Have you heard of the “African unicorn”? Okapis have tongues long enough to wash their eyelids. The 6-foot-tall, roughly 500-pound, famously shy okapi (Okapia johnstoni) can only be found in the wild in the Ituri tropical rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Its biology features some amazing adaptations: A unique strip pattern on its rump helps the mammal blend in with shade cast by the rainforest canopy, and its fur is coated in a natural oil that repels moisture, something that rainforests obviously provide in abundance. What’s more, the okapi’s large ears can detect even the slightest disturbance, and okapi mothers communicate with their young in frequencies beyond human hearing. However, perhaps the okapi’s most useful evolutionary trait is its tongue. Stretching some 12 to 14 inches, it’s long enough to swat flies, clean the okapi’s ears, and even clean its eyelids. The tongue is also prehensile, meaning it can grasp and strip leaves from branches. This is immensely useful, as okapis can eat up to 60 pounds of food every day. Although okapis live an isolated existence and look like a cross between a zebra and a deer, their tongues give away their genetic lineage. Okapis are the only living relatives of the giraffe, which explains the animal’s nicknames, including forest giraffe, Congolese giraffe, and zebra giraffe. Like okapis, giraffes also sport blue-hued prehensile tongues, and scientists estimate that the two species shared a common ancestry some 11 million to 12 million years ago. Today, unfortunately, okapis live under threat from deforestation, mining, armed militant groups, and hunting. Thankfully, groups like the Okapi Conservation Project are hard at work preserving the habitat of this “Congolese unicorn” for generations to come. Rough length (in inches) of the average human tongue 3 Inches. Weight (in pounds) of a blue whale’s tongue 8,000 Estimated number of okapis living in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve 3,500 Number of stomachs okapis have 4 Until 1901, Western scientists thought the okapi was a mythical creature. For a mammal that can weigh hundreds of pounds, the scientific discovery of the okapi seems startlingly late. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Western scientists heard about an “African unicorn” that some Congolese Indigenous peoples called o’api. However, because okapis live in hard-to-reach rainforests and are famously shy, experts dismissed the animal as simply a myth, a cryptid similar to the yeti of the Himalayas or the Sasquatch of the Pacific Northwest. However, in 1900, British explorer Sir Harry Johnston sent the first hide samples to the Zoological Society of London, and the okapi “myth” transformed into reality. Although finally “found” (at least by Western scientists; local tribes likely knew of the animal for millennia), traces of the okapi’s once-mythical status can still be seen — the creature serves as a mascot of sorts for the International Society of Cryptozoology. Because if the “African unicorn” is real, what else might science turn up next?

Sharks are *way* older than you think. Sharks are older than Saturn’s rings. For most of human history, sharks were considered fairly harmless, a perception that changed forever with the 1975 release of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Relative to the total amount of time sharks have been around, however, “most of human history” is just the blink of an eye. Having existed for somewhere between 400 million and 450 million years, these fish are older than just about anything you can think of — including Saturn’s rings. While the planet Saturn itself formed some 4.5 billion years ago alongside the rest of our solar system, its rings formed between 10 million and 100 million years ago, making them relatively recent in the grand scheme of things. And just for fun, here are some other things sharks are older than: trees (which are roughly 390 million years old), the North Star (70 million years), and the Atlantic Ocean (150 million years). That’s right — sharks have existed longer than one of the oceans they now swim in, as the Atlantic didn’t form until the supercontinent Pangea broke apart. Sharks weren’t recorded making noise until 2025. They don’t call them silent killers for nothing, and indeed part of what’s made sharks so frightful in the collective imagination is the idea that their attacks, while vicious, are noiseless. But sharks aren’t entirely silent. University of Auckland scientists have recorded a rig shark making a clicking sound, most likely by snapping its teeth. Their research was published in March 2025, marking a breakthrough in our understanding of these ancient creatures. The sound, which the sharks made an average of nine times in a 20-second span, wasn’t produced while swimming or feeding. The researchers believe it isn't used as a means of communication, but rather is something sharks do when startled or stressed.

