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From Albatross to Zebrafish, the Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge’s connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. The articles are now being made available as a series of podcasts, and in our new publication on Medium. https://medium.com/cambridge-animal-alphabet

The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, J is for Jay – a surprisingly clever corvid with the ability to mimic human voices and much more. Jays are corvids – members of the crow family. The jays we see in Britain are Eurasian jays. With their pinkish plumage, and characteristic flash of blue, they

Content warning: this film contains images of blood and surgery For people with organ failure, transplantation is the only option. A lack of suitable organs for transplantation means patients die every day. Researchers in the University’s Department of Surgery are using large animal models to understand why donated organs become damaged and unsuitable for transplantation, and to test promising

New three-dimensional reconstructions show how some of the earliest animals on Earth developed, and provide some answers as to why they went extinct. http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/how-some-of-the-first-animals-lived-and-died A bizarre group of uniquely-shaped organisms known as rangeomorphs may have been some of the earliest animals to appear on Earth, uniquely suited to ocean conditions 575

COVID-19 is caused by a virus that jumped from animals to humans - and then spread rapidly. The risk of this happening again, causing another pandemic, is very real. Cambridge researchers have looked at all the major ways this might happen, to work out what might be done to reduce the risk. Read more here:

Animal research plays an essential role in our understanding of health and disease and in the development of modern medicine and surgical techniques. As part of our commitment to openness, this film examines how mice are helping the fight against cancer. It takes a in-depth look at the facilities in which they are housed, exploring issues of animal welfare and the search for replacements. We

Science writer David Adam has obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). In the second of a series of films, he meets researchers at the University of Cambridge to find out what animals – rats and marmosets – can teach us about the condition and how this can help in the development of new treatments.

Rotifers are tiny animals that survive against all the odds. They are also known for not having had sex for 80 million years. We follow Dr Alan Tunnacliffe, award-winning Cambridge researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology, as he tests their super-powers by draining 90% of the water in their microscopic bodies, heats them to boiling point and freezes them in liquid nitrogen. Still they thrive!

Rotifers are tiny animals that survive against all the odds. They are also known for not having had sex for 80 million years. We follow Dr Alan Tunnacliffe, award-winning Cambridge researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology, as he tests their super-powers by draining 90% of the water in their microscopic bodies, heats them to boiling point and freezes them in liquid nitrogen. Still they thrive!

An experiment on coral reefs provides the first evidence of a fish that uses other animals for motion camouflage to approach prey without detection. Coral reefs around the world are being degraded due to the warming climate, pollution and overfishing. The researchers say the strategy of hiding behind other moving fish may help animals adapt to the impacts of environmental change. Researchers: Dr