Whales are some of the most majestic creatures on the planet. The blue whale is the largest animal to ever exist, the bowhead whale can live for more than 200 years, and a few humpback whales saved the future of humanity in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. In fact, these creatures are so amazing that even their earwax is a vital tool — at least for helping scientists understand the mysterious mammals themselves. Take, for instance, the 10-inch-long earplug of an adult blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). Cetologists — scientists who study whales — can cut into a plug of earwax and learn the whale’s age, much as dendrochronologists do with tree rings. Earwax from blue whales (and other large whales such as humpbacks) forms rings, known as “laminae,” every six months, which give scientists a snapshot of the creature’s entire life through cycles of summer feeding and winter migration. 

All whales used to walk on land.

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Fifty million years ago, the early ancestor of all cetaceans walked on four legs. This goatlike mammal, dubbed Pakicetus, lived on riverbanks in India and Pakistan. Slowly, its descendants became more comfortable in water until they eventually evolved into today’s whales.

And these waxy earplugs can tell scientists more than just a whale’s age. Earplugs also capture a chronological “chemical biography” that shows what chemicals and pollutants were found in the animal’s body throughout its life, including levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Scientists have compared whale cortisol levels with whaling data, using records from 1870 to 2016, and found an unmistakable positive correlation. The only discrepancy was during World War II, when whale stress levels increased despite a decrease in whaling overall (scientists assume increased military activity was the likely culprit). Despite a near-international moratorium on whaling in the 1980s, whales still exhibit high cortisol levels thanks to increased ship noise, climate change, and other factors. But with the help of whale earwax, scientists can at least continue to examine the health of these majestic beasts and the oceans they inhabit.

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Wisconsinites are known for their love of cheese, so it’s no surprise that the city of Madison’s official bird is the invariably cheesy plastic flamingo. The lawn bird first “migrated” to town in 1979 as part of a prank on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Students awoke one day that September to find the school’s Bascom Hill covered with 1,008 plastic flamingos, which had been placed there by the school government’s Pail & Shovel Party. The group was known for their absurdist stunts, including throwing a 10,000-person toga party and building a replica of the Statue of Liberty emerging from nearby Lake Mendota. Yet it wasn’t until 2009, after a successful lobbying campaign from local newspaper columnist Doug Moe, that the Madison City Council voted 15-4 in favor of designating the plastic flamingo as the official city bird. Councilwoman Marsha Rummel defended the decision against the four dissenters by saying, “If you don’t have a little fun, [life’s] not worth living.”

A group of flamingos is called a “flamboyance.”

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Also known as a stand, colony, or pod, a collective of flamingos is appropriately described by the colorful term “flamboyance.” Other notable collective terms referring to groups of birds include a murder of crows, a parliament of owls, and an exaltation of larks.

The plastic flamingo may be the lone official bird made of synthetic material, but it’s far from the only one with a feel-good backstory. In 2019, the black-crowned night heron was declared the city bird of Oakland, California, thanks to a multiyear movement begun by a group of third graders who had been helping to rehabilitate local birds after an oil spill. On a statewide level, the California gull is — despite its name — the official bird of Utah, and was designated such to honor the gulls who saved malnourished Mormon pioneers in 1848 by eating the crickets then decimating local crops. In Japan, the green pheasant (kiji) was declared the national bird in 1947 in part because it’s believed that the creatures can detect and warn of impending earthquakes.

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There’s a good reason why both main characters in Finding Nemo are male, at least initially. All clownfish are born that way, and it’s only when a group’s dominant female dies or disappears that a male will develop into a female and become the new matriarch. All clownfish have the ability to turn female, and the change is permanent once it occurs. The transformation begins almost immediately after the dominant female leaves, and starts in the brain before manifesting itself in the sex organs. Had the beloved Pixar film been devoted to scientific accuracy, Nemo’s father, Marlin, might not have been just his sole caregiver after tragedy befalls the boy’s mother — he might literally have become his mother.

Male seahorses get pregnant and give birth.

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Along with their equine appearance, seahorses are well known for another unique trait: the fact that males, not females, get pregnant and bear young. The same is true of leafy seadragons and pipefish, fellow members of the Syngnathidae family.

Clownfish aren’t the only reef-dwellers that can change sex. The bluehead wrasse does it as well, only in reverse: When a dominant male leaves its group, the largest female transforms into a male over the course of just 21 days. Researchers have identified no fewer than 500 fish species capable of changing sex; some, like the coral-dwelling species of gobies, can even switch back and forth. The process is believed to have reproductive benefits, as it allows a single fish to reproduce as both sexes throughout its life.  

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Losing a limb would be catastrophic for most animals. But for many lizards, losing a tail isn’t the end of the story — in fact, those tails can keep right on moving by themselves.

Species such as geckos and green anoles can intentionally shed their tails when threatened, a process known as caudal autotomy. It happens quickly, coming off at specialized fracture points along the vertebrae in the tail that allow it to detach cleanly when needed, with minimal harm to the lizard itself.

After it detaches, the tail doesn’t simply go still. For several minutes, it can continue to twitch, wiggle, jump, and flick across the ground. The movement, though a bit unsettling, is an evolved distraction tactic designed to take a predator’s attention away from the escaping animal.

Some salamanders can regenerate their brains.

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The axolotl, an adorable-looking species of salamander from Mexico, has the ability to regenerate parts of its brain if it suffers an injury.

The movement occurs because the tail contains local neural circuits that can coordinate muscle activity without direct input from the brain. The tail won’t move forever, though. Without ongoing brain involvement, as the tail’s stored energy is used up, the neural signals fade and the muscles stop contracting after a period of minutes.

Most lizards that sacrifice their own tail also eventually regrow a new one, although it isn’t quite the same as the original. Instead of bone, the replacement is typically made of cartilage, and while it restores some function, it often looks different, telling the story of the animal’s great escape.

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