What's the scariest predator on the planet? The spotted Hyena. These guys are the baddest predators around. Their reputation for brutality is like no other. The Hyena isn't like a big cat, where it would typically ambush it's prey; they would much rather chase their prey to the point of exhaustion. If they decide to put you on the menu, consider yourself dead. The spotted Hyena is known for running at speeds of up to 35 mph for miles on end. After being chased for a long period of time their prey collapses from exhaustion, and is now unable to fight back. On top of their unmatched stamina, they're believed to have a bite force of over 1,000 psi. That's stronger than the bite of an African Lion, and around the level of a grizzly bear. To make matters worse, in the rare cases of ambush, they target the family jewels.

What can cats see that humans can't? 🐱 Cats can see UV light, which is invisible to humans. Cats can do a lot of things their human friends can’t: They can purr, sleep all day without consequence, and jump up to six times their own height in a single leap. But perhaps most impressive of all is their ability to see ultraviolet light thanks to UV-transparent lenses in their eyes that allow UV light to reach their retinas. This will come as little surprise to anyone who’s ever noticed their cat staring at seemingly nothing for minutes at a time, but it’s a fascinating insight into how our feline friends view the world all the same. In fact, their UV vision actually allows them to see their prey’s urine trail while hunting and distinguish between their prey and a similarly colored background. This ability may not help your housecat in any practical ways on a daily basis, as being fed from a can doesn’t require much in the way of hunting, but it’s still a cool evolutionary trick. And cats aren’t the only animals with this ability. Bees, birds, reindeer, and mice have this enhanced vision as well, though for some of them it comes with the trade-off of not being able to see the color red. Humans have kept cats as pets for at least 9,500 years. When we think of cats in the ancient world, Egypt tends to come to mind first. Egyptians considered felines sacred and some even mummified their pets, but they weren’t the first to hold cats in such high regard. There’s evidence to suggest they were beaten to the punch by at least 4,000 years: A grave in Cyprus dating back some 9,500 years contained the remains of a human and cat alongside decorative objects such as seashells and polished stones. Cats aren’t native to the island, meaning they must have been brought there by humans — perhaps “on a kind of Noah’s ark,” as archaeologist Melinda Zeder told National Geographic, theorizing that a number of non-native animals were transported to Cyprus. #Animals #Cats

Wait, octopuses don't have tentacles!? Octopuses don’t have tentacles; they have arms. The most distinguishing feature about an octopus is its set of eight appendages — after all, they’re right there in the name. But don’t confuse that tangle of limbs for tentacles, because octopuses don’t have those — they have arms. For us armchair biologists, the two words seem interchangeable, but there’s an important difference. On animals such as squids, tentacles are usually longer and have suckers only on their clubbed ends; they’re primarily used for hunting. By contrast, a cephalopod's arms have suckers that smell, taste, and feel all the way down. Squids, for example, have both eight arms and two tentacles. Of course, an octopus’s “arms” are nothing like the two appendages dangling from your torso. For one, octopus arms are entirely soft tissue, and that absence of bone makes octopuses incredibly flexible. But the most striking difference between octopus arms and our own is that all eight arms contain more than half of an octopus’s total neurons, cells that are usually concentrated in a central brain. This has led some scientists to theorize that octopuses essentially have nine brains — a centralized one and eight mini ones located in each arm. Recent research suggests that there might be more connection between these “brains” than previously imagined, and that an octopus’s arms are, at the very least, “clever” (a very peculiar adjective to describe an arm). Whatever the IQ of an octopus’s arms, it’s clear that they’re just as strange, and incredible, as the creatures themselves. Octopuses can fit into an inch-wide hole. Octopuses are master contortionists with the ability to fit into incredibly small spaces — in fact, they can fit inside holes only an inch wide. A majority of an octopus’s body is soft tissue that can lengthen, contract, and contort in any way necessary. The only hard part on their body is the beak, which gets its name because these mouth parts resemble the beaks of parrots. The octopus uses its beak, made up of a fibrous substance called chitin (which also forms the exoskeletons of arthropods), to eat crunchy prey like crabs and clams. Because the beak is the only octopus part that can’t contort, it essentially sets the minimum size of the hole an octopus can squeeze into. To capture this amazing ability on camera, in 2010 National Geographic filmed an octopus as it passed through a plexiglass hole. The 600-pound creature squeezed itself through an opening the size of a quarter. #Animals #Octopus

