Biodiversity

In 2001 a few tigers in Russia started to show signs of obvious distress. Endangered Amur (or Siberian) tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) were underweight, weak, disoriented and incapable of hunting as a result.

Scientists recently confirmed what anglers have known for centuries—there's something special about a big mama fish. The bigger the fish, the better the bragging rights—and often, the bigger paycheck or prize.

Fifty birds flew home last month. Now, 50 may not seem like much and flight might not sound all that unusual for birds, but we’re talking about the critically endangered rowi (Apteryx rowi), New Zealand’s scarcest kiwi species and one of the world’s rarest flightless birds.

The results are in. Yesterday the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released it final report crystallizing 13 months of work by more than 800 scientists.

Something ghostly and hungry flies the skies of northern Australia. Its massive white wings stand out against the darkness as it circles, searching for prey.

It defies belief, but a 180 million year old fern fossil unearthed in Sweden is so exquisitely preserved that it is possible to see its cells dividing.

It’s no doubt that, with a repertoire of everything from colorful coral to a poisonous sea snake, the octopus could win any costume contest handily.

The African lion (Panthera leo leo) faces the threat of extinction by the year 2050, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe warned today.

Last year the Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia volume titled Extinct Life appeared in print. I was asked to cover South American mammals, perhaps because they wanted me to write about borhyaenoids, toxodonts, litopterns, astrapotheres and so on (some of which have been covered on Tet Zoo in the past - I really need to get back [...]

We know that octopuses have awesome visual systems and super-sensitive suckers. We have even learned that they can hear. But little scientific attention has been paid to their sense of smell.

Rick Piltz passed away last Saturday. He spent decades working in the federal government and state government in Texas, and was a prominent whistleblower during the Bush administration.

Hey, Darren, how's it going with that plan to discuss all the fossil crocodylomorph groups? Huh? Well, ha ha, it ain't going so well… goddam life getting in the way of my blogging.