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Storms that lash the modern American coastline cause more eco­nomic damage than their predecessors because there is more to destroy. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, a Category 4 storm, caused $1 billion-worth of damage in current dollars. Were it to strike today the insured losses would be $125 billion.

Ask a typical American what he thinks of goat and he'll imagine "a gnarly-looking old billy goat with long horns on top of a car chewing on an old tin can.

As a saying widely attributed to Don Quixote put it, "let the dogs bark, Sancho, it's a sign that we're advancing".

What is the commonest living thing on Earth? Tracking down a particu­lar virus in the ocean makes finding a needle in a haystack look a trivial task. A litre of seawater has billions of viruses in it.

Elephants rumble at 33Hz when they hear bees (the researchers used tape recordings, rather than releasing actual bee swarms) and at 39Hz when they hear Samburu.

The two researchers collected pieces of plastic from various sites in the North Atlantic. They then examined each using DNA analysis, and also an electron microscope, to see what was living on it. Lots of things were.

Altogether, they discovered about 50 species of single-celled plant, ani­mal and bacterial life. Each bit of debris was, in effect, a tiny ecosystem.

From the womb comes a warrior, a king, a rich man, a criminal and a killer.

Life in the world of dung beetles is fiercely competitive. After rolling up a ball of highly nutritious dung, the beetle must race off with it or risk having the ball stolen by other beetles. Strength is important, but so too is the route taken. When allowed to see only the 18 brightest stars or immersed in total darkness, the beetles took more than twice as long to exit the arena.

The new studies suggest they are right if you are a frog or a small bird. If you are a coyote or a raccoon, though, buckthorn is a good thing.

The need to identify a suitable mate is such a strong biological urge that the animal kingdom has spawned a bewildering array of courtship rituals. Hippo males fling their faeces; flatworms have penis-jousting contests; and humpback whales sing and leap above the ocean surface. Such competitive displays depend on the speed, strength and size of an animal, which is why they convey a measure of reproductive fitness.

Female bats maintain viable sperm inside themselves for months. So do salamanders. And a female shark once gave birth after six years in captivity.

Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow.

A healthy adult human harbours some 100 trillion bacteria in his gut alone. That is ten times as many bacterial cells as he has cells

descended from the sperm and egg of his parents. These bugs, moreover, are diverse. Egg and sperm provide about 23,000 differ­ent genes. The microbiome, as the body's commensal bacteria are collectively known, is reckoned to have around 3m. Admittedly, many of those millions are variations on common themes, but equally many are not, and even the number of those that are adds something to the body's genetic mix.

The coyote are opportunistic eaters and will eagerly consume rabbits, rats, Canada geese, fruit, insects and family pets.

Pigeons form a far richer picture of the world than a person can manage, through three senses unavailable to humans: an instinc­tive ability to navigate by the sun, an ability to detect magnetic fields that provides them with an inbuilt compass, and an ability to hear infrasound. But if local conditions mean they cannot hear their destination, they are as lost as a driver whose satnav has suddenly failed.

Polar-bear watchers do sometimes spot their quarry chasing snow geese during the summer, when these birds have moulted and are un­able to fly. However, a quick calculation comparing the cost of doing so with the energetic gain from success suggests such hunts are not usually worth the effort. To make a profit, the argument goes, a polar bear weighing 320kg (700lb, the average for an adult) must, if hunting a 2kg goose, make its kill in less than 12 seconds. If it does not do so, then the calories it expends running after its prey will exceed those it gains from catching it — and the calculation is tipped still further in the birds' direction if the cost of the ones that get away is included. Geese and other waterfowl do, nevertheless, seem to form a significant part of polar bears' diets, for studies done in the 1960s found a lot of bird remains in the animals' faeces.