Animals

November 18, 2022

30 Funny Cat Photos Candidly Captured on the Streets of Japan

Cats are comedians. They certainly don’t realize it, but as Japanese photographer Masayuki Oki shows, they are constantly doing things that make us laugh. Oki roams Tokyo and other city streets to look for kitties that are just being themselves, but they are doing so in a way that is funny to us humans. This includes dramatic fighting poses, weird facial expressions, and contorted positions as they groom themselves.

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November 15, 2022

Photographer Celebrates Rainbow Hummingbird Wings in Beautiful Bird Book [Interview]

A decade ago, Rio de Janeiro-based artist and photographer Christian Spencer made an amazing discovery. At certain sun-lit angles, hummingbird wings transform into tiny fluttering rainbows. They become prisms in the sky—a fact that Spencer only learned after seeing the creatures appear in his film The Dance of Time slowed down to 5% of its normal speed. The discovery launched Spencer into a series aptly called Winged Prisms.

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November 11, 2022

New Bee With a Dog-like Snout Is Discovered in Australia

Every scientist dreams of naming a new species and Dr. Kit Prendergast from the Curtin School of Molecular and Life Sciences in Perth, Australia, recently got that chance. The ecologist was surveying native bee species at Perth's Kings Park botanic garden when she came across an unusual bee with a distinct snout. Taken aback by what she'd seen, Dr. Prendergast started scouring photos of native bees and looking at specimens in different museum collections.

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November 2, 2022

18-Year-Old Lioness Named Zuri Grows a Mane at Kansas Zoo

Male lions are known for their fluffy manes which appear during sexual maturation between a year and a half and two years old. This iconic fluff typically makes it easy to determine the male among a pride. Females, by contrast, are typically a light, sleeker tan. However, the beauty of nature is never so simple. Zuri, an 18-year-old lioness at Topeka Zoo and Conservation Center in Kansas, has recently grown herself a magnificent, fluffy mane.

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My Modern Met

Celebrating creativity and promoting a positive culture by spotlighting the best sides of humanity—from the lighthearted and fun to the thought-provoking and enlightening.