Killer whales sometimes hunt moose. There’s a reason orcas are better known as killer whales. They’re fierce predators, and they don’t always keep to the water in search of prey — in fact, they’ve even been known to hunt moose. This happens when a member of the largest deer species (yes, moose are deer) wades into the water, either in search of food or to elude land-based predators, and finds itself in the unfortunate position of being near an orca, which will eat pretty much anything. Such occurrences have been known to happen in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, with one recorded incident resulting in the deaths of two moose. Orcas are thought to have received their nickname centuries ago, perhaps from a mistranslation. The theory posits that Basque fisherman observed them killing other whales and referred to them as “whale killers,” which became “killer whales” when translated to English. Their diet depends largely on where they live, but different ecotypes feed on everything from fish and seals to sharks and squid, with the occasional moose thrown in. No one knows why orcas keep attacking yachts. If you’ve read about killer whales in the last few years, it’s probably because they keep sinking yachts. There have been incidents in Cape Finisterre as well as the Strait of Gibraltar, with at least 500 orcas encountering boats since 2020. (Most of these go no further than the whales merely approaching the vessels, perhaps out of curiosity, but a number of them have resulted in sunken boats.) Scientists remain unsure about the whales’ motivations. Some think they’re merely having fun or even participating in a fad, which is apparently something killer whales do — for instance, one pod spent the summer of 1987 wearing dead salmon on their heads. Others believe it’s because they’ve had negative experiences with boats in the past, including losing members of their species to the vessels. Whatever the case, the creatures don’t seem to have personal beef with the humans onboard; there have been zero recorded cases of an orca killing a human in the wild. #Animals #KillerWhales

Mountain goats aren't actually goats. When is a goat not a goat? When it can be spotted on a rail-thin rock crevasse at an altitude of 13,000 feet in the northwestern United States and Canada. That animal, while seemingly possessing the stubbornness attributed to the goats found at petting zoos, is actually the biologically distinct mountain goat, the lone extant species of the genus Oreamnos. While related to domestic and wild goats within the Bovidae family, mountain goats belong to the Rupicaprini tribe, a subdivision of "goat antelopes" that includes fellow rock-climbing creatures such as the goral and chamois. Anatomically, rupicaprids differ from other bovids by featuring short, dagger-like horns atop thinner, lighter skulls. Mountain goats have also developed specific features that would feel strange to their cousins in the petting zoo, namely the thick, double layer of fur and suction cup-like hooves that allow them to survive in cold, treacherous environments. Behavior-wise, male mountain goats are more deferential to females than their domestic cousins. They're also far less likely to engage in the sort of head-butting waged between playful kids and competing rivals among true goat herds, due to the potential for injury from those sharp horns. But lest you think these animals suffer from a courage deficiency, just think about how brave you'd be leaping between cliffs more than 2 miles above sea level. Mountain goats enjoy refreshing themselves with human urine. Most guides will advise keeping a safe distance from mountain goats, but sometimes the animals get a little more close and personal than we'd like. That's what started happening in Washington's Olympic National Park, where the ever-growing mountain goat population developed a taste for the salt in human urine and sweat. Although it can make for a fun campfire story or blog post, a brush with these normally elusive wild animals can be dangerous. Furthermore, the increasingly emboldened creatures have been found to be disrupting the ecosystem by trampling and gobbling up vegetation. In response, the National Park Service in 2018 began airlifting mountain goats to the nearby North Cascades National Park, a locale with plenty of the naturally occurring mineral deposits needed to supplement their diets, and fewer of the freely urinating hikers just waiting to blog about their close encounters with intruding wildlife. #Animals #Goats