Animals news

• Live colossal squid captured on video in wild for first time ever – video

  16-04-2025 19:13
  
  The colossal squid, the heaviest invertebrate in the world, has been filmed alive in the wild for the first time since it was identified a century ago. The individual – captured on film near the South Sandwich Islands in the south Atlantic Ocean – is a baby, at just 11.8in (30cm) in lengthLive colossal squid captured on video in wild for first time ever Continue reading...
  
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• ‘I consider him my first son’: how living with a baby monkey taught me I’m ready to be a dad

  15-12-2025 11:00
  I went from selling flats in Paris to being alone in a cabin in Guinea looking after primates. It changed my life, but one relationship marked me like no otherIn 2022, I had a job at an estate agents in Paris selling ridiculously expensive flats, and decided I needed to do something more meaningful with my life. I resigned, and six months later arrived in Guinea.In hindsight I was a young kid, full of anger, not happy with his life. That 26-year-old is definitely not me now – and it was li
  
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• Country diary: I love these soggy winter bogs – and so do the snipe | Charlie Elder

  15-12-2025 06:30
  Dartmoor, Devon: In these treacherous conditions for the moorland walker, one false move and a wary wader will burst into the airDays of torrential rain have yet to drain from this broad ridge at the westernmost edge of Dartmoor. The wide path to the top of Gibbet Hill, with views of Wheal Betsy, the nearby abandoned mine, is glazed with puddles, and I am forced to hop between tussocks of sedge to avoid treading ankle-deep in the liquid earth.This is my favourite season on Dartmoor – a tim
  
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• The snail farm don: is this the most brazen tax avoidance scheme of all time? – podcast

  15-12-2025 06:00
  Terry Ball – renowned shoe salesman, friend to former mafiosi – has vowed to spend his remaining years finding ways to cheat authorities he feels have cheated him. His greatest ruse? A tax-dodging snail empireBy Jim Waterson. Read by Nicholas Camm Continue reading...
  
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• Dog play afternoon: dachshunds overrun Hyde Park for Christmas walk

  14-12-2025 15:03
  Hundreds of sausage dogs gather for annual festive parade that organiser started to help her puppy socialiseThe pitter-patter of tiny paws has brought joy – and more than a little chaos – to Hyde Park in London as hundreds of dachshunds and their owners gathered for the annual sausage dog Christmas walk.Now in its eighth year, the event was started by organiser Ana as a way to help her dachshund, Winston, socialise as a puppy. Meeting at noon by the Physical Energy statue in the cent
  
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• Cruise-ship stowaway owls set for US return after living it up at Spanish resort

  13-12-2025 13:00
  Burrowing owls, who boarded cruise ship in Miami, to be returned to US next month after long spell in quarantineTwo burrowing owls stowed away on a cruise ship out of Miami, and are now living the high life at a Spanish resort before returning to the US next month.Biologists from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said the mating pair boarded Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas before the vessel’s transatlantic crossing to Cartagena in southern Spain in Febr
  
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• ‘He’s living his best life’: drunk raccoon hit DMV for snacks before liquor store

  13-12-2025 12:00
  Officials say raccoon that broke into Virginia liquor store on 29 November had previously hit DMV and karate studioThe raccoon that barged into a Virginia liquor store, smashed bottles of booze and passed out drunk in a bathroom this past Black Friday has at least two other break-ins under his belt, a local government official has revealed.Before burgling the Ashland ABC store on 29 November, the raccoon had separately broken into a karate studio and a department of motor vehicles office, all on
  
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• Country diary: Clinging to a crag in a place of constant change | Eben Muse

  13-12-2025 06:30
  Neath, south Wales: Rock from this quarry built the abbey and the terraced towns. A huge cliff collapse made it even more worthy of investigationThe way to Neath Abbey Quarry is a perfect stranger to me this morning. It’s been three years since my last visit, and the maze of the path has shifted; old tree trunks have turned to mulch and the brook carves a different channel. My companion and I shoulder big bouldering pads, poorly proportioned for tight manoeuvres, yet we bump, turn and pivo
  
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• Almost dead? The GP will see you now | Brief letters

  12-12-2025 18:53
  Booking appointments online | Ambridge beavers | San Serriffe invasion | Nun benefits | Stages of ageingI sympathise with Simon Hattenstone (Tried using the new online GP booking system? I have – and it was almost as miserable as my chest infection, 10 December). Filled in the online form, requesting a face-to-face GP appointment, received an email offering a phone call with a pharmacist. Rang reception to explain that I needed to see a GP and she said she couldn’t make appointments
  
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• Indonesia floods were ‘extinction level’ disturbance for world’s rarest ape

  12-12-2025 14:42
  Conservationists fear up to 11% of Tapanuli orangutan population perished in disaster that also killed 1,000 peopleThe skull of a Tapanuli orangutan, caked in debris, stares out from a tomb of mud in North Sumatra, killed in catastrophic flooding that swept through Indonesia.The late November floods have been an “extinction-level disturbance” for the world’s rarest great ape, scientists have said, causing catastrophic damage to its habitat and survival prospects. Continue readi
  
