Life on the Volcano Is Increasingly Tough for These Hawaiian Birds
You have to hike a pretty long distance if you hope to see the critically endangered bird known as the palila (Loxioides bailleui), but if you’re lucky and work hard, you can walk their entire habitat in a single day.
Ants Abound in Manhattan's Slivers of Green
Ants—they're everywhere. Charging across your picnic blanket, sneaking into your sandwich and, naturally, marching one by one (hurrah!
Climate Preparedness Index Reveals Rich-Poor Gap
High in the Peruvian Andes 8,000 alpacas died during a particularly harsh period of cold in the summer of 2004. For the herders who raise and shear these long-haired beasts for a living, it was a huge loss amounting to one fifth of all the alpacas living in that region of the highlands.
Acid Maps Reveal Climate Change's Impact on the Oceans
Much of the change in climate change is happening to the ocean. It’s not just the extra heat hiding within the waves. The seven seas also absorb a big share of the carbon dioxide released by burning the fossilized sunshine known as coal, natural gas and oil.
Close, Peaceful Whale Encounters Captured on Video
I came across these incredible videos by John J. King II (AleutianDream on YouTube) and I just had to share them. These snorkelers are in such close and peaceful contact with wild humpbacks and sperm whales in waters near the Dominican Republic, and Dominica respectively.
Bluefin Tuna, Chinese Cobra and Others Added to Red List of Threatened Species
The latest update to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species was published Monday and, as you can imagine, it wasn’t good news. The Red List, the global inventory of species, now identifies 22,413 species as threatened with extinction around the world.
Call of the Orangutan: Injuries and Their Limitations
This last month has been extremely stressful for all of us at Sikundur research station in North Sumatra while we've been following two of our favorite orangutans, Suci and her 3-year-old infant Siboy.
Oceanographer Sylvia Earle is a Glamour Woman of the Year
Her Deepness. The Sturgeon General. And now: Glamour Girl. On Monday night, renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle earned a new moniker when she joined eight others in receiving a 2014 Glamour Woman of the Year Award at a celebrity-packed Carnegie Hall.
Critically Endangered Gecko Discovered in Madagascar
The island of Madagascar is home to a pretty amazing and diverse collection of geckos, with nearly 70 species from 10 different genera. Now you can add one more species to the list: Paroedura hordiesi, a highly camouflaged nocturnal gecko that was recently discovered in northern Madagascar.
Mapping Mistake Threatens 1,400 Chimpanzees and Newly Discovered Endangered Plant
How’s this for irony?: A newly discovered plant named after the reserve in which it is supposedly found is endangered because the reserve isn’t actually located where people thought it was.
`Proto-Ichthyosaur' Sheds Light on Fish-Lizard Beginnings
Regular readers will know that I have a major interest in ichthyosaurs, the so-called fish-lizards of the Mesozoic (see links below). As you'll know if you keep your finger on the pulse of Mesozoic reptile news, last week saw the publication of a really interesting new animal from the Lower Triassic: the Chinese `proto-ichthyosaur' Cartorhynchus [...]
Hunger for Meat Plows Up Brazil's Cerrado Plains
This savannah in Brazil is being swallowed up by industrial farming