Science National Geographic Watch the most thrilling—and the weirdest—wildlife videos of 2025

This post was originally published on here

Spying on animals is getting easier thanks to technology like drones, remotely operated vehicles, lightweight underwater cameras, and smart phones.

The animals we saw on video in 2025 fascinated and entertained us, like this colossal squid seen for the first time. Other videos documented the threats wildlife face, such as this unflinching look at a destructive fishing method.

And of course it was no surprise to us that many of the most exciting animal videos we published this year featured social media’s favorite antihero: the orca. Also known as killer whales, these black and white marine mammals were filmed showing off their charismatic and sometimes confrontational personalities.

Creatures of all shapes and sizes are on this list. Excitingly, some of these animals were seen alive for the very first time this year, and others displayed behaviors scientists had yet to document.

These were our favorite animal videos of the year.

Divers got an extremely rare look at a black sea devil

Early in the year, a team of scientists captured this video of an anglerfish swimming off the coast of the Canary Islands—far from its home in the deepest depths of the sea.

These black sea devils are known for their massive jaws filled with spikey teeth and bioluminescent lures dangling from the tops of their heads. They typically inhabit waters as deep as 6,500 feet, so to see one near the surface of the water shocked scientists.

Three theories emerged to explain how the anglerfish found itself there: One—the black sea devil ate another fish whose swim bladder then expanded and forced the anglerfish to float upward. Two—the black sea devil was trapped in a column of warm, rising water released by underwater volcanic activity. Or three—the sea devil was eaten alive by a deep-diving predator that spat it out near the ocean’s surface.

Scientists found a stick bug the size of an adult’s forearm

This summer, scientists in Australia discovered a stick bug the size of a large tree branch. It weighs 44 grams, the approximate weight of a golf ball, and measures 15 inches long.

Australia’s humid, lush cloud forests create the perfect conditions for extra-large insects to evolve. That such a large creature could remain unknown points to just how much scientists have left to discover. Research suggests 30 million different insect species exist on Earth—but we’ve only found two million of them.

A night camera revealed that rats attack bats

From within a dark cave in Germany, the rat stands upright, precariously balanced. Suddenly the rat reaches into the sky, grabs a bat as it flies past—and then eats it. Scientists at the Natural History Museum in Berlin used night cameras to spy on rats and observed them repeatedly hunting bats in this way. The observations, published in a November study, revealed that bats had a new predator in the form of this invasive rat species.

While these rats present a threat to local bat populations, they’re also a concerning potential pathway for viruses. They create a pathway in which a virus could transfer from bats to rats to people.

Onlookers caught orcas sinking boats

For the past five years, orcas have been spotted ramming into boats in the Mediterranean—and the trend continued in 2025. Footage taken off the coast of Portugal showed the moments orcas rammed into a sailing boat, which eventually sank. Scientists think orcas’ boat ramming habit might simply be a form of play.

But orcas were caught doing more than sinking boats this year. A pod of orcas in the Gulf of California were seen teaming up to immobilize a young great white shark and bite out its liver.

Finally, scientists used drones and underwater cameras suction-cupped to orcas to reveal another new orca behavior in a study published earlier this month. These videos show at least 25 examples of orcas teaming up with white-sided dolphins to hunt down salmon.

Honorable mention: an animated video reconstructed a 500-million-year-old worm

Scientists created this animated reconstruction of a prehistoric priapulid worm that lived in the Grand Canyon 500 million years ago. This Cambrian Age creature had a retractable throat covered in spikey teeth and rows of concentric feathery teeth inside.

Priapulid worms are some of the world’s oldest predators, and their name derives from Priapus, the Roman god of fertility.

Today it’s more commonly referred to by its nickname, the penis worm.