Placing the Platypus
Defying categorisation since its discovery, was the platypus a mammal, a reptile, or something else?
Natural History
Catullus and Lesbia’s Sparrow
A Roman poet transformed an unremarkable bird into a contested symbol of eroticism.
A Feather in her Cap
A global trade in feathers, with London at its heart, saw hundreds of millions of birds killed every year. Emily Williamson waged a long and furious campaign against it.
Pigeon Racing: A Miner’s World?
Men who spent their working lives underground found a new world of freedom in racing birds.
Tutankhamun’s Ostriches
Ungainly but fleet of foot, the flightless bird offers insights into the life of a legendary pharaoh.
How did the Elephant get its Trunk?
It took millennia to find out.
Interspecies Violence
Chronicling an abusive relationship between people and the animals we have hunted, imprisoned and eaten.
The Great Migration Mystery
It was once believed that swallows spent their winters on the Moon, or asleep on river beds.
Park Life
Britain’s National Parks are a forgotten legacy of postwar reconstruction.
The World of Medieval Dogdom
The people of medieval Europe were devoted to their dogs; one great French dog-lover declared that the greatest defect of the species was that they ‘lived not long enough’.