Extraordinary underwater videos have captured orcas making sunfish explode by ramming them at high speed. The behaviour may help juvenile orcas feed by breaking the prey into many small pieces, but it also appears that the orcas may enjoy playing with their food.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a hunting tactic, but that involves a play game in the process,鈥� says , an independent marine biologist in Mexico. 鈥淭here鈥檚 鈥榟igh-octane鈥� adrenaline and a lot of other hormones rushing through their bodies, so, of course, there鈥檚 got to be some sort of excitement.鈥�

Sharp-tail sunfish (Masturus lanceolatus) are among the largest bony fish, weighing up to 2000 kilograms. Higuera had already seen groups of orcas (Orcinus orca) attacking sunfish in the Gulf of California, ripping off parts of their flesh and tossing them around to each other in a playful manner. In the past few years, he had even witnessed them .

Then, in July 2024, his colleague at US non-profit organisation Beneath the Waves caught an explosive interaction on her GoPro camera while diving in the Gulf of California. An adult female orca held onto a dead sunfish while an adult male orca swam upside down towards it at full speed. The female released the sunfish at the last second, and the male hit it with so much force that the fish burst into a flurry of small fragments.

A year later, tourist Hector Franz shot a similar underwater scene in the same bay. This time, an adult female rammed right-side-up into a sharp-tail sunfish held in place by another adult female, popping it into pieces. Combined, the two events mark the first time scientists have seen such behaviour by orcas, say Higuera, Ayres and their colleagues.

Sunfish have 鈥渁n incredibly dense, rubbery, collagenous鈥� outer layer that鈥檚 harder to bite through, so bursting them open could be an effective way to feed on them, says Higuera.

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鈥淭he explosive fragmentation seemed mostly to be of the stiff gelatinous capsule that makes up a high percentage 鈥� more than 80 per cent in large fish 鈥� of the body mass of the sunfish,鈥� says at University College Cork in Ireland. 鈥淚 suspect that calves cannot achieve enough force to do this, as their mass is too low. But they can exploit a cloud of objects that contain tasty morsels.鈥�

Earlier sightings without full footage indicated that the entire pod was involved in a strategic attack process leading up to the rammings, says Higuera. The findings point to advanced cooperative hunting skills and even planning 鈥� especially adapting their techniques for different kinds of prey, he says.

Higuera suspects that popping the sunfish offered a learning experience for the calves, while providing them with bite-sized snacks. Simultaneously, these events could also reinforce social bonds through 鈥減lay鈥� and social learning in this highly intelligent species, he adds.

at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville says it is possible the orcas were having some fun in demolishing the fish, but play wouldn鈥檛 be the only goal, as there is clearly cooperative foraging going on as well.

鈥淥ne of the fascinating things about play is that it can be a driver of behavioural innovation,鈥� says at the University of Pisa, Italy. 鈥淚t鈥檚 possible that a behaviour like this may have originated in a playful context and later acquired a feeding function, or vice versa. At this stage, we simply don鈥檛 know.鈥�

A monkey with a distinctive mask-like face, found in a remote part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has been declared a new species 鈥� only the fifth new species of monkey documented from Africa in the past 75 years.

The monkey is known as likweli to local people who hunt it for bushmeat, and it has been given the scientific name Colobus congoensis. It lives in one of the most inaccessible parts of Africa, without paved roads or infrastructure.

鈥淎 typical expedition involves multiple modes of transportation: a flight, followed by a motorcycle ride, two days of hiking on foot and finally travel by dugout canoe to reach the monkey鈥檚 range,鈥� says at Florida Atlantic University.

One of the most intriguing features of likweli is its facial appearance, says Detwiler. The light-coloured skin around the mouth and beneath the nose is unlike that of any other African colobus species, but resembles the facial pattern seen in some Asian colobine monkeys.

Detwiler and her colleagues believe the species鈥� mask-like face may represent ancestral traits that were present before the African and Asian colobine lineages diverged over 8 million years ago. 鈥淚f so, likweli may have retained characteristics that were subsequently modified or lost in the other African colobus species,鈥� says Detwiler.

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Like other colobus monkeys, likweli also has a distinctive body odour that defies description, she says.

