Endangered Species

If you thought forking out for over-priced flowers was enough to contend with on Valentines Day, then spare a thought for fellow lovers in the wild, who have to work much harder to keep their sweethearts happy.

Take satin bowerbirds for instance, who bring a whole new meaning to the saying, ‘something borrowed, something blue’.

Male bowerbirds create spectacular mosaics by foraging for anything and everything blue – flowers, berries, feathers, Freddo frog wrappers – and protecting their stash from competing males. The best artwork, combined with the best dancing (a criteria shared by discerning females of many species), wins. But before you get googling for exhibition openings and salsa classes, it’s worth noting what humpbacks whales, the supposed ‘gentle giants’ of the ocean, get up to. These guys slam their 40-tonne bodies into one another, often for hours and sometimes fatally, until just the victor is left swimming.

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