Intellect Plus
Nature
2,233 cards. Each one is a 40-second story with a five-minute read behind it. Page 35 of 38.
- Robins were redbreasts before English had a word for orangeThe European robin is a small insect-eating songbird, 12.5 to 14 centimetres long, whose orange-red breast is shared by males and females alike. Britons simply say robin, but the …
- Two seabass populations barely mix, and nobody knows whyEuropean seabass, sold as branzino in North America and also known as loup de mer, is the most important farmed fish in the Mediterranean. Yet its wild stocks hide a puzzle: Atlan…
- Sea scorpions grew to 2.5 metres and many never lived in the seaEurypterids, nicknamed sea scorpions, include the largest arthropods that ever lived: Jaekelopterus reached 2.5 metres. Yet the nickname misleads twice over. Only the earliest spe…
- Falcons are closer kin to parrots than to hawks and eaglesFalcons, about forty species in the genus Falco, are built for speed: a diving peregrine has been clocked at 390 kilometres an hour. They look like hawks and eagles, yet genetical…
- Cat eyes are about six times more light-sensitive than oursThe cat family, Felidae, counts forty-one living species, all strict meat-eaters with the most varied coat patterns of any land carnivores. They share a toolkit honed for ambush: …
- Darwin's famous finches are not true finches at allTrue finches, family Fringillidae, are small to medium songbirds with stout cone-shaped bills made for cracking seeds. More than two hundred species belong, from canaries to Hawai…
- Fire ants bite only to hold on, then sting with an alkaloid venomFire ants belong to Solenopsis, a genus of more than two hundred stinging species. Their name comes from a sting that feels like a burn, delivered after they clamp on with their j…
- Some female fireflies fake a rival species' flashes to eat the malesFireflies are beetles, more than 2,400 described species of them, and their glow probably began as a warning that the larvae taste foul. Only later did it become a courtship signa…
- Copperheads freeze because camouflage beats flightThe eastern copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix) is a heavy-bodied pit viper of the eastern United States, banded with dark hourglasses on a reddish-brown ground. Rather than slith…
- Echidnas are egg-laying mammals in a four-species clubSpiny anteaters of the family Tachyglossidae share Australia and New Guinea with the platypus as the only living egg-laying mammals. Four echidna species survive, descended betwee…
- Echinoderms flip from bilateral larvae to five-part adultsStarfish, brittle stars, urchins, sand dollars, sea cucumbers and sea lilies make up the phylum Echinodermata, Greek for hedgehog skin. Their larvae swim with a left and right sid…
- True eels span thumb-length fish to four-meter giantsTrue eels, the order Anguilliformes, number about 1,000 species of ray-finned fish in 164 genera, and nearly all hunt other animals. They range from the 5-centimetre one-jawed eel…
- Electric 'eels' are knifefish split into three speciesSouth America's electric eels stun prey with shocks of up to 860 volts, yet they are knifefish, not true eels. Linnaeus described one species in 1766, and for over two centuries t…
- Torpedo rays lent their shock to naval weaponsElectric rays of the order Torpediniformes can discharge between about 8 and 220 volts, depending on the species, to stun prey and fend off attackers. The genus Torpedo, from a La…
- Wapiti means white rump in Shawnee and CreeThe elk (Cervus canadensis), or wapiti, is the second-largest member of the deer family, native to North America and Central and East Asia. Its English name is a colonial hand-me-…
- Horse-family fossils begin fifty-four million years agoEquidae, the horse family, holds horses, asses, zebras and many species known only as fossils. Over more than 50 million years it turned small, many-toed browsers into large anima…
- Eukaryotic cells likely began as an archaeal mergerEukaryotes keep their DNA in a membrane-wrapped nucleus and fill their cells with organelles held in shape by a cytoskeleton. The leading theory says they arose in the Paleoproter…
- Eagle-owl females can span nearly two meters of wingThe Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) ranks among the world's largest owls: females reach about 75 cm long with wingspans up to 188 cm, and males are slightly smaller. Striking orang…
- Turkeys are named for a trade route mix-up with guineafowlDomestic turkeys descend from a south Mexican wild subspecies and were likely tamed in Mesoamerica at least two thousand years ago. English speakers probably confused them with gu…
- Donkeys were domesticated in Africa five to seven thousand years agoThe donkey descends from the African wild ass and has hauled loads for millennia. More than forty million live mostly in poorer countries as pack and draught animals. Males are ja…