女生小视频s first became aware of the species in 2008 when a team surveying on the banks of the Lomami river, in what is now Lomami National Park, took a photo that showed only a part of a monkey that had not been seen before, high in the canopy.

Then, in November 2018, another group again spotted the monkey, which is about 1.3 metres long and weighs around 7 kilograms. Between 2018 and 2022, there were 114 recorded observations of the new species, 25 of which were from vocalisations.

In 2021, several monkeys that had been killed by hunters for bushmeat were confiscated and handed over to researchers. Detailed morphological and genetic analysis confirmed they were indeed a wholly separate species. Genetic tests and recordings of their vocalisations also added to the evidence of their uniqueness.

鈥淭he genetic analyses revealed that likweli is a deeply divergent lineage that split from its closest known relative, Colobus satanas, approximately 4 to 5 million years ago,鈥� says Detwiler. 鈥淭hat was much older than we expected and provided strong evidence that likweli represents a distinct species.鈥�

Likweli is isolated from C. satanas by more than 1200 kilometres and several major river barriers. Unlike most other members of the genus, which have habitats exceeding 60,000 square kilometres, likweli is only known to exist in 1700 square kilometres of rainforest.

鈥淗unting is one of the primary threats facing likweli, particularly because the species has such a small known range and appears to occur at low densities,鈥� says Detwiler.

Because of the risk of poaching and the monkey鈥檚 small population and home range, the team is proposing that the species should be listed as endangered. 鈥淣ow that likweli has been recognised as a distinct species, another important step would be to grant it protected status under national law,鈥� says Detwiler. 鈥淭his would make it illegal to hunt the species, including in the buffer zone surrounding the park.鈥�

There鈥檚 one scent to rule them all 鈥� and we now know what it is. A series of experiments has shown that a single molecule released by the queen of naked mole rat colonies prevents all the other females in a colony from breeding.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a super-contraceptive, if you鈥檙e a mole rat,鈥� says at the Max Delbr眉ck Center in Berlin.

Naked mole rats (Heterocephalus glaber) have a social structure like that of bees and ants, with colonies made up of soldiers and workers, and a single queen ruling each colony. Only the queen can breed, but how she maintains her long reign 鈥� Lewin鈥檚 team鈥檚 oldest queen is 39 鈥� hasn鈥檛 been clear.

鈥淭he theory was that the queen is larger and more aggressive than the other animals, exerting her dominance through pushing and shoving,鈥� says Lewin. 鈥淏ut we never found that very satisfying as an explanation.鈥�

So team member , also at the Max Delbr眉ck Center, proposed identifying the mole rat bouquet 鈥� the molecules in the air around them that create their scent. Comparing the scents of hundreds of animals revealed that only the queens produce a molecule called isopropyl myristate.

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鈥淚t鈥檚 made in the reproductive organs, basically the vagina of the reproductive female,鈥� says Lewin.

When the team sprayed isopropyl myristate daily into cages containing male and female pairs, none of the females became pregnant. Without it, almost all the females became pregnant.

Next, the team removed a queen from a colony and applied isopropyl myristate daily. There were no fights for succession and no females started breeding during the three months this was done. 鈥淲e produced peacefulness,鈥� says Lewin. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 probably the most dramatic experiment.鈥�

When the team stopped applying isopropyl myristate, the high-ranking females started fighting within a week. After around three weeks one became pregnant: the new queen.

The team also showed that exposure to isopropyl myristate changes the levels of the hormones progesterone and prolactin. But they haven鈥檛 found out exactly how the molecule is detected and leads to these changes 鈥� that鈥檚 the next project, says Lewin.

The evidence for isopropyl myristate influencing reproduction is compelling, says at Linnaeus University in Sweden. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 an impressive and important study. And convincing.鈥�

at Queen Mary University of London is also convinced. 鈥淏ut the paper raises many questions, like any interesting research,鈥� says Faulkes. These include how animals detect it, and how behavioural interactions and queen dominance interact with the scent, he says.

There is something special about isopropyl myristate, says Lewin. Isopropyl myristate is volatile, meaning it can evaporate into the air, but it鈥檚 not highly volatile, so any traces left by the queen take time to evaporate and the scent persists for at least a day.

