Animals

They are bears, technically. They just decided meat was too much effort and committed to bamboo for most of their waking lives. Here is what makes a panda tick.

Cows are cleverer and stranger than the cartoons suggest: one stomach with four rooms, real friendships, and a nose as unique as a fingerprint.

Pigs carry a bad name they mostly do not deserve. They play video games, keep tidy, and cannot sweat to save their lives. A quick tour of the cleverest animal on the farm.

Sheep are cleverer than the field lets on: rectangular pupils, a memory for faces, real friendships, and one very famous clone.

Rectangular eyes, a taste for tree bark, and a memory that would shame my Year 4 class. Goats are cleverer than their reputation for eating tin cans suggests.

A quick romp through what makes rabbits odd: back to front digestion, teeth that never quit, and ears that double as radiators. Told the way I tell my Year 4 class.

There are more chickens than any other bird alive, and they are far sharper than the farmyard lets on. Faces, pecking orders, and a dinosaur in the family.

Ducks are built for water in ways that sound made up. Waterproof coats, feet that ignore ice, and a knack for sleeping with one eye on the exit.

Geese have a bad reputation and a brilliant CV: formation flying, lifelong partners, guard duty in ancient Rome, and goslings that adopt the first thing they see.

The only cat that lives as a family, sleeps twenty hours a day, and sends the females out to do the hunting. Lions, once you look past the crown we gave them.

The biggest cat on Earth, striped like a fingerprint, fond of a swim, and quieter than you would ever expect. Tigers, once you look past the poster.

I have watched a lot of animals over the school holidays, but nothing quite prepares you for the sheer engineering of an elephant.