Wildlife Nomads

That is a huntsman spider. And before you close the app, hear me out. It doesn't build webs. It hunts. Can move up to a metre per second, legs splayed sideways like a crab, which is why they seem to appear from nowhere. The leg span can reach 15cm!

We didn't go looking for a shark on our lap around Australia. We found one anyway. Snorkelling over a seagrass bed, I looked down and realised part of the seafloor was looking back at me. A wobbegong. Flat, patterned, completely still! #sharks #australia #ocean #animals

Before Europeans reached Australia, the entire Western world assumed all swans were white. Black swans were considered impossible... a philosophical metaphor for something that couldn't exist. #swans #birds #cute #nature #wildlife

1.5 million animals. No leader. No map. No one animal decides where the herd goes next, direction emerges from the collective behaviour of individuals reacting to the animals immediately around them. #africa #wildlife #animals #nature

The biggest Kingfisher of Australia. And that laugh isn't a laugh. It's a territorial warning! despite being a kingfisher, it almost never eats fish. It eats snakes, lizards, rodents and insects/ Even a sandwich if they have a chance(a gang of three stole mine once in Sydney)!

Everyone knows cheetahs are fast. But not as fast as people say! The most rigorous study ever done on a wild cheetah, using GPS collars across 367 runs, found average top speeds of around 54km/h, with the fastest recorded burst at 98km/h. #cheetah #africa #wildlife #animals #facts

Every time I see one of these birds I can't quite believe what I'm looking at. This is a Bar-tailed Godwit. It just flew from Alaska to Australia. Non-stop. No food, no water, no rest. The current record holder flew 13,560km in 11 days #birds #migration #australia #nature #facts

Despite being called a honeyeater, this bird gets most of its food from insects. That long sticky tongue is more useful for pulling invertebrates out of bark ! The chicks are born with green facial skin. It slowly shifts to blue as they mature #birds #australia #nature #wildlife

The tiger shark is the second most dangerous shark to humans. But what most people don't know is that it's not particularly picky about what it eats. They can reach 5.5 metres. That's not a small animal.

Manta rays have the largest brain-to-body ratio of any fish, up to 10 times larger than a whale shark's. They can recognise themselves in a mirror, a test passed by very few animals on Earth, dolphins, great apes, elephants. #intelligence #animals #wildlife #ocean

This otter is cute, yes. But, remove the it and the kelp forest collapses. That's not an exaggeration. Sea urchins eat kelp. Sea otters eat sea urchins. Without otters, urchin populations explode, strip the kelp to bare rock and create a dead zone where 800+ species used to live. #otter #biology

It looks beautiful, but thesse birds can be scary. Hidden inside each wing is a sharp yellow spur. The Masked Lapwing nests on the ground in the most exposed possible spot. No shelter, no camouflage. Just two birds and the will to defend it against anything! #birds #australia #animals #wildlife

The megalodon reached an estimated 15–18 metres. Three times longer than a great white. Teeth up to 18cm. No complete skeleton has ever been found, everything we know comes from fossilised teeth. #sharks #ocean #animals #wildlife

I've spotted this bird at multiple campgrounds in Australia! This is a Rainbow Bee-eater. Australia's only bee-eater species. It eats bees and wasps. It is completely immune to the venom anyway. It just prefers its meal clean. #birds #australia #animals #nature

What does a Dugong and a sea turtle have in common? The both depend on one of the most important habitats on Earth. Seagrass isn't seaweed. It's a flowering plant, with roots, that moved back into the ocean millions of years ago. #ocean #sealife #nature #scuba #wildlife

Look at this smiling shark! Can you guess how big it is? We built a tool that shows 20 shark species at true scale, from a 27cm pygmy shark to a 15m megalodon and the tiger shark around 5.5/ Pit any two head to head, or test your eye in the guessing game. #sharks #ocean #animals #wildlife

This is not a spider. Not a scorpion. It's a whip scorpion, or more precisely, a tailless whip scorpion from the order Amblypygi. An ancient group that's been crawling around since the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. #spiders #nature #arachnid

That is a peregrine falcon in a dive, and it is the fastest animal on Earth. Clocked at over 390km/h in a recorded stoop, it folds its wings, tilts its body and essentially becomes a guided missile. To protect its eyes at that speed it uses a nictitating membrane #birds #falcon #eagle #wildlife

That colour is a warning. And it works! The Golden Poison Dart Frog contains enough batrachotoxin to kill 10 adult humans. One frog. But here's the twist: captive-raised poison dart frogs develop no toxin whatsoever. The poison comes entirely from their diet! #frogs #rainforest #animals #amphibian

Wild canaries are not bright yellow. They're streaky yellow-green, typical finch camouflage. The solid yellow colour came from selective captive breeding. The colour mutation that gave us "canary yellow" was essentially an accident that humans liked and kept! #birds #canary #nature #animals

Look at those legs. This is a harpy eagle, one of the most powerful eagles on Earth. Its back talons can reach around 12cm, longer than a grizzly bear's claws. It hunts sloths and monkeys straight out of the canopy, weaving between branches at speed.

Why do zebras have stripes? Camouflage was the classic answer. The evidence now points somewhere stranger. Experiments show biting flies struggle to land on striped surfaces. Stripes may be fly repellent more than lion defence. #africa #wildlife #nature

Meet Australia's largest bird of prey! It can soar to 2km above the ground on thermals without flapping for up to 90 minutes. Its eyes can squeeze and elongate like a zoom lens, sharper vision than any human. It has been recorded at 6,800 metres altitude. #birds #eagle #nature #wildlife

This beautiful creature is the largest land animals on Earth, African bush elephants can weigh up to 6 tons and stand over 13 feet tall! Just their trunk alone contains over 40,000 individual muscles.. #elephants #animals #wildlife #nature

This fire-red bird has a taste for danger, it eats bees and wasps for a living. Meet the Summer Tanager, the only completely red bird in North America. It snatches bees and wasps clean out of the air, beats them against a branch, and wipes off the sting before swallowing #birds #nature #animals