Animal

From bone-eating snot-flowers to snowboarding scale worms, when a whale dies it becomes a colossal island of nutrients – attracting weird and wonderful creatures to feast.

Decades after its release into the wild, a super-ageing, bone-crunching vulture called Balthazar reveals a major conservation success.

A photographer captured this extraordinary site where whales' bodies lie in the shallows, with troubling repercussions for the deep oceans.

In a historic former Soviet reserve in the magnificent Uzbek mountains, Michaela Strachan and India Latham find rare signs of the world's most elusive feline.

Some animal societies are ruled by despots with an iron fist, while others seem naturally egalitarian – and they all have lessons for us.

Wildcats are so elusive, they were thought to be extinct in parts of Europe. But they are making a comeback in some areas.

Shielded from development and agriculture, many archaeological sites from ancient Greece have now become inadvertent safe harbours for plants and animals.