- True dragonflies showed up in the Early Jurassic skiesAbout three thousand living dragonfly species make up the infraorder Anisoptera, most of them tropical, and the loss of wetlands threatens them worldwide. Each compound eye packs …
- Wild dromedaries vanished nearly two thousand years agoThe one-humped dromedary is the tallest camel: males stand about 1.8–2.4 meters at the shoulder. Domesticated on the Arabian Peninsula roughly four thousand years ago, it no longe…
- A four-chromosome fly became genetics’ favorite animalDrosophila melanogaster—the common fruit or vinegar fly—draws researchers for a short life cycle, four chromosome pairs, and huge broods. Charles W. Woodworth proposed it as a mod…
- Duck once meant diver, replacing an older word for the birdDuck names many Anatidae waterfowl smaller and shorter-necked than geese or swans, yet the label is a form taxon, not one clean clade. Old English dūce, “diver,” from a verb meani…
- Dung beetles are a lifestyle, not one evolutionary clanBeetles that eat feces span several scarab lineages rather than a single ancestor. Most “true” dung specialists sit in Scarabaeinae, with Aphodiinae and earth-boring Geotrupidae s…
- Eagle names any big enough raptor, not one neat family branchGenetically only Aquilinae are “true eagles,” yet English calls many large Accipitridae eagles, including the bald eagle. The word came through Old French from Latin aquila, repla…
- Earthworms are living soil mills with a tube-within-a-tube bodyEarthworms are terrestrial annelids—the larger oligochaetes—eating detritus, microbes, and algae in moist soils. A gut runs the body’s length; segments, setae, and dual fluid syst…
- Earwigs fold hidden wings under short covers and raise youngEarwigs form the modest order Dermaptera—about two thousand species—with forceps-like cerci and wings tucked under stubby forewings. Most hunt and browse at night from moist crevi…
- Terrible lizards that never vanished—they became birdsDinosaurs dominated Mesozoic land after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction, yet only the avian lineage survived the end-Cretaceous catastrophe. Richard Owen coined dinosaur in 1842.…
- Double-beamed chevrons anchored a Jurassic whip-tailed giantDiplodocus, named for twin tail beams, roamed Late Jurassic North America and Europe. Williston found the first fossils in 1877; Marsh coined the genus amid the Bone Wars. D. carn…
- Two front teeth and fused toes define Australasia's marsupial giantsDiprotodontia is the largest living marsupial order, about 155 species including kangaroos, koalas, wombats and possums. Its extinct members ranged from the hippo-sized Diprotodon…
- Mauritius lost its giant flightless pigeon within a century of discoveryThe dodo Raphus cucullatus lived only on Mauritius before extinction by the late seventeenth century. Dutch sailors recorded it in 1598; hunting, invasive species, and habitat los…
- From Pleistocene wolves to starch-tolerant companions worldwideDogs descend from wolves domesticated at least 14,000 years ago—before agriculture—and perhaps over 25,000 years back. Canis familiaris now numbers up to one billion worldwide. Se…
- Toothed whales that echolocate, socialize, and span river to seaForty extant dolphin species belong to oceanic, river, and brackish families within toothed whale parvorder Odontoceti. Sizes run from 1.7-meter Maui's dolphin to ten-tonne orca a…
- Lanternfish rule a realm where sunlight never reachesBelow the sunlit epipelagic zone lies a vast dark ocean where lanternfish dominate among deep-sea fish. Anglerfish, viperfish, and bristlemouths share bathypelagic and abyssopelag…
- Antlers, myth, and a word that once meant any wild beastTrue deer belong to Cervidae, split between Cervinae and Capreolinae subfamilies. Males of nearly every species grow and shed bony antlers each year; female reindeer do too. From …
- The sail-backed synapsid that predates dinosaurs by millionsDimetrodon prowled Permian landscapes 294 to 271 million years ago with a tall neural-spine sail and heterodont jaws. Popular culture treats it as a dinosaur, yet it vanished fort…
- Australia's dingo arrived by boat and still divides taxonomistsThe dingo is a medium Australian canine with a wedge-shaped skull and coat colors of ginger, black-and-tan, or creamy white. Its classification swings between domestic dog subspec…
- True crocodiles patrol tropics on four continents’ watersTrue crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) are large semiaquatic reptiles of tropical Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australia. Looser speech sometimes folds all living Crocodylia—inc…
- Crocodilians appeared 83.5 million years ago beside bird kinCrocodylia is the order of semiaquatic predatory reptiles we call crocodilians. Fossils place them from about 83.5 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous Campanian, and living m…
