Awesome Nature

The nature photographers at John Downer Productions are known for infiltrating animal communities by packing cameras into lifelike robots. In this clip from Spy in the Wild 2, one of their robots crab-walked with thousands of real-life crustaceans and played a crab version of Frogger crossing the roads on Christmas Island.

Thanks to the photographic prowess and entomological expertise of Ant Lab, we’ve seen some amazing close-up footage of insects. This time, watch tropical butterflies as they emerge from their chrysalises and take flight. Then take a look at the tropical rainforest exhibit at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.

With state birds like Louisiana’s pelican, choosing a bird to represent your state seems like a decent idea. But Jam2Go’s video essay points out how many states completely missed the point, either picking inappropriate birds or duplicating other states. Along the way, he offers some suggestions on how to fix the problem.

Unless you’re a snake or a fish, there’s a pretty good chance you have legs and feet. Journey to the Microcosmos gets up close and personal with microorganisms to look at how they get around using their tiny feet and other moving appendages.

Reindeer have been known to walk together in a circular formation in order to fend off predators and to protect their herd. This incredible aerial footage of hundreds of swirling deer was captured by filmmaker Andrei Golovnev on Russia’s Kola Peninsula in the Arctic Circle.

Art of Play teamed up with artist Ellen Litwiller and biologist David G. Haskell to create this unique deck of cards. Each card invites you into the forest with imagery of animals and plant life that thrive in the woods – each suit stirring one of our four senses. A portion of proceeds supports education and conservation.

Dr. Adrian Smith of Ant Lab is back with another amazing slow motion macro video of insects taking flight. This time, you’ll witness a variety of mantises, weevils, flies, and other bugs lifting off. The 6,000 FPS footage reveals the normally unseen but dramatic differences in how each insect takes flight.

We already know that Forza Horizon 5 looks spectacular, but the upcoming Xbox racer will also delight our ears with noise candy. But we’re not just talking exhaust notes, no. Microsoft has filled its environments with realistic ambient sounds, including those in this soothing 30-minute sampler from the game’s locations in Mexico.

Living in a big city, the view outside our front door is a bunch of other houses, parked cars, and traffic. But from this old lookout point high atop Mt. Rainier in Washington state, you open the door to a vista so spectacular that even a vertical video can’t diminish its majesty.

During a dive in 2019, conservationist and freediver Ocean Ramsey came face to face with one of the most impressive sharks ever seen. Ocean and her team from OneOceanDiving encountered the 20 foot long, 8 foot wide great white shark while in the waters off the shore of Oahu, Hawaii.

We love seeing the creative designs that fans submit to LEGO Ideas. Kris Kelvin’s lush and colorful set celebrates nature instead of man-made objects, with hundreds of organic shapes inspired by life at the bottom of the sea. We imagine the build instructions for this kit would be challenging, but we’re willing to try.

Among the various residents of the San Diego Zoo are a number of delightfully pink flamingos. For fun, the zoo shared footage of the lanky birds as they poke their heads beneath the water in search of food. The flamingos have filtering plates in their mouths which sort out tasty morsels like tiny shrimp and other small critters.

In real-time and without a good macro lens, it’s hard to appreciate just how awesome insects can be. In this video from Ant Lab, we get a wonderful close-up look at seven species of moths for a look at their beautiful wing patterns and colors, captured at 6000 frames per second. Isn’t nature amazing?

Octopi thrive on shellfish and other small sea creatures. But when an octopus thinks it can gobble down a mantis shrimp, it gets quite the surprise from the powerful crustacean. Nat Geo WILD captured this amazing footage of the terrifying shrimp as it protects itself and delivers blow after blow on its eight-legged foe.

Not every pig is as cute as Babe. Some of piggy’s boar, warthog, and babirusas cousins are downright scary looking. ZeFrank takes us inside the world of wild pigs to learn about these smart and savvy animals, and the surprisingly hardcore lives they live.

Smithsonian Channel’s Epic Animal Migrations journeys to the west coast of Mexico to witness two spectacles of nature. The first: millions of pelagic red crabs rising to the surface to dine on plankton. The second: thousands of giant eagle rays gliding beneath the waves – some emerging from the water into the air.

We can think of few nastier pests than ticks. They spread disease, make you and your pets itch like mad, are difficult to remove, and are completely gross looking under a magnifying lens. Naturally, Zefrank thought they’d be a good subject for their tongue-in-cheek nature show. We’re itchy just from watching this.

Our fine feathered friends have several key abilities which make them competitive in the meta, including the power of flight and pointy beaks. But clearly, some birds are more likely to survive and thrive than others. TierZoo offers up their unique take on various avians and how well they may fare in the universe.

A collaboration between Art of Play and the USDA Forest Service, this unique deck of cards reminds us “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires.” The court cards feature images of a dozen woodland creatures, illustrated by Sam Larson, along with fire-prevention tips scattered throughout the deck. Packed in a letterpress tuck box.

When you look at a flower during a single moment, it appears completely still. But as Another Perspective’s 10-day time-lapse video shows, they’re anything but inanimate objects. Watch as a bunch of dandelions open and close to drink in light, then go back to sleep before eventually releasing their seeds.

While it’s nowhere nearly as large as the world’s largest penguin, the 16″ long, 10-pound frog known as Beelzebufo was still an impressive creature. PBS Eons explains the few things we know about this giant, blobby amphibian that was native to Madagascar.

In this footage from the 2009 BBC Earth special Superswarm, we get an up-close look at a mass of roughly 10 million starlings as they fly in formation over Rome, Italy. Of course, with millions of birds comes a whole lot of bird poop. We’d love to see a sequel recorded with modern 4k cameras.

Famed nature show host David Attenborough returns with a three-part series about how color plays a role in the biology and evolution of animals. Colors can be used for camouflage, to scare off predators, or to help win mates. The series used specially-developed cameras in order to reveal what other animals see from their perspective. On Netflix now.