Learning path · Beginner
The Animal Kingdom
Meet the great groups of animals, from insects to whales, and discover how they hunt, think, sing and cross the planet.
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- 1
Animals
Insects
Six legs, an outside skeleton and more species than every other kind of animal put together. The world runs on insects, whether we notice or not.
3 min read 4-question quiz
- 2
Animals
The Octopus
Three hearts, blue blood, eight arms that think for themselves and a brain that evolved entirely separately from ours. The octopus is the closest thing to an alien mind on Earth.
3 min read 4-question quiz
- 3
Animals
Sharks
Sharks have patrolled the oceans for 450 million years, longer than trees have existed on land. They are not mindless killers but precise, ancient and increasingly endangered.
3 min read 4-question quiz
- 4
Animals
Reptiles and Amphibians
Frogs that freeze solid and thaw out alive, lizards that run on water, snakes that see heat. The cold-blooded animals have solved life's problems in their own way.
3 min read 4-question quiz
- 5
Animals
Birds
Eleven thousand species of feathered, flying, singing dinosaurs. Birds navigate by the stars, see colours we cannot and cross oceans without landing.
3 min read 4-question quiz
- 6
Animals
Mammals
Fur, milk and warm blood unite a group that ranges from a 2-gram bat to a 150-tonne whale. We are mammals too; here is what we share with the rest.
4 min read 4-question quiz
- 7
Animals
Whales and Dolphins
Mammals that went back to the sea, grew into the largest animals ever, and talk to each other across oceans. Here is what we know about the minds of the deep.
4 min read 4-question quiz
- 8
Animals
Animal Migration
Every year billions of animals set off on journeys of thousands of kilometres, guided by the Sun, the stars, the Earth's magnetism and memory. Here is how, and why.
4 min read 4-question quiz