- Crustaceans span a tenth of a millimetre to spider-crab giantsCrustaceans are mandibulate arthropods traditionally grouped in subphylum Crustacea—mostly aquatic forms from shrimp and crabs to barnacles and woodlice. About 67,000 described sp…
- Channel-billed cuckoos are the heavyweights of nest parasitesCuckoos and roadrunners fill family Cuculidae, the only Cuculiformes. The clan includes common cuckoos, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals, and anis. The channel-billed cuckoo, about…
- Cypriniformes pack carps, minnows, loaches into one giant orderCypriniformes is a vast order of ray-finned fishes splitting into barbs, loaches, botias, carps, danionins, minnows, and more. It is often called an “order of ostariophysans,” bin…
- Killifish and live-bearers share a small-fish freshwater orderCyprinodontiformes gathers mostly small freshwater ray-finned fishes, including popular aquarium killifish and live-bearers. They sit close to Atheriniformes and are sometimes dis…
- Damselflies fold slim wings while dragonflies usually don’tDamselflies are Zygoptera within order Odonata, cousins to dragonflies but typically smaller and slimmer. Most species rest with wings folded along the body, a silhouette field gu…
- Snakebirds spear fish with necks like living periscopesDarters, anhingas, or snakebirds are tropical waterbirds of family Anhingidae and single genus Anhinga. Four living species range across the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australasi…
- Decapods may have branched off 455 million years agoDecapods—crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, and prawns—are ten-footed malacostracan crustaceans, mostly scavengers. Molecular-clock work published in 2019 pushes their origin near…
- Reefs cover under one percent of ocean, host a quarter of fishHard coral structures take up under one percent of the world ocean’s surface yet shelter roughly a quarter of all marine fish species. A small healthy patch can hold hundreds of k…
- Coral snakes bite rarely yet carry fixed front fangsAbout twenty-seven Old World elapids and roughly eighty-three New World ones wear the coral-snake label. Most stay hidden underground or in leaf litter, surfacing mainly after rai…
- Sea ravens dive with all four toes webbed togetherRoughly forty species of cormorants and shags fill family Phalacrocoracidae, weighing from about a third of a kilogram up to five kilograms with wings often spanning sixty to one …
- Crows match many primates on a brain-to-body scoreThe crow-and-raven genus Corvus holds about forty-six species on every continent except South America and Antarctica. Lab work since 2002 shows some not only wield tools but fashi…
- Forty-plus English names chase one wide-ranging American catPuma concolor—cougar, puma, mountain lion, catamount, panther—holds a Guinness record for most names, over forty in English alone. Its wild range is the widest of any terrestrial …
- Coyotes out-adapt wolves into cities and PanamaCanis latrans, the coyote or prairie wolf, stays smaller than the gray wolf yet colonizes human landscapes so well that IUCN rates it Least Concern. Sightings reach eastern Panama…
- Cranes are among Earth’s tallest birds that still flyFifteen crane species in four genera—Antigone, Balearica, Leucogeranus, and Grus—stalk wetlands on every continent but Antarctica and South America. Demoiselles stand about 90 cm;…
- Mosquito hawks neither hunt mosquitoes nor sting youCrane flies are called mosquito hawks and mosquito eaters, yet adults cannot kill or eat other insects, and many never feed at all in their brief ten-to-fifteen-day lives. Nor are…
- Crawdads are freshwater lobsters with a fishy folk nameCrayfish, crawfish, or crawdads are freshwater crustaceans closely related to lobsters, breathing through feathery gills. The name comes from Old French escrevisse, bent toward fi…
- Night singers with ovipositors star from Pinocchio to DickensCrickets, the superfamily Grylloidea, live everywhere except the cold lands beyond about 55 degrees of latitude. Males sing by rasping one leathery forewing against the other, and…
- Dove and pigeon names split by size, not by biologyColumbidae, the only family in Columbiformes, holds 52 genera and 353 species of stout seed-eating birds with short bills and fleshy ceres. English speakers often call small ones …
- The Indian myna's Latin name means sad or gloomyAcridotheres tristis, the common or Indian myna, is an Asian starling so invasive that in 2000 the IUCN Species Survival Commission listed it among the world's worst alien species…
- Nightingale means night singer in Old English rootsLuscinia megarhynchos, the common or rufous nightingale, is a small chat famous for powerful nocturnal song. Once classed with thrushes, it now sits among Old World flycatchers, a…