Mammals

The gemsbok shrugs off a surprising amount of desert death.

The first horse Eohippus looks weird, but then we didn’t look like anything 55 million years ago!

There’s nothing cloak and dagger about the Cape fox, but it did almost disappear.

The aardwolf is so not a wolf it doesn’t even howl or eat meat. Usually.

The woolly rhino is proof that a hairy coat, massive build, and impressive horns don’t make you invincible.

The male vicuña is basically a romantic hero wrapped in luxury wool.

Fellow creatures of the Miocene. It is with great regret I announce my abdication from the role of “largest carnivorous …

Ribbon seal: Well that movie wasn’t scary. Ringed seal: What?! I’m white as a pup! I won’t get any sleep …

There’s a myth that goats eat everything. In the case of the rare Nilgiri tahr (pronounced nil-ghi-ri tar), it’s everyone …

Dear Mother Nature, I don’t think anyone likes me. I’m not a rodent, but they call me a “moonrat” because …

We’re teeming with salmon, lush grass, juicy berries, and absolutely no mainland grizzlies. The world’s biggest land predator* deserves no …

There are few cooler ways to discover new lands than on the back of a dolphin. That’s what happened in …

It has a weirdly bare snout, but the eastern hognosed skunk still has the black and white uniform and violent …

Interviewer 3: She’s late. Did she get lost in the jungle? Interviewer 2: [sighs] There aren’t that many pot plants …

The Zanj sun squirrel sounds like something out of a fairy tale. And it might as well be, for all …

My mind cracked apart like the continents when I read camels were from North America. But the drooping, slightly disappointed …

Welcome to Opposite World, where rabbits are in one place rather than everywhere, on volcanoes instead of plains, and said …

The grey bottlenose may steal the limelight, but the striped dolphin has some tricks and kinks of its own. In …

Much to my shame, I spent ages thinking “onager” was some kind of sports brand. It’s actually a sub-species of …

Have you ever played that game Scattergories and had to think of an animal beginning with “n”? When everyone else …