man in the July issue. You presented the issues and dilemmas well. But coming from an amazing continent that is facing ever-increasing threats to its unique biodiversity, I wish we’d find the courage to eliminate foreign wildlife completely. We are the continent of introduced species and the damage they cause is there for all to see. Foxes and rabbits plague native animals, while the cane toad is obliterating some species. We are an island: this shouldn’t be happening. We need some calmly spoken people of science to help native species, which are already threatened by climate change. The Isle of Man is an island and it should be a sanctuary. The…

African wild (or painted) dogs are incredibly effcient predators, relentlessly moving through open grasslands and hunting down prey in tight-knit teams. Photographer Bella Falk travels to Botswana on the trail of these famously elusive canids – whose numbers have declined to 6,000 – and discovers the efforts underway to safeguard them. ON SALE 21st AUGUST…