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• Indonesia floods were ‘extinction level’ disturbance for rare orangutan species

  12-12-2025 14:42
  Conservationists fear up to 11% of Tapanuli population perished in disaster that also killed 1,000 peopleIndonesia’s deadly flooding was an “extinction-level disturbance” for the world’s rarest great ape, the Tapanuli orangutan, causing catastrophic damage to its habitat and survival prospects, scientists warned on Friday.Only scientifically classified as a species in 2017, Tapanulis are incredibly rare, with fewer than 800 left in the wild, confined to a small range in p
  
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• Week in wildlife: a baby echidna, a 600lb gator and an ‘unbearable’ bear

  12-12-2025 09:00
  This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• Country diary: Twenty years ago this thriving woodland didn’t even exist | Phil Gates

  12-12-2025 06:30
  Low Burnhall wood, Durham: The smell of decay, the screech of jays – nearly 100,000 trees planted in 2008 have really come of age“I remember when these were all open fields,” said with a sigh, is a lament usually associated with open countryside disappearing under creeping urban sprawl. Not here at Low Burnhall Wood, two miles south of Durham city centre, where former farmland in the valley of the River Wear is now filled with thriving young native trees.For 30 years I saw arab
  
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• Changes to polar bear DNA could help them adapt to global heating, study finds

  12-12-2025 02:00
  Scientists say bears in southern Greenland differ genetically to those in the north, suggesting they could adjustChanges in polar bear DNA that could help the animals adapt to warmer climates have been detected by researchers, in a study thought to be the first time a statistically significant link has been found between rising temperatures and changing DNA in a wild mammal species.Climate breakdown is threatening the survival of polar bears. Two-thirds of them are expected to have disappeared b
  
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• Wild beavers may have spread further than we realise | Letter

  11-12-2025 18:54
  In response to an article about a beaver spotted in Norfolk, Richard Foster reports sightings in BerkshireIn your article (‘No one knows where it came from’: first wild beaver spotted in Norfolk in 500 years, 7 December), you quote the Beaver Trust as saying that, as well as Norfolk, wild beavers have been spotted in Kent, Hampshire, Somerset, Wiltshire and Herefordshire.I can tell you that we also have beavers in Berkshire. I live by the River Kennet and I caught one on my garden tr
  
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• Snakes, spiders and rare birds seized by Border Force in month-long operation

  11-12-2025 07:00
  Wildlife smuggling is serious organised crime that ‘fuels corruption and drives species to extinction’, Home Office saysMore than 250 endangered species and illegal wildlife products were seized at the UK border in a single month, new figures have revealed, including spiders, snakes and birds.The illicit cargo was uncovered as part of an annual crackdown on wildlife smuggling known as Operation Thunder, which is led by Interpol and the World Customs Organisation. Continue reading...
  
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• A dead whale shows up on your beach. What do you do with the 40-ton carcass?

  10-12-2025 17:00
  A fin whale washed ashore in Anchorage and was left there for months. Then a self-described ‘wacko’ museum director made a planWhen a whale dies, its body descends to the bottom of the deep sea in a transformative phenomenon called a whale fall. A whale’s death jump-starts an explosion of life, enough to feed and sustain a deep-ocean ecosystem for decades.There are a lot of ways whales can die. Migrating whales lose their way and, unable to find their way back from unfamiliar w
  
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• Rudolph at the Christmas market: cute festive attraction or damaging reindeer’s health?

  10-12-2025 15:33
  Keeping reindeer in pens for public enjoyment can cause them physical and mental harm, charities warnWith their fluffy coats, big brown eyes and reputation as Santa’s helpers, reindeer are a common and popular attraction at Christmas markets around the UK.But being stuck in a pen and approached by hordes of adoring fans is harming the mental and physical health of Rudolph and his brethren, animal charities have warned. Continue reading...
  
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• Rudolf at the Christmas market: cute festive attraction or damaging reindeer’s health?

  10-12-2025 15:33
  Keeping reindeer in pens for public enjoyment can cause them physical and mental harm, charities warnWith their fluffy coats, big brown eyes and reputation as Santa’s helpers, reindeer are a common and popular attraction at Christmas markets around the UK.But being stuck in a pen and approached by hordes of adoring fans is harming the mental and physical health of Rudolph and his brethren, animal charities have warned. Continue reading...
  
