This year, roughly a quarter of the vast Pantanal wetland in Brazil, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, has burned in wildfires worsened by climate change. What happens to a rich and unique biome when so much is destroyed?

The sun is beginning to perk up again.

People joke about asking horses, “Why the long face?” We should redirect this question to hammerhead sharks. Their famous head extensions, called cephalofoils, can measure 3 feet from eye to eye. And scientists are still trying to nail down exactly what purposes they serve.

From a distance, the dead leaf praying mantis resembles its namesake: brown, crispy and still. Inch a little closer and it looks the same. But go even closer — too close — and a transformation occurs. The mantis whirls around, spreads its black-patterned wings and puts its arms behind its head in a pose reminiscent of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” showing off shocking red undersides.

Put a dolphin’s front flipper in an X-ray machine, and you will see a surprise: an arc of humanlike finger bones. The same goes for a sea turtle, a seal, a manatee and a whale. All of these animals had four-legged ancestors that lived on land. As their various lineages adapted to life in the water, what had been multidigit limbs slowly transformed into flippers.

Trees do not pay taxes. Some seem to avoid death as well. Many of the world’s most ancient organisms are trees, including a 3,600-year-old cypress in Chile and a sacred fig in Sri Lanka that was planted in the third century B.C.

On Wednesday, astronomers released what they said were the most detailed images ever taken of the surface of our sun.