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Animals

Portrait of Maria Sibylla Merian, by Jacob Marrel, 1679 (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

Maria Sibylla Merian: the artist who challenged the natural world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Animals in space: from Laika to jellyfish & tortoises. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

How dogs shaped city life. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Supernatural stories: 9 unusual British folktales

Cat got your tongue? It certainly seems to be the case with this surprised tabby

Why do we say 'cat got your tongue'?

Q&AWhy do we say ‘white elephant’?

Basilisks, manticores and more: medieval fantastic beasts (and where to find them)

Alexander the Great on his horse, Bucephalus

Bucephalus: why is Alexander the Great's horse famous?

Dark side of fashion: a 1910 portrait of a woman wearing a hat adorned with ostrich plumes and a stuffed bird. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, owning hats like this was a sign of status for many women. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

A hatful of horror: the Victorian headwear craze that led to mass slaughter

Victorian pet cemeteries: animals in the afterlife. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Smokey the bear is presented with a firefighter's helmet

The paratrooper, the poet's pet and the real Winnie: 10 famous bears in history

Charles Darwin and the Beagle: how the voyage transformed our understanding of the world

A miller and a donkey

9 things you could do with a medieval ass

Ten things to do with a medieval donkey. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

This 15th-century painting from a manuscript shows men fishing in a river. In medieval England, eels were both meals and de facto currency. (Photo by Bridgeman)

Fishing for gold: how eels powered the medieval economy

A brief history of turkeys, plus why we eat a turkey dinner at Christmas

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin vs God: did the 'Origin of Species' cause a clash between church and science?

David Olusoga"Half a million cats and dogs were put to death in 1939 – for no good reason". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A watermill, with fish nets and eel traps visible beneath the waters of the mill leat Luttrell Psalter. England, c 1325-1335. (Photo by Alamy)

Medieval eels and Englishness. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A sign of the devil or a miracle cure? How people felt about spiders in the Middle Ages

A scene from the Smithfield Decretals depicting a rabbit beheading a man. Rabbits seem to have a strange place in medieval imagery – and are depicted as having strangely violent tendencies. "It’s the sort of thing to give you nightmares," says David Musgrove. (Photo by Album/British Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

BlogMedieval(ish) matters #5: chivalry, medieval killer rabbits and prisoners of war in the 15th century

Medieval prisoners

What was it like to be a Prisoner of War during the Hundred Years’ War?

An illumination depicts medieval women embroidering

Medieval misconceptions: 12 myths about life in the Middle Ages – busted

Frances Griffiths poses with the fairies

Fairies, rabbit births and an 'ancient' tiara: what are the greatest historical hoaxes?

The 18th-century rabbit breeding hoax (Photo by Getty Images)

The woman who gave birth to rabbits. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Simon the cat

10 top cats in history

A photo which was believed to be of the Loch Ness Monster

The quest for the Loch Ness Monster

Bottles of snake oil

Q&ADid salesmen really sell snake oil?

The ‘Surgeon’s Photo’, taken in 1934, which claimed to depict the Loch Ness Monster. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

5 facts about the Loch Ness Monster

Illustration by Glen McBeth.

Q&AWhen did the leopards on the royal arms of England become the lions depicted today?