Year in Review Animals

These are our favorite animal stories of 2023

a Caribbean box jellyfish

Even without a brain, the tiny Caribbean box jellyfish can learn to avoid obstacles, research revealed in 2023.

J. Bielecki

By Darren Incorvaia

From birds repurposing antiavian architecture to jellyfish that can learn, here are dispatches from the animal kingdom that we went wild for in 2023.

Intelligent jellies

No brain? No problem. The fingernail-sized Caribbean box jellyfish (Tripedalia cystophora) uses its clusters of eyes and nerve cells to learn to avoid bumping into things, experiments in an aquatic obstacle course suggest (SN: 9/22/23).