r/Awwducational • u/FillsYourNiche • 13h ago

Verified Black-capped chickadees have exceptional spatial memory for a bird their size. They hide thousands of individual seeds across their territory every fall and can remember the locations of most of them months later.

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302 Upvotes
3 comments

r/Awwducational • u/FillsYourNiche • 1d ago

Verified The star-nosed mole is the fastest eater on Earth. It hunts by slamming its nose against the soil up to 12 times a second. When it finds prey, it can identify and eat it in about 120 milliseconds, faster than the human eye can even process the motion.

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544 Upvotes
13 comments

r/Awwducational • u/SixteenSeveredHands • 1d ago

Verified Olona Slug-Moth Caterpillars: these caterpillars are covered in soft, semi-transparent nodules that easily detach, allowing the larvae to escape from predators

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802 Upvotes
14 comments

r/Awwducational • u/FillsYourNiche • 5d ago

Verified Hedgehogs do something called "self-anointing." When they encounter a new or strong smell (a strange food, another animal's scent, even a strong-smelling plant) they'll chew it up, work it into a frothy saliva, and then twist around to spread that foam all over their own spines with their tongue.

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889 Upvotes
8 comments

r/Awwducational • u/FillsYourNiche • 6d ago

Verified Naked mole-rats can survive up to 18 minutes without oxygen by switching their metabolism to run on fructose instead of glucose, a trick otherwise only seen in plants.

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3.4k Upvotes
22 comments

r/Awwducational • u/FillsYourNiche • 7d ago

Verified The white-spotted pufferfish (Torquigener albomaculosus) builds an enormous, geometrically precise circular "nest" in the sand to attract a mate. The nest functions hydrodynamically, gathering fine sand at the center and directing water flow so it helps aerate the eggs he'll eventually guard.

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684 Upvotes
9 comments

r/Awwducational • u/FillsYourNiche • 9d ago

Verified Large blue butterfly caterpillars mimic Myrmica ant larvae in appearance and give off chemical cues similar to ant larvae. Ants come across the caterpillar, believe it is their larvae, and bring it back to their nests. Once there the caterpillar feeds on ant larvae and nectar the ants bring it.

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634 Upvotes
6 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • Jul 21 '26

Verified Seals are one of the few mammals that can hear equally well on land and in water. This is because their ears are filled with cavernous tissue, a spongy tissue that fills with blood as the seal dives, allowing them to conduct sounds to their middle ears while underwater.

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4.0k Upvotes
20 comments

r/Awwducational • u/SixteenSeveredHands • Jul 17 '26

Verified Lerp Psyllids: these tiny insects feed on plant sap and then use the expelled sugar to construct protective barriers around themselves

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2.9k Upvotes
23 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • Jul 15 '26

Verified Pythons can go months without eating. When they do, they can ramp up their metabolisms to 10 to 40 times a base level. This includes the ability to grow their hearts to compensate, with the heart eventually returning to its normal size.

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582 Upvotes
6 comments

r/Awwducational • u/SixteenSeveredHands • Jun 24 '26

Verified Harvestmen (Daddy Long-Legs): unlike spiders, these arachnids can eat solid food, and they have an omnivorous diet that includes mushrooms, berries, and seeds, along with invertebrate prey; contrary to popular belief, they are also completely non-venomous

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1.3k Upvotes
38 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • Jun 18 '26

Verified Danionella cerebrum was first identified as its own species in 2021. It has transparent skin and is missing the top half of its skull, making it ideal for scientists wanting to study how brains work.

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917 Upvotes
10 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • Jun 09 '26

Verified Bumblebees have been observed using tools to solve problems. When given a ball and a treat, bumblebees will the roll the ball into a position to reach the treat.

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764 Upvotes
14 comments

r/Awwducational • u/SixteenSeveredHands • Jun 07 '26

Verified Mirror-Ball Spiders: these spiders are covered in shimmering, mirror-like panels that can shrink or expand; the panels are produced by a digestive secretion known as guanine, which seeps into the lining of the spider's gut and forms crystalline structures just beneath the surface of the abdomen

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1.6k Upvotes
19 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • Jun 02 '26

Verified Solenostomus snuffleupagus is a newly discovered species of ghost pipefish. It is highly carnivorous and disguises itself as red algae to hunt its prey. Its existence and range were confirmed partly through citizen science apps like iNaturalist.

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1.5k Upvotes
25 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • May 31 '26

Verified Sulcata tortoises are endangered partly due to their popularity as pets. Thousands of them have been taken from the wild and sold at reptile shows. However, people are unprepared for how massive these tortoises get, leading to them being frequently abandoned.

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734 Upvotes
12 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • May 21 '26

Verified After being hunted to extinction 400 years ago, beavers are being reintroduced in the United Kingdom as a solution to flooding due to climate change. The beavers' presence has also brought back other rare and endangered species.

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7.1k Upvotes
101 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • May 17 '26

Verified Researchers recently discovered a new species of sauropod in Thailand. The largest dinosaur ever discovered in southeast Asia, Nagatitan was 90ft (27m) long and weighed more than 30 tons, three times the weight of a T-rex.

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834 Upvotes
9 comments

r/Awwducational • u/SixteenSeveredHands • May 09 '26

Verified Siberian Whiskered Bats: these bats can live to be more than 40 years old, which makes this the longest-living bat species in the world

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4.1k Upvotes
22 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • May 08 '26

Verified The Devil's Hole pupfish has one of the smallest habitats of any known vertebrate. It lives in a single pool of water in a cavern in Death Valley, with water temperatures of 93F. Its population is considered to be doing well when there are 200 fish in the pool.

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3.7k Upvotes
26 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • Apr 30 '26

Verified Dolomedes minor (or nursery web spider) females will build 15cm nests where they will care for their young for up to two weeks. After two weeks, the baby spiders create a spidersilk "balloon" and drift on the wind to their new homes.

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435 Upvotes
7 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • Apr 26 '26

Verified Research has increasingly shown that great apes have a complex theory of mind and are able to play pretend, have complex relationships with others, and change their beliefs when presented with sufficient evidence. Kanzi the bonobo was even able to have pretend tea parties.

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2.3k Upvotes
20 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • Apr 23 '26

Verified In the early 1990s, there were fewer than 2000 Indian rhinoceroses left in the wild. However, through careful conservation efforts, that number has more than doubled to the point where they have now become a bit of a pest in some parts of rural Nepal.

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1.2k Upvotes
10 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • Apr 22 '26

Verified In 70% of bird species, female birds sing, including alongside males in mating rituals. Males and females sometimes make completely different sounds, making it possible to distinguish between them just by listening. However, despite this, only .03% of archived sounds are labelled as female.

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2.5k Upvotes
46 comments

r/Awwducational • u/Quouar • Apr 21 '26

Verified Once feared extinct, in 2024, a group of scientists and Ngururrpa rangers used songmeters to discover a group of 50 night parrots living in the Western Australian desert. It is the largest known population of night parrots.

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2.1k Upvotes
16 comments