It鈥檚 known that a queen will patrol every part of her colony, which in the wild might extend underground for 3 kilometres. 鈥淲e think the reason she does that is to deposit this molecule around the colony,鈥� says Lewin. 鈥淭o make sure that every member of her colony is exposed to her scent.鈥�

Other experiments by the team suggest the animals can consciously detect the smell. For instance, highly ranked females with a chance of becoming queen try to avoid places where isopropyl myristate is present, whereas lower-ranked animals aren鈥檛 bothered.

The team also tested a number of other species of mole rat. They didn鈥檛 find isopropyl myristate in any solitary species but they did find it in a few species whose social structure is more like that of naked mole rats. 鈥淏ut I would be cautious about assuming that the same pathway has a comparable function across social mole rats without direct experimental evidence,鈥� says Z枚ttl.

Isopropyl myristate is also widely used in cosmetics. It is described as odourless but Lewin says some women at his lab thought they could smell something when exposed to it. A 2008 study also reported that during pregnancy and after childbirth.

The jaws of some sea worms are made of an exceptionally hard yet lightweight material dubbed a 鈥渂io-metal鈥� that could have applications in engineering.

Perinereis cultrifera is a type of ragworm with a long body adorned with bristles. Members of the species also have strong jaws that enable them to crush hard prey such as small crustaceans or other worms. Remnants of their jaws have been found in the fossil record dating back to hundreds of millions of years ago.

at TU Wien in Austria and his colleagues have been studying this worm鈥檚 jaws for almost a decade, leading them to propose that they are made of a novel material. The molecular structure of each jaw combines proteins and ions of metals such as zinc, giving it characteristics in between those of softer biological materials and metals.

Most recently, the team performed more than 3300 experiments in which small indentations were made in different parts of the jaw. The way its hardness changed under this pressure followed a pattern typical of metals like copper and silver. But the jaw also exhibited a kind of elasticity that metals cannot have, says Hellmich.

Finally, the researchers developed a mathematical model of bio-metals, which shows how they might respond to strain in a unique way in which microscopic forces arise from the metal ions becoming arranged into lines similar to certain defects in crystals.

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The researchers were surprised to uncover so much novelty in the relatively simple animal. Performing mechanical tests on the millimetre-sized jaw was really challenging and required hundreds of hours of preparation and polishing, says Hellmich. 鈥淏asically, anything can go wrong,鈥� he says.

鈥淭he jaws of bristle worms are incredibly hard yet very lightweight,鈥� says at Kent State University in Ohio. 鈥淢any industries, from automobiles to aeronautics, are searching for new ways to develop hard and lightweight materials. The answers are provided in nature!鈥�

鈥淪omehow evolution figured out a way to coax a metal-like mechanical fingerprint out of protein-like ingredients, and studying the worm is how we ask what trick makes that possible,鈥� says at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who didn鈥檛 work on the study. The long-term dream outcome of this research is to genetically program materials that would grow in biological systems, he says.

Hellmich and his colleagues are interested in pursuing this goal and their team already includes geneticists and biologists at the University of Vienna. 鈥淲e are asking questions like, 鈥業f we knock out a few genes, then how will the jaws be different?鈥欌�� he says.

A 555-million-year-old worm had a predilection for turning right, possibly indicating the oldest known example of handedness.

Although these worms lacked limbs and so couldn鈥檛 be considered left- or right-handed in the way that we understand, the development of a tendency to favour one side over another is evidence of an advanced nervous system.

It remains a feature of free-living mobile life today, but until this discovery, it wasn鈥檛 thought to have emerged until the Cambrian Period, which began around 541 million years ago.

at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and his colleagues analysed 100 fossil specimens of a small flatworm-like creature, Spriggina floundersi, collected in South Australia over recent decades.

These animals lived during the Ediacaran Period, when multicellular life first became widespread. It preceded the Cambrian explosion, when animal life diversified dramatically and many groups of animals first appeared.

Spriggina lived in what was, half a billion years ago, a shallow ocean and is thought to have foraged on or close to the seafloor, moving by wriggling to the left or right.

