Biology Beyond the Binary
The common side-blotched lizard has three types of males (red, orange, and blue) with very different mating strategies. It's been likened to this game.
Rock paper scissors
Mevia, under the reign of Nero, would hunt boars "with spear in hand and breasts exposed". All in a days work for this occupation.
Gladiator
A group of elephants at Mount Elgon have discovered mining. They are recorded as travelling into caves, and chiseling off deposits of this mineral with their tusks.
Salt
In 1124, Saint Benard of Clairvaux excommunicated these animals plaguing his monastery. The next day, they died in such quantities they had to be shoveled out.
Flies
This animal was known as a "haye" up until the 1400s. The use of its name to describe predatory, scoundrelous behaviour, like in cards, actually predates it.
Shark
In 2006, researchers discovered a third male form of the ruff called "faeders". Extremely popular with both males and females, their sexual strategy is to disguise themselves as this.
Female ruffs
Mathurine de Vallois, born in France in 1589, was known for her extravagant Amazonian warrior costume and keen wit, which served her well in this occupation.
Jester
Humans may be the second animal to discover agriculture, after this species which grows and harvests fungus to eat.
Leaf cutter ants
Father Andres Arango performed this holy ceremony thousants of times over 20 years. However, since he said one of the words wrong, they were all declared invalid in 2022.
Baptisms
This word is a triple false cognate, derived from the Latin "scala" for ladder, Old Norse "skal" for a drinking vessel and Old French "escale" for a shell or husk.
Scale
The genus schizophyllum, where individuals may belong to one of 23,328 distinct sexes, is neither plant or animal - it belongs to this biological kingdom.
Fungi
Twice a year, hundreds of people in Sardinia travel to see su filindeu, meaning "threads of god" made by only three women in this profession.
Pasta-maker
To clean its particle accelerator, Fermilab employed Felicia, a species of this carnivorous mammal, who was paid in hamburger meat.
Ferret
In medieval times, the long germination of this garden herb was explained by the seeds having to travel to hell and back seven times before sprouting.
Parsley
The main computer drive is called "C" because "A" and "B" were originally reserved for these.
Floppy disks
Females of this amphibious species can produce through gynogenesis, with no male involved, or kleptogenesis, which involves stealing a male's genome.
Salamanders
DAILY DOUBLE
In Joseon period Korea, women could be one of four professions. Gungnyeo, gisaeng, physicians, and this.
Through a legal loophole in the state of Kentucky the original, taxidermied Cocaine Bear occasionally performs this ceremonial role.
Marriage officiant
Some Mormons of this religious group believe that Bigfoot is not actually a woodland ape, but in fact this Biblical figure, cursed to walk the Earth forever in his sins.
Cain
Sankt Joachimsthaler, a town in Czechia with abundant silver, was shortened to "thaler", which eventually became this English word which most people use every day.
Dollar
This aquatic animal has some of the most drastic sexual dimorphism in the world. Females are two meters long, and males are only one inch.
Blanket octopus
In China and Japan, there is a type of black magic called "kodoku", attested to be conducted by women, which involved putting a large number of these in a jar.
Venomous Insects
DAILY DOUBLE
As many as 40% of ants in some colonies have this role, which they have in common with roughly 4% of Australians.
A popular theory to explain how this came to be is that monks who wanted to eat meat during Lent would hide it from god by wrapping it in pasta dough.
Ravioli
In Finnish, the word "bachelor" translates to poikamies meaning "boy man". The word for "bachelorette", poikamiestyttö, means this.
Boy man girl