View slow-motion footage of hummingbirds—the only birds that can perform sustained backward flight.

Louie Schwartzberg's "Moving Art" series showcases slow-motion footage of oceans, forests, deserts, flowers, and more. In this excerpt, organisms such as bats, monarch butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds are shown interacting with one another and with flowering plants.

Taking inspiration from gliding pioneer Otto Lilienthal—whose gliders resembled the wings of birds—Wilbur took to observing birds to understand how they do it, in order to solve the problem of flight. This opening episode on the brothers explores their lives and accomplishments.

Birds are built with incredibly versatile tracheas that can mimic all kinds of sounds from their environment. For parrots, that includes human speech. This brief video explains why birds, who have such distinct anatomies from humans, are somehow able to talk like them, anyway.

If you're curious to see what albatross, red-tailed hawks, and hummingbirds are up to this very minute, explore different live cams of them feeding. Occasionally, you'll catch a squirrel joining in on the meal.

The birds we see throughout the year are long distance fliers, often traveling over thousands of miles to reach optimal nesting grounds, better feeding, and more. This thorough interactive map tracks over 450 types of bird on their annual migrations, depicting both their route as well as some of the conservation hurdles each species faces. Fly along with your favorite bird here.

Through the creation of tiny sensors easily placed on their bodies, birds have served as research assistants for various scientists. With untold numbers of birds sending back data, researchers have achieved greater insights in long obscure areas of meteorology, ecology, and more. For example, weather scientists use high-flying birds to outline the height of the planetary boundary layer, while conservationists track gulls to protect migrating whales. Learn more here.

Photographer Kathrin Swoboda visits Huntley Meadows Park to photograph red-wing blackbirds singing. In 2019, she captured them emitting smoke-like rings from their beaks due to visible condensation in the cold. This serendipitous shot won the top prize at the Audubon Photography Awards that year, highlighting the unique phenomenon of birds' breath visible in chilly temperatures. Check out the photos here.

Scientists in Brazil captured rare footage of bumblebee catfish climbing waterfalls. How they do it is clear, but why remains a mystery.

There are roughly 20 species of bowerbird in and around Australia. It is a remarkable species known for its sophisticated nests. From what experts can tell, the bird has one thing in mind when building its elaborate abode: attracting a mate. See the variety of structures each bird makes in this well-written blog accompanied with incredible photos of bowerbird constructions.

Birds inspire us to fly—but what about bird skulls? This collection of various birds' preserved skulls offers a peculiar "bird's-eye" view. See the many surprising shapes of beaks and eyeholes, from mockingbirds to turkeys, in this fascinating visual collection.

Shellears use tiny hooks on their front pectoral fins to grip rock like Velcro and take many pauses to recover energy between bursts of movement. Their pectoral girdle—an arch of bone—supports the muscle system needed for the roughly ten-hour climb.

Insects have much to teach us about flying, jumping, moving quickly, and more. So, roboticists are studying how insects do the ridiculous things they do, like walk on water or jump fifty times their body height, to inform their design and engineering of a new slate of robots: tiny ones. Learn the future of this type of robot with this fascinating video with insights into both insects and robots.

These muscles connect to their vertebrae, and allow the creature to move in various unique ways. Snakes can slither, move in a straight line, swim, jump and even "fly."

All holomatabolous insects like butterflies, bees, and moths undergo complete metamorphosis via a pupal stage. Inside the pupa, the insect breaks down into a goop of the basic elements of life like amino acids and proteins, out of which the adult stage of the insect grows. Despite this radical transformation, scientists theorize some of these insects retain what they call memories of their pre-pupa stage. Watch this video to learn more.

Scientists have long known the intimate features of bee anatomy: six limbs, five eyes, lots of hair, a long, tasteless tube -like tongue, and wings that stroke close to 12,000 times a minute. But getting inside the mind or consciousness of a...

Stratolaunch completed a second hypersonic flight of its Talon-A2 autonomous vehicle, showcasing reusable hypersonic aircraft capabilities. The aircraft carried payloads and Department of Defense experiments while achieving Mach 5 speeds.

