Young pygmy raccoons on a Mexican island have been seen teaching each other to make toy balls out of rubbish, in a rare example of animals crafting objects purely to play with.

“My first reaction was, oh my gosh, that’s absolutely adorable!” says at Miami University in Ohio, who is researching the impact of tourism on the critically endangered pygmy raccoons (Procyon pygmaeus) of Cozumel Island.

O’Neil filmed as one of the younger raccoons fished paper out of a rubbish bin, dipped it in a bowl of water and rolled it in sand, making a ball.

Over days of observation, she recorded the animals as they made more balls and used them to play “football” with other raccoons and dwarf coatis (Nasua narica nelsoni), another raccoon-like animal. Siblings taught each other the ball-making procedure, and even tried to get their mother involved, though she couldn’t quite figure it out – her coordination seemed to have been impaired after drinking a margarita she found at a beach bar earlier that day.

O’Neil’s colleague at Miami University, was impressed by the footage. While others have watched animals like chimps or tigers at play, researchers have seldom seen animals custom-making toys for later use. “It shouldn’t be surprising that raccoons are where we’re seeing this, just because they’re so tactile, they see with their hands,” says Szydlowski.

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“The observations show how complex animal play behaviour can be,” says at the Institute of Animal Science in the Czech Republic. “It will be intriguing to see whether the behaviour will get a hold in the population as a new cultural trait or will disappear.”

The observations may also help with conservation efforts. There are fewer than 200 pygmy raccoons on Cozumel, the only place the species is found. Understanding how they learn from each other might help conservationists discourage unhealthy behaviours like stealing margaritas and begging for snacks, and reacquaint them with foraging in the wild. And O’Neil hopes increased awareness of the animals will bring more support. “I really just want people to know that they are out there, and they need people to care,” she says. “And please don’t feed them!”

From a viper with a bloodthirsty hitchhiker to a bullfrog narrowly missing its lunch, these photographs, all of which are in the running for this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, offer a glimpse into the drama unfolding across the animal kingdom.

Biting Back,Ěýan intimidating shot captured by Andrea and Maceo Grammatico,Ěýwas highly commended in the contest’s Animal Portraits category.ĚýThe twins say it wasn’t until reviewing their photographs that they spotted a mosquito drinking from the head of the fer-de-lance – the most dangerous snake in Central America.

There was a near miss in Jens Cullmann’s Split-Second Escape, highly commended in the Behaviour: Amphibians and Reptiles category and shown in the main image.ĚýThe moment was almost as fleeting as the frog’s prey – an African babul blue butterfly – and all the more remarkable given that Cullmann had spotted tadpoles a month earlier, returning to find them transformed into young bullfrogs. African bullfrogs spend much of the year underground in an inactive state known as aestivation,Ěýemerging only for a short period after the rainy season to breed,Ěýhunt and gorge.Ěý

Hiding not hunting is the speciality of the lichen dragon katydid captured by Gil Wizen,Ěýbelow. Named Hidden Dragon, Wizen’s shot, highly commended in the Behaviour: Invertebrates category, captures the almost perfectly camouflaged, 15-millimetre-long, spiky insect – a rare species found only in the Ecuadorian Andes mountains.

Moving away from rural environments,Ěý±Ę´Ç´Ç±ôłŮľ±łľ±đĚý±Ę˛ą˛őłŮľ±łľ±đĚýby Loren Elliott,Ěýbelow, was highly commended in the Urban Wildlife category. Elliott captures the unusual sight of a black bear taking time to chill in a swimming pool in southern California. While the bear may look somewhat out of place,Ěýthese run-ins are becoming surprisingly common as housing developments continue to encroach on bear territory.Ěý 

Finally,Ěýa black vulture grasps the carcass of a yacare caiman in Andrew Parkinson’s Wings of Darkness,Ěýbelow, captured in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands and also highly commended in the Animal Portraits category.ĚýDespite a seemingly firm grip, the scavenger’s meal wasn’t to be,Ěýwith a jaguar waiting just out of shot for the perfect opportunity to claim the caiman.

The competition’s overall winner will be announced on 13 October. The Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest is organised by London’s Natural History Museum,Ěýwhich will run an of the images from 16 October to 11 July 2027.

Two beagles called Alfie and Bailey lack the main protein that causes allergic reactions to dogs, thanks to CRISPR gene editing. The dogs will be 2 years old in September and show no signs of adverse effects, according to , the company behind them.

“I’ve lived with allergies my whole life. They prevented me and my family from ever having a dog,” says Kindred co-founder Matt Walker. “And my wife, Maggie, has always wanted a dog.” Walker previously worked as a researcher studying neuron development in worms by using CRISPR gene editing to disable specific genes. He realised it might be possible to use the technique to prevent dogs causing allergies, and founded Kindred in 2020.

How were Alfie and Bailey created?

Previous studies have found that the main allergen that triggers reactions to dogs is a protein called Can f 1. It is secreted by the tongue and by glands in the skin, so it is present both in the fur of dogs and in their saliva.

