Order Atlas Obscura: Wild Life today!

Venture into nature's unseen realms with our new book Wild Life

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Atlas Obscura: Wild Life

Wonders of Our World

Our wildest book yet is on sale now. Step off the beaten path with us.

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You’re invited to a secret world just beyond our own. A place of beauty, humor, and endless surprise.

Welcome to the best place on earth — Earth.

It's a world filled with rainbow trees and vampire birds; tent-making bats and self portrait-sculpting spiders. Where snakes fly, plants chat, ants explode, and crabs accessorize.

This is the world of Wild Life — and it's your world, too. As we wait for our ultimate explorer's guide, we're collecting some of our best-ever writing on animals, plants, fungi, and natural adventures. Scroll down and take a walk on the wild side with us.

Choose Your Critter Adventure

Learn to speak prairie dog, meet an immortal tree, or spy (respectfully) on a moonlit coral orgy.

Capim dourado actually isn't gold, and it’s not grass either.

nature

How Brazil Protects and Preserves Its Luminous ‘Golden Grass’

In the Cerrado, the Mumbuca community spin capim dourado into hats, baskets, and jewelry.

nature

These Ants Protect the Colony by Blowing Themselves Up

The self-sacrificing insects explode, showering their enemies in killer goop.

Great Basin bristlecone pines are seemingly immortal trees that can often withstand the knobby twists of fate.

nature

Are Bristlecone Pines Really Immortals Living Among Us?

These scrappy and squat high-elevation trees can live for thousands of years without seeming to age.

Red-billed oxpeckers are regular sights on many large African mammals.

birds

Oxpeckers Are an Early Warning System for Rhinos at Risk

As their name suggests, these small birds provide critical cleaning services to oxen, impala and other animals of the savanna—with a side hustle as rhino guards.

A colorful orgy in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is triggered by the moon.

nature

Australia's Synchronized Coral Spawning Can Be Seen From Space

The world’s largest living structure renews itself in nights of moonlit passion.

Wild Life Book Advertisement: Where Nature Tells Its Awe-Inspiring Story

Feeling Wild? Scroll Down for More Adventures

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The pink fairy armadillo has adapted to life underground and is so rarely spotted that scientists know very little about the species.

science

How the Enchanting, Elusive Pink Fairy Armadillo Became One Scientist's Obsession

A conservation biologist in Argentina once hosted one of the animals in her living room, but finding them in the wild has proven far more difficult.

A Puerto Rican rock frog has a number of adaptations for cave living, including large eyes.

caves

Puerto Rico's Most Adorable Frogs Live in Caves and Fight Like 'Gummy Bears'

For one biologist studying the rock frogs' behavior, safeguarding their habitat is personal.

The buffy-tufted-ear marmoset isn't as beloved as its cuter counterparts.

monkeys

Won't Someone Please Think of Brazil's Least-Adorable Marmoset?

The wildly uncharismatic buffy-tufted-ear marmoset needs a boost.

According to recent genetic analyses, "forest cats" may have arrived on the island as far back as 1,000 years ago.

genetics

The True Origin Story of Madagascar's 'Forest Cat'

Turns out this big, striped lemur-eater didn't come from mainland Africa.

islands

Podcast: The Feral Horses of Sable Island

One of the last unmanaged group of horses contend with their non-native home.

The endangered Saimaa ringed seal has adapted over time to both fresh water and the presence of humans.

animals

The Uncertain Future of Finland's Rare Freshwater Seals

The animals face threats from climate change, fishing, and a tourism boom, but their biggest advocate remains hopeful.

Dive, Paddle, and Explore Discover remarkable wildlife and wondrous waterways.

See Florida Below the Surface Submerge yourself in the Sunshine State.

18 Unexpected Natural Wonders in Florida

Close encounters with wolves, rare carnivorous pitcher plants, diving in a subterranean river, and swimming with manatees.

Video

Sea Critters of Charlotte Harbor

Just a few steps offshore, Charlotte Harbor boasts a thriving habitat for fascinating sea creatures. The seagrass beds in the shallows provide an ideal environment for small critters from pipefish to hermit crabs to breed and grow. The majority of the sea life in Charlotte Har...

