Off Track

Australia is full of weird plants and animals. And Dr Ann Jones is on speaking terms with most of them! Each week Ann explores the most unusual elements of our natural world — the ones that make you go What the Duck?! Like why do quolls have spots? Who farts (and who doesn't)? And how do snakes climb trees? Join Ann alongside experts and ordinary Aussies alike to solve mysteries, smash myths and uncover the bizarre truth about nature down under.

The Off Track adventure has come to an end.

The song calls of Antarctic blue whales are so deep that they're almost infrasonic - you feel them as much as you hear them.

After 35 years, some of the same sleepy lizards are still alive, still with the same lizard partner.

A bilby dreaming story guides a mother with a sick child to an outback town. Decades later, the child returns to repay the favour and look after the bilby.

While all ten crew members of the Blythe Star got out alive after she capsized, not all would survive the ordeal that followed.

This is Australia and the world, as heard by you, the listeners of Off Track.

Nature can be sanctuary, as well as family and guide.

Just under the surface of the ocean, a cacophony of sound awaits.

It's all very well recording frog sounds, but what are they trying to say?

Murray Littlejohn first recorded the moaning frogs of WA on a device made from a gramophone mechanism in the early 1950s.

How can you appreciate the ecological importance of fire, but also fight fires with all your might? 

Just when you thought it might be safe to get back out into nature, you get zapped back to reality.

Can you defend yourself against a predator more than 200 times your size with a costume change?

What's been dumped on our beaches and what's been taken away?

Why are the birds in our neighbourhoods changing?

In a tiny town called Windy, a woman seeks a life of isolation.

This site of huge ecological significance has a violent history.

Melbourne's Yarra river has an unexpected inhabitant, and its bringing joy to people in the locked-down city and beyond.

In the groundwater beneath the Nullabor, there are billions of tiny crustaceans crawling between the grains of sand.

Meet the tiny creatures who live in the earth beneath your feet

Tanya Latty kept a slime mould in her desk drawer at the University. And that got her thinking – are there other slime moulds living their best urban life in Sydney?

Northern Sydneysiders might not like the sound of the latest research into tick hosts in their backyards.

When a final visit to the family farm is rudely interrupted by rodents

If you listen closely you might just hear something you've never heard before.

Lurking in the tall trees of our busy cities and suburbs is a powerful hunter.

The survival of one of the rarest butterflies in the world is entirely reliant on an ant.

Let's study moths so we can celebrate them properly

If invertebrates make up over 90% of animals on earth, why do they receive so little conservation funding?

During summer on top of Australia's highest mountain, fields of brilliant turquoise skyhoppers bloom.

What’s built like an armoured vehicle, but is super-dooper maternal, has a career as an architect AND is an environmentalist? You’d never guess that Australia’s burrowing cockroaches are so incredibly cute and complex.

It's World Listening Day so we are taking a journey through sounds recorded by the audience and one of Australia's most successful nature sound recordists, Andrew Skeoch.

Magpies might be boosting their bird brains with friends.

When our favourite black and white birds bring the drama!

Just under the surface of the ocean, a cacophony of sound awaits.

At the Bronx zoo in New York, Lynne Malcolm explores its potential as an agent for conservation and public education about the natural world.

With often complex and cruel histories, can we trust zoos to have animals' best interests at heart?

You might have heard an elephant trumpet but have you heard one fart?

Just when you thought it was safe to get back out into nature, you get bitten on the eyeball and bog the car next to a crocodile infested river.

There is something about the Wedge-tailed Eagle which grips this man in the guts.

The Albert's lyrebird has a tiny range, but an epic song repertoire.

Female lyrebirds should be rock stars in their own right.

Triple Blue is a superb lyrebird stud muffin.

You might think you know the story of the lyrebird. Think again.

Lyrebird deception just got deeper.

Endangered animal sounds and scientists imitating them. 

Venomous trees and angry snakes - just what we need.

Urban greening takes a tiny turn

In South West WA, there are concerns that prescribed burning is negatively impacting an internationally recognised biodiversity hotspot.

We've all heard the stories of the koala on the brink of extinction, but in parts of Victoria, is the exact opposite – the koalas are booming and it’s all our fault.