Nature — Page 4

Octopuses have three hearts and blue blood.

Two hearts pump blood to the gills and one to the rest of the body, while hemocyanin with copper gives the blood its…

The Amazon is not the true lung of the planet.

Although it produces a lot of oxygen, the forest also consumes it, and marine phytoplankton is responsible for most…

Ants represent about twenty percent of terrestrial animal biomass.

It is estimated that there are ten quadrillion ants on the planet, collectively weighing as much as all humans…

The banana plant is not a tree, but a giant herb.

What appears to be a trunk is actually a pseudostem formed by leaf bases, and the plant belongs to the herb family.

There is a lake in Canada that forms polka dot patterns in the summer.

Spotted Lake loses water through evaporation and leaves behind mineral deposits of sulphates and calcium that create…

Rainwater contains small amounts of vitamin B12.

Bacteria present in the atmosphere and soil produce this vitamin, which is then swept into clouds and falls with…

A lightning bolt can strike the same tree multiple times.

Tall, isolated trees act as natural lightning rods. Oak and pine trees, due to their height and water content, are…

There are beaches in Hawaii where the sand is naturally green.

The sand at Papakolea Beach owes its unusual colour to the high concentration of olivine, a dense green mineral from…

Some bamboo species flower only once every hundred years and then die.

This phenomenon, called gregarious flowering, occurs simultaneously in plants of the same species worldwide…

There is a mushroom that glows in the dark to attract insects.

The bioluminescence of the "ghost green" mushroom attracts nocturnal insects that, when landing on it, pick up the…

Trees can recognise their "children" and send them more nutrients.

Through the underground fungal network, mother trees identify the roots of their own offspring and redirect more…

The rhinoceros horn is made of the same protein as human hair.

Unlike the horns of other animals that have a bony core, the rhinoceros horn is composed entirely of compacted…

The smell of cut grass is actually a chemical distress signal from the plant.

When grass is damaged by a mower, it releases organic compounds called green leaf volatiles to warn neighbouring…

Marine phytoplankton produces over fifty percent of Earth's oxygen.

These microscopic microorganisms float in the oceans and perform photosynthesis, generating more oxygen for the…

There is a lake in Australia that is naturally bright pink.

Lake Hillier owes its unusual colour to the presence of a microalgae called Dunaliella salina, which produces a red…

Trees can hear water and grow towards it.

Studies show that the roots of certain plants can detect the sound vibrations of flowing water and actively grow…

The corpse flower smells like rotting meat to attract flies.

This giant plant from Indonesia heats its central spike to volatilise sulphur compounds, mimicking the smell of a…

The baobab tree can store up to 120,000 liters of water in its trunk.

The spongy wood of this African tree's trunk absorbs and retains water during the rainy season. This giant reserve…

There are fungi capable of breaking down and consuming polyurethane plastic.

Students at Yale University discovered a species of fungus in the Amazon rainforest that can survive by feeding…

Pando, a grove of aspens in Utah, is a single organism with about 47,000 trunks joined by the same root system.

All the trunks are genetically identical clones that sprouted from one root system. Together they cover about 43…

Welwitschia mirabilis, from the Namib Desert, can live more than a thousand years with just two leaves.

The two leaves never fall off: they keep growing from the base for the plant's whole life and gradually split into…

The Tree of Ténéré, in Niger, was the most isolated tree in the world until it was knocked down by a lorry in 1973.

It was a lone acacia in the middle of the Sahara, about 400 km from any other tree, and served as a landmark for…

The Wollemi pine was known only from fossils until it was found alive in Australia in 1994.

A park ranger found it in a remote gorge near Sydney. Fewer than a hundred adult trees remain in the wild, at a…

The fruits of the sandbox tree, Hura crepitans, explode with a bang and fling their seeds more than 40 metres.

As they dry, the capsules build up tension until they suddenly split with a crack like a gunshot. The seeds shoot out…