An Explorer's Guide to the World's Living Wonders

From the authors of The New York Times bestselling Atlas Obscura series.

Order Now

"Almost as jaw dropping and awe-inspiring as the planet itself—and more portable."

BJ Novak

Best Selling author, Actor & Comedian

"A mind-blowing guide to nature's most enchanting and unexpected characters, every page is full of wit and wonder."

Ed Yong

Pulitzer Prize winning author of An Immense World

"I love this book. It makes me want to run upstairs, pack a bag, and bolt away to some far-flung corner of this astounding planet."

Mary Roach

Bestselling author of Stiff and Packing for Mars

Popular Destinations

Order Atlas Obscura: Wild Life today!

Atlas Obscura: Wild Life

Wonders of Our World

You’re invited to a secret world just beyond our own. A place of beauty, humor, and endless surprise.

Welcome to the best place on earth — Earth.

A conservation biologist in Argentina once hosted one of the animals in her living room, but finding them in the wild has proven far more difficult.

For one biologist studying the rock frogs' behavior, safeguarding their habitat is personal.

The wildly uncharismatic buffy-tufted-ear marmoset needs a boost.

Turns out this big, striped lemur-eater didn't come from mainland Africa.

One of the last unmanaged group of horses contend with their non-native home.

The animals face threats from climate change, fishing, and a tourism boom, but their biggest advocate remains hopeful.

These ancient guardians of the traditional nomadic way of life are making a comeback.

Join us for a daily celebration of the world’s most wondrous, unexpected, even strange places.

The Juan Deriba killifish, found in a tiny area of Bolivia, jumps out of water to evade threats.

Orcas and humans once hunted together in southeastern Australia, until their millennia-old relationship broke down.

Before cows and chickens, cuscuses may have been the original livestock.

Renowned entomologist Frank Nischk remembers when the determined insects tried to invade a field station.

Join us for a daily celebration of the world’s most wondrous, unexpected, even strange places.

In rural Chile, the kodkod, or güiña, has a bad rep for stealing chickens—and as a portent of death and disaster.

Scientists fitted the famously bitey marsupials with tiny accelerometers to learn their secrets.

These isolated, pocket-sized silky anteaters live among the mangroves of Brazil’s Atlantic coast.

For scientists, monitoring the feisty, endangered burrowing bat includes moments of "actual madness."

Join us for a daily celebration of the world’s most wondrous, unexpected, even strange places.

Cliffside with Argentina's burrowing parrots, biologist Juan Masello has broken bones, crushed a vein, and nearly drowned.

The deer of Nara Park are part of a millennium-old genetic lineage—does that make them more deserving of protection?

The mini-paratroopers have a new role to play today.

Join us for a daily celebration of the world’s most wondrous, unexpected, even strange places.

Jack and his handler Collette Yee found challenges, meaning, and each other in their work helping scientists better understand orcas, bats, and more.

When vessels such as the WWII tanker E.M. Clark sink, they begin a second life as habitat for a diverse ecosystem.

A new study shows how the birds identify their mates in a sea of black and white.

There is a lot to learn about Orfelia fultoni, the only bioluminescent fly in North America, but its larvae put on a show.

Off-limits and full of venomous pit vipers, this rock has certainly earned its nickname.

Dive, Paddle, and Explore Discover remarkable wildlife and wondrous waterways.

Sponsored by

See Florida Below the Surface Submerge yourself in the Sunshine State.

Sponsored by

18 Unexpected Natural Wonders in Florida

Close encounters with wolves, rare carnivorous pitcher plants, diving in a subterranean river, and swimming with manatees.

Sea Critters of Charlotte Harbor

Just a few steps offshore, Charlotte Harbor boasts a thriving habitat for fascinating sea creatures. The seagrass beds in the shallows provide an ideal environment for small critters from pipefish to hermit crabs to breed and grow. The majority of the sea life in Charlotte Har...

An Explorer's Guide to the World's Living Wonders

"Almost as jaw dropping and awe-inspiring as the planet itself—and more portable."

"A mind-blowing guide to nature's most enchanting and unexpected characters, every page is full of wit and wonder."

"I love this book. It makes me want to run upstairs, pack a bag, and bolt away to some far-flung corner of this astounding planet."