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• Snakes alive! A boy with a serpent in the Appalachians: Hannah Modigh’s best photograph

  10-12-2025 15:00
  ‘I was told not to go to St Charles as it was too dangerous. I went and was struck by how free the kids are. They’re not afraid of the region’s rattlesnakes’I visited the Appalachian mountains for the first time in my mid-20s, after deciding I needed to get away from my inner circle in Sweden to find my way into photography. I felt I had to be by myself, just responding to things happening around me and not thinking about my daily life.America played a big part in my fami
  
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• Humans rank among leading monogamous mammals, study finds

  10-12-2025 01:01
  Human beings in 7th place out of 35 species on monogamy scale but behind moustached tamarins and Eurasian beaversHumans are playing in the premier league of monogamous mammals, according to a new ranking of animals by their reproductive habits, but we may need a new manager to beat the beavers.In the study from University of Cambridge, humans ranked 7th out of 35 species on the monogamy scale, pipping white-handed gibbons and meerkats, but lagging behind moustached tamarins and Eurasian beavers.
  
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• Humans rank above meerkats but below beavers in monogamy league table

  10-12-2025 01:01
  Human beings in 7th place out of 35 species on monogamy scale, according to a study by Cambridge UniversityHumans are playing in the premier league of monogamous mammals, according to a new ranking of animals by their reproductive habits, but we may need a new manager to beat the beavers.In the study from University of Cambridge, humans ranked 7th out of 35 species on the monogamy scale, pipping white-handed gibbons and meerkats, but lagging behind moustached tamarins and Eurasian beavers. Conti
  
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• ‘We call him ... unbearable’: California homeowner laments uninvited beast

  10-12-2025 00:20
  The 550lb bear living under Ken Johnson’s home for two weeks is unmoved by ‘lure’, with caramel and cherry smellsA hefty 550lb black bear has laid claim to the crawl space under an Altadena home, marking the latest in a series of bear incursions into the Los Angeles community.On 25 November, homeowner Ken Johnson noticed the bear leaving the crawl space and later contacted California’s department of fish and wildlife for assistance removing it from below his home. Despite
  
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• This swine life: pig named Six Seven pardoned by Miami-Dade mayor

  09-12-2025 21:48
  Daniella Levine Cava wished the piglet ‘a long happy life’ in speech alluding to the several pardons issued by TrumpIt might not have been at the same level as pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys, or January 6 US capitol attack participants – but the mayor of Miami-Dade had her own Donald Trump moment Tuesday in ritually sparing the life of a pig named Six Seven.Daniella Levine Cava performed the seasonal stunt in the Cuban-themed Latin Cafe 2000 in the heart of Miami’s Little
  
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• Iain Douglas-Hamilton obituary

  09-12-2025 18:47
  Conservationist who devoted his life to the study and preservation of the African elephantThe British scientist Iain Douglas-Hamilton, who has died aged 83, became the world’s leading authority on the behaviour of African elephants and played a vital part in ensuring their conservation.His efforts to save the African elephant began in 1965 when, as an Oxford zoology graduate who had also just received his pilot’s licence, he flew his Piper Pacer bush plane from Nairobi down to Tanzan
  
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• Shouting at the class has never been OK | Brief letters

  09-12-2025 17:42
  Teaching methods | Holly stripped bare | Cricket in state schools | Flat Earth Society physics prize | Impact School of MotoringAs a retired teacher with family and friends who are still in the profession, I must take exception to John Harris’s assertion that our current method of education consists of “standing in front of 30 kids and shouting at them for an hour” (The right’s callous overdiagnosis bandwagon is rolling. Wes Streeting should not be on it, 7 December)
  
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• Man dies of rabies after kidney transplant from donor who saved kitten from skunk

  09-12-2025 17:15
  Michigan man received kidney transplant from donor who had fought off a skunk and was later found unresponsiveA Michigan man has died of rabies after receiving a kidney from another man who died of the disease when he was scratched by a skunk while defending a kitten, in what officials are describing as an “exceptionally rare event”.According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Michigan patient received a kidney transplant at an Ohio hosp
  
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• Man dies after saving kitten from skunk – and passes rabies to kidney recipient

  09-12-2025 17:15
  Michigan man received kidney transplant from donor who had fought off a skunk and was later found unresponsiveA Michigan man has died of rabies after receiving a kidney from another man who died of the disease when he was scratched by a skunk while defending a kitten, in what are officials are describing as an “exceptionally rare event”.According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Michigan patient received a kidney transplant at an Ohio
  
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• Merv review – a dog steals the show in Amazon’s by-the-book Christmas romcom

  09-12-2025 16:00
  Charlie Cox and Zooey Deschanel co-parent a depressed dog in a serviceable attempt to appeal to animal lovers during the festive period It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least in my social circles, that co-parenting a dog is a bad idea. Most will tell you: shared canine custody arrangements prevent exes from moving on. It’s a logistical headache. It causes fights. It’s annoying for all involved (and then some). And apparently, in a revelation worthy of a straight-to-streamin
  
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• Retired greyhounds to continue to be rehomed overseas despite ‘distressing and sometimes fatal’ outcomes

  09-12-2025 06:33
  Independent review calls for sweeping restructure of NSW’s greyhound racing industry but government rejects key recommendations Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastRetired New South Wales greyhounds will continue to be rehomed overseas despite an independent review of the racing industry finding the practice is “distressing and sometimes fatal”.The state government has also rejected a recommendation to
  
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