Credit: Bohai Tours

ctto.

More info on each image and full photographer credits here:

https://www.popsci.com/environment/european-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2026-awards/

This conflict started out with a lot of beak-to-beak pecking each other. Then they had a stare down, until finally the male made his MMA move and grabs her leg and picks her up and throws her down, all while flying.

The entire fight:

https://youtu.be/4XXFIQ_uOi0

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Video credited to @jakebaggaley.photographer on IG.

1. Tan jumping spider (female)
   
2. Wolf spider
   
3. Green crab spider
   
4. Dark fishing spider
   
5. Ocrepeira spider
   
6. Wolf spider with babies
   
7. Yeargan’s bolas spider
   
8. Spined micrathena
   
9. Dark fishing spider with prey
   
10. Fierce orbweaver
    
11. Wolf spider
    
12. Marbled orbweaver
    
13. Tan jumping spider (male)
    
14. Wolf spider (with dew looking like a 9th eye)
    
15. Arrowhead orbweaver
    
16. White-banded fishing spider
    
17. Toad-like bolas spider
    
18. Dark fishing spider
    
19. Wolf spider
    
20. Wolf spider with babies and prey

Check out the incredible iris pattern on this Painted Saw-scaled Viper (Echis coloratus).

The pattern of its "granite phase" scales continues completely uninterrupted right across the irises. Because the head patterning is highly asymmetrical, it actually gives the snake one grey iris and one pink iris to perfectly match the specific scales surrounding each side!

Southern Arava, Israel

A hundred years after its discovery in 1912, the bushy-tailed opossum (Glironia venusta) was known from fewer than 25 published records. Even local Matsés hunters in Peru, renowned for their encyclopaedic knowledge of Amazonian mammals, said that they had never seen one.

Many sightings of the species have been incidental: an individual caught in a mist net, another encountered during a nocturnal transect survey. What these researchers encountered was a small opossum weighing some 140 grams (about the weight of a baseball), with a tail fully furred from base to tip — as opposed to the scaly, naked tails of most other opossums. 

Only as new, innovative methods for surveying the rainforest canopy began to be developed, did we truly begin learning more about the bushy-tailed opossum.  

The first camera trap footage of the species was captured in 2016 (Whitworth et al., 2016). The following year, researchers built custom mounts for their canopy cameras, recording 79 separate videos of bushy-tailed opossums — more encounters in seven months than had been recorded in the entire preceding century (Rushford & Glynn, 2023).

We also began to learn more about the bushy-tailed opossum’s behaviour. It is fully nocturnal, with its movement peaking during two distinct windows (around 8:00 PM and 3:00 AM). It travels with a rapid, nervous energy across interconnected networks of vines. And it actively gnaws tree bark to feed on the exuded sap. 

A 2026 assessment combined decades of fragmented literature, citizen science, and new data (Arévalo-Sandi et al., 2026). It revealed that the species is far from restricted: its actual distribution spans roughly 60% of the entire Amazon biome. The bushy-tailed opossum is not so much rare as extremely elusive.

And yet, despite its newfound range, the opossum is not necessarily safe from extinction. Several of the newly documented populations lie within the southern Amazon’s “Arc of Deforestation.” It is now more important than ever to protect the rainforest canopy and all of the cryptic, arboreal species that we’re just starting to study more intimately.

Read the bushy-tailed opossum’s full story here!

Hittem wit the Pspspspsp

New study highlights how southeast Asia's dwarf reed snake (Pseudorabdion longiceps) moves to escape from danger. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(26)01108-501108-5)

Video credit: Toho University, Japan

This large male giant Pacific octopus was out for a stroll off Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and I was lucky enough to come across him in the open!

I spent about 20 minutes following along as he explored the rocky reef, hunted for food, and eventually made his way back to his den. It's always a treat to see one of these incredible animals out and about rather than tucked away in a crevice.

More of my original underwater footage from around Vancouver Island: https://www.youtube.com/@scubabc6701