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...world record. It’s not just big mammals The series also explores the tactics of some smaller, less familiar predators. Jumping spiders of the genus Portia feed on other spiders and display remarkably complex and flexible hunting behaviour for an animal with a brain made up of just a few neurons. [Close-up, enhanced photograph of a Portia Spider looking directly at the...

...world is and how little things can make big differences. To understand how figs and fig wasps interact, it’s important to realise that a fig isn’t a fruit in the way that apples, cherries or plums are. Instead it starts out as a complicated and unique flower head. Think of a dandelion flower. Each of those lovely yellow petals is in fact a tiny individual flower with...

...world. In the early 1980s, I contributed to these statistics when working on one of the deep-water platforms. Before each trip I remember an adrenalin-fed focus that took in every word of the flight safety briefing. That’s still how it’s done, even for seasoned oil-workers. Over those last four decades, accidents have claimed the lives of around 130 oil staff and...