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鈥淲e have around 50 specimens of Spriggina that are clearly bent,鈥� says Evans. Twice as many of the fossilised worms are bent to the left than to the right, he says. This means the creature itself bent to the right, as the specimens are mirror-image impressions of the animals, made when storms buried them in sand.

鈥淭his appears to be statistically significant and matches what biologists find when they study handedness in different animals today,鈥� says Evans. 鈥淪ome specimens have multiple bends to both the right and left, suggesting that they all could bend both ways, which makes sense if you don鈥檛 want to be stuck moving in a circle.鈥�

While the majority seem to demonstrate right-handedness, it is hard to tell if any were left-handed, he says. 鈥淚 imagine it鈥檚 like taking a picture of 100 people waving with one hand today. You would likely be able to count that more people are waving with their right hand, but you wouldn鈥檛 be able to tell who is right- or left-handed.鈥�

Discoveries like this demonstrate that many foundational characteristics that are common to a variety of animals today, such as the ability to move around, bilateral symmetry and handedness, evolved in the Ediacaran, says Evans.

In the Cambrian, organisms built on that foundation to become more complex, for example adding legs to move more efficiently, becoming 鈥渓ess alien and more like the major groups of animals we know today鈥�, says Evans. 鈥淭his is cool because it suggests that, while the Cambrian was an amazing time in animal evolution, those organisms didn鈥檛 just come out of nowhere: they built on the foundations established in the Ediacaran.鈥�

鈥淭he presence of handedness in any kind of functional asymmetry, really deep into the fossil record, gives us important and interesting information about how these behaviours have evolved and how deeply in time they emerged,鈥� says at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.

(UK: Channel 4; US: not available)

In 2015, an amateur trophy hunter from the US shot and killed the largest lion in Africa. The vitriol unleashed after Cecil鈥檚 death isn鈥檛 surprising (or entirely unwarranted), but what is remarkable is how this delicately-crafted film uses the case as a locus for all sorts of arguments about conservation. A symbol in life and in death, Cecil and other large, charismatic animals exist in a complex balance with humans who, one way or another, invariably stake a claim on them.

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(UK: BBC iPlayer; US: not currently available)

Almost everyone in the world now needs to have some knowledge of how AI technologies work, from all the chatbots they encounter to driverless cars and more. Mathematician Hannah Fry is an excellent person to impart such knowledge: across three episodes, she guides us through recent cases where AI has become entangled with very human problems. The series breaks down complicated topics through clear metaphors, and it benefits from Fry鈥檚 warmth, humour and complete lack of judgement towards those at the sharp end of this ultimate technological revolution.

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(UK: BBC iPlayer; US: Discovery+)

While we eagerly await Artemis III in 2027, why not revisit this year鈥檚 Artemis II mission, which returned humans on a flyby of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years? This all-too-brief film is the product of three and a half years of filming with the Artemis programme, and it鈥檚 the story of countless humans 鈥� all those behind-the-scenes engineers and designers who worked on the mission alongside the four astronauts who travelled further from Earth than anyone before them.

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(UK: BBC iPlayer; US: PBS)

The best of the many, many documentaries released to celebrate David Attenborough鈥檚 centenary was this behind-the-scenes look at the most iconic natural history series ever made. Released in 1979, the structure and tone of Life on Earth became the blueprint for almost every nature documentary that has been made ever since, and consequently has helped to define how we view the world around us. Making Life on Earth is crammed full of fascinating details from the production process, from a terrifying near-miss with armed guards in Rwanda, to Attenborough discovering that he has an allergy to donkey fur while riding the animals to the bottom of the Grand Canyon 鈥� and how it ended up ruining a close-up.

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(UK: for rent; US: HBO Max)

Fifteen years ago, a devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami killed 20,000 people across northern Japan and caused vital cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant to fail. Told through the most stomach-churning footage and eye-witness accounts, this film sets out exactly what went wrong and charts how a natural disaster turned into a nuclear emergency. Amid the grim details, one bright spot is the bravery of the so-called Fukushima 50, who remained onsite and risked their lives to prevent a full-scale meltdown that would have rendered vast swathes of Japan uninhabitable. Because of their actions, only one person has so far died as a result of the accident.