The Kindred team took skin cells from a female beagle and used the gene-editing tool CRISPR Cas9 to mutate the Can f 1 gene – the result was an extra DNA letter at the start of the gene that shifts the way the recipe for making the Can f 1 protein is read by cells, turning it into gibberish. Once the team members had confirmed they had made the desired change without introducing unwanted mutations, they cloned the cells. Altogether, the team transferred 25 embryos to a surrogate, of which two implanted and developed to term.

Does removing this protein really prevent allergies?

Bailey is Walker’s pet dog, and he says he has no reaction to her at all. She was cavorting in the background when Â鶹´«Ă˝ spoke to him. Kindred has also showing that Can f 1 is undetectable in Alfie and Bailey, and that there are no allergic reactions to samples from them in skin-prick tests, whereas samples from normal dogs do provoke a reaction.

However, Can f 1 isn’t the only protein in dogs that can trigger allergic reactions – there are also so-called minor allergens, such as Can f 2. “If we do find that there’s a substantial population that is still responding to the dogs, then that is something we could address,” says Walker.

And could the process be harmful to dogs?

We don’t know for sure what the function of Can f 1 is, but Walker says he was confident from experiments on mice that there would be no serious consequences from deleting it. So far, both dogs appear normal and healthy, he says. “Of course, that’s something that we’re monitoring very closely, and will continue to monitor over the animals’ lives.”

Isn’t it already possible to buy “hypoallergenic” dogs?

Some breeds, such as poodles and goldendoodles, are said to be less likely to trigger allergic reactions, but Walker says he responds just as much to the goldendoodle his parents bought after he left home as he does to any other dog. In the paper, his team shows that Can f 1 is detectable in both breeds, and that samples from them trigger reactions in skin-prick tests.

This is in line with independent evidence. The American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology says some “hypoallergenic” breeds .Ěý

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When will these dogs be commercially available?

Not for some time. Kindred first needs regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. If it gets that, it then needs to create lots more of these dogs. For each dog breed, the company will have to create a genetically diverse set of “founder” dogs that can then be bred normally. Walker couldn’t say how many founder dogs would be required per breed.

Is it ethical to genetically engineer dogs just to prevent allergies?

“We aren’t using gene editing for novelty or some cosmetic reason,” says Walker. “Allergies are a real health problem. They affect a significant portion of the population, and lead to serious conditions such as asthma triggering asthmatic attacks.”

By contrast,Ěýconventional dog breeding is often done purely for the sake of appearance, and can introduce mutations that cause serious harm, such as those found in breeds like pugs .ĚýNevertheless, Kindred is altering dogs for the benefit of humans rather than the benefit of the animals themselves. In response to this, Walker says people discovering they are allergic to dogs is a leading reason for animals having to be rehomed.Ěý

Is Kindred planning to gene-edit cats, too, to prevent allergies?

“Right now, we’re focused exclusively on dogs,” Walker says. The main allergen in cats, called fel d 1, is encoded by two genes rather than one, so getting rid of the protein is more complex. Another company called InBio announced plans to create cats free of fel d 1 in 2022.

Large predators can make people safer by reducing the number of road accidents involving collisions with deer. A study in Washington state has shown that the presence of cougars led to a 76 per cent reduction in the number of such accidents.

“I think that this road-safety benefit could be playing out in many other places,” says of the non-profit Conservation Science Partners. “That’s just one of several ecosystem services that these large carnivores provide.”

A 2021 study in Wisconsin found that the return of wolves to a county , providing economic benefits 63 times greater than the costs of wolves killing livestock. These reductions were due to changes in deer behaviour, as well as deer numbers falling due to predation by wolves, the study concluded.

Now Suraci and his colleagues have looked at what’s happening on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, where there’s a stable population of cougars – also known as pumas – and deer. “We worked with Native American communities, who are running their own wildlife monitoring programs,” he says.

More than 500 camera traps have been set up as part of these programs, and nearly 60 cougars were collared. This allowed the researchers to see where and when deer and cougars were present. Their analysis shows that deer avoid road edges and the margins of towns and cities when cougars are present, making them less likely to be hit by cars or trucks.

“Those habitat edges are the best hunting habitat for pumas. They can hide in the forest and attack a deer foraging along the roadside,” says Suraci. “So what we think is happening is that deer are moving away from these more fragmented, edgy areas with higher road density where the pumas are present.”

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When cougars were present, deer were also less active at night and more active during the day. This is likely a response to the fact that cougars hunt mainly at night, and may also have contributed to the reduction in accidents.

This is an example of a “landscape of fear” in action, says at Western University in Canada. “This is an excellent paper. It provides many compelling lines of evidence that paint a clear picture – that large carnivores benefit society. The authors beautifully demonstrate that the mere presence of large carnivores can reduce vehicle collisions with deer.”

“That is good news all around,” she says. “As though that weren’t enough, cougars also provide this service completely free of charge.”

Suraci also thinks this will be generally true for large predators. Discussions about the reintroduction of large predators tend to focus on the negative aspects, such as the killing of livestock, he says. But many benefits often aren’t obvious.

For instance, large predators may also reduce the damage deer do to crops and gardens, and the spread of diseases .