2026– date –
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Do Jellyfish and Insects Sleep? How Scientists Recognise Sleep
Cover photograph: “Fkeysmacro.jpg” by Chris Hind, licensed under CC BY 3.0. A motionless animal might be asleep. It might also be awake, waiting for prey or resting quietly. To tell the difference, researchers look beyond stillness: how ... -
Long Sleepers, Short Sleepers: How Animals Sleep on Land, at Sea and in the Air
Cover photograph: Peter Schmidt How does a koala spend its day? Curled into the fork of a tree, it may remain almost motionless for hours. It looks asleep, but some of that time may be spent resting while awake. At the other extreme, a s... -
Why Do Living Things Sleep?：What Orexin Research Reveals About Sleep and Wakefulness
Cover photograph by Simone Dinoia Sleep takes time away from finding food, moving about and watching for danger. Yet humans and many other animals regularly make time for it. Sleep—or a state with some of its defining features—has been r... -
One Family, One Genus, One Species：Remarkable Birds on the Taxonomic Map
Among living birds, some occupy a particularly narrow place within a chosen classification system: their family contains only one living genus, and that genus contains only one living species. In this article, I will call this arrangemen... -
One Species, One Genus, One Family: Extraordinary Plants on the Thinnest Branches of the Tree of Life
A desert plant with only two permanent leaves. A Japanese conifer found naturally nowhere else on Earth. A tiny moss that seems to shine green in the dark. Welwitschia mirabilis, Sciadopitys verticillata, and Schistostega pennata look no... -
What Is the Monito del Monte? A Tiny Marsupial with an Ancient Story
In the cool, rain-soaked forests of southern Chile and Argentina lives a tiny marsupial with rounded ears, dark rings around its eyes and a long tail that helps it move through branches. It is called the monito del monte—roughly, “little... -
What Are Ant Plants? How Ants Carry Seeds, Protect Plants, and Live Inside Them
Ants are easy to overlook on a walk. One may be carrying something across the ground, another may pause at the base of a leaf, and a third may disappear into a hollow stem. These small movements can reveal remarkable relationships betwee... -
Taxonomy for Beginners: How to Observe, Identify and Record Living Things
The shrubs beside a footpath and the grass at the edge of a park are full of living things that we may see without truly noticing. A tiny insect or an easily overlooked plant may have a scientific name, a particular way of life, and a hi... -
Taxonomy for Beginners: A Simple Introduction to Biological Classification
What is taxonomy, and why does it matter? Taxonomy is the science of naming, describing and classifying organisms. It helps scientists organise the vast diversity of life by comparing shared features and investigating evolutionary relati... -
Does Japan Have a National Animal? Meet the Bird, Butterfly, Fish and More
What is your country's national animal? And do you know how it earned that title — through an act of parliament, a scientific vote, or simply generations of shared affection? Japan offers a particularly interesting case. The Green Pheasa...
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