Variations in the illumination patterns and flight paths while emitting light have been observed across firefly species. Some species instead rely on pheromones if they are primarily active during the day or have lost the ability to illuminate.

Emus are flightless birds native to Australia, second only to ostriches in size among avians. Reaching up to six feet and weighing more than 100 pounds, the grayish-brown emu can run 30 mph, lives in small flocks, and travels widely for food and water as a nomad. Learn more about the emu's many delightful quirks in this irreverent and informative podcast.

Billy Vaughan recreates the test flights of the Wright gliders in the exact location the brothers conducted them. He argues an October 1902 glider flight—not the December 1903 one—was the key innovative moment, implementing three-axis control. Host Baratunde rides a glider in perfect windy conditions in this re-creation.

Trillions of insects migrate around the world each year, but many are too small to track with physical trackers, leaving their migratory routes a mystery. In recent years, scientists have utilized pollen grains collected from butterflies to analyze which plants that pollen originated from—providing substantial data to infer the insect's specific route. Research has shed light on many insects' migrations since, including the Painted Lady butterfly. Read more and see a map here.

Winds at high altitude are stronger and more consistent than those near Earth's surface, where natural and artificial barriers disrupt airflow. Kites pulled by the wind can extend a tether like a yo-yo, creating electricity in an attached ground generator.

Digestive enzymes break down long chains of complex sugars into simple monosaccharides, while the fanning of their wings helps honeybees evaporate water away. This process increases the acidity of the resulting honey, increasing its shelf life when sealed in beeswax.

Birds are descended from dinosaurs, but none have ever reached the gigantic size of their Jurassic ancestors. Some birds in the fossil record, like the "terror birds" of South America, have reached as large as ten feet, but the energy-intensive act of flying disallows birds much larger than that. Researchers claim a lack of evolutionary pressure and predatory bird behavior likely limit bird size.

Discovered in the 1980s, this creature has been dubbed the "immortal jellyfish" for its ability to revert from medusa to polyp form and back, preventing it from dying of old age. However, the jellyfish remains prey to fish and turtles and is defenseless to sea slugs as a polyp.

Traits associated with birds, including feathers, laying eggs, and hollow bones, were first present in dinosaurs and carried through to their descendants. Fossils of these dinosaurs have been found in a sleeping posture, resembling roosting behavior.

One of the earliest filmed flights, this demonstration in France helped dispel doubts over the Wrights’ claims to powered, controlled flight. Such demos helped launch the pair to fame five years after their seminal flight in Kitty Hawk.

Researchers know much less about dragonfly migrations than they do about bird or whale migrations. However, North America may have up to 18 migratory dragonfly species. A recent study revealed that the species undertakes complex long-distance migrations every year that span generations and seem to be influenced by temperature, making them particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Turritopsis dohrnii is a type of jellyfish that can revert back to a juvenile stage after reaching sexual maturity, theoretically allowing it to stay alive for good. But that's a tough sell in a world full of predators. See this list of some of the longest-living species on Earth.

The discovery of a 56 million-year-old fossil bone helps explain how this (mostly) flightless family of birds spread to so many different continents.

Learn the history of British monarchs going back centuries with this unusual, 50-minute documentary filmed entirely from the air, revealing key landmarks in beautiful footage alongside engaging commentary.

As of 2025, many figure skaters feature jumps with four spins in their routines by achieving rotation rates of 400 RPM over 20 inches off the ground. By increasing one's rotation rate to about 430 RPM or jumping closer to three feet off the ground—a height reached by NBA players—five spins are possible.

Neuroscience suggests that connections responsible for motion made during embryonic brain development—such as those connecting hearing and movement pathways that allow reactive motion when started—are duplicated and connected to the larynx in some animals. This allows some mammals and song-learning birds to speak, provided they have the necessary physiological structures.

This short explainer video breaks down the mosquito's general body components, highlighting how mosquitoes breathe, fly, and more. It also touches on how experts can tell different mosquito species apart.