Placing the Platypus
Defying categorisation since its discovery, was the platypus a mammal, a reptile, or something else?
Alexander Lee
Catullus and Lesbia’s Sparrow
A Roman poet transformed an unremarkable bird into a contested symbol of eroticism.
Pigeon Racing: A Miner’s World?
Men who spent their working lives underground found a new world of freedom in racing birds.
The Black Death: A New Culprit?
Should the finger of blame be pointed at the marmot for the global spread of the plague?
Tutankhamun’s Ostriches
Ungainly but fleet of foot, the flightless bird offers insights into the life of a legendary pharaoh.
How did the Elephant get its Trunk?
It took millennia to find out.
Prehistoric Horses
Exploring the meaning of Lascaux’s galloping herds.
Pigs Might Try
Putting a pig on trial appears to defy logic, but in medieval France it gave rural folk the illusion of order in a frightening world.
Bats: Out of Hell?
It took an Irish Gothic novelist to tie up centuries of demonic mythology surrounding this leathery, nocturnal mammal.
The Jellyfish Problem
Plant, animal or other? The struggle to categorise jellyfish mirrors the desire to impose a hierarchy on the natural world.