Pictures news from mongabay.com

Scientists discover two mini-spiders in China (photos)

2013-05-23T18:24:00Z

Scientists have uncovered two miniature spiders living on mountains in China's southern region, one of which is among the smallest spiders recorded worldwide, according to a new paper in ZooKeys. Both spiders belong to the Mysmenidae family, which is made up of mini-spiders with eight eyes.

The Hawaiian silversword: another warning on climate change

2013-05-06T21:28:00Z

The Hawaiian silversword (Argyroxyphium sandwicense), a beautiful, spiny plant from the volcanic Hawaiian highlands may not survive the ravages of climate change, according to a new study in Global Change Biology. An unmistakable plant, the silversword has long, sword-shaped leaves covered in silver hair and beautiful flowering stalks that may tower to a height of three meters.

All the world's rarest birds in one book: photo contest enlivens new guide

2013-05-06T13:08:00Z

The World's Rarest Birds is an extraordinary bird book. 590 different bird species are classified as Endangered or Critically Endangered, with many species only existing in captivity. A new book, The World's Rarest Birds, catalogs all of these species. Each species is shown with remarkable color-photography and illustrations. Threats to species habitat are described, population estimates per species are given, and each species has a quick response (QR) code that takes the reader to a species-specific BirdLife International webpage. The book also covers 60 Data Deficient species. Data Deficient means that there exists little to no information on the relative abundance and distribution of the species.

Drill baby drill! The fate of African biodiversity and the monkey you've never heard of

2013-05-02T12:20:00Z

Equatorial Guinea is not a country that stands very large in the American consciousness. In fact most Americans think you mean Papua New Guinea when you mention it or are simply baffled. When I left for Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea, I also knew almost nothing about the island, the nation, or the Bioko drills (Mandrillus leucophaeus poensis). The subspecies of drill is unique to Bioko Island and encountering them was an equally unique experience. I initially went to Bioko as a turtle research assistant but ended up falling in love with the entire ecosystem, especially the Bioko drills as I tagged along with drill researchers.

Letting nature do the talking this Earth Day (pictures)

2013-04-22T17:33:00Z

Instead of writing a special article for this Earth Day, we are instead letting nature's beauty do the talking. The photos below were taken by the Mongabay.com team — Rhett Butler, Jeremy Hance, and Tiffany Roufs — in the twelve months since Earth Day 2012. Countries in this set include the United States (California and Hawaii), Dominican Republic, Brazil, Malaysia (Sabah), and Indonesia (Kalimantan and Sumatra).

Into the unknown mountains of Cambodia: rare birds, rice wine, and talk of tigers

2013-03-14T20:06:00Z

Ringed with forested mountains forming the borders with Laos and Vietnam, the northeast corner of Cambodia has been an intriguing blank spot among my extensive travels through the country. Nestled up against this frontier is Virachey National Park, created in 1993. I began searching for a way to explore this area a couple of years ago, hoping to connect with conservation NGOs to get me into the park; no one seemed to know much about it. I learned that the area had been written off by these groups due to massive land concessions given to logging and rubber concerns. The World Bank abandoned its 8-year effort to create a management scheme for Virachey after the concessions were granted in 2007. A moratorium on the concessions is temporarily in place, but illegal logging incursions into the park continue.

What happened to the elephants of Bouba Ndjida? [warning: graphic photos]

2013-03-07T20:13:00Z

A new report released by the Wildlife Conservation Society says that poachers have killed a staggering 62 percent of Africa's forest elephants in the last decade. The insatiable demand for elephant ivory hails mainly from China and Thailand, which is ironically hosting this year's CITES (CoP16) meeting. The meeting will continue until March 13 2013. The study is based on a survey of five elephant range states including Cameroon. Cameroon is the home of Bouba Ndjida National Park, where the dizzying massacre of 650 elephants occurred last year.

Starry frog rediscovered after thought extinct for 160 years (photos)

2013-03-07T17:11:00Z

In 1853 Edward Frederick Kelaart, a physician and naturalist, collected a strange frog on the island of Sri Lanka then a British colony known as Ceylon. The specimen was a large shrub frog (about 2 inches or 5.5 centimeters long) with black-outlined white specks on lime-green skin. He dubbed it "starry" after its pale specks, but that was last anyone heard of it. Even the holotype—the body of the amphibian collected by Kelaart—went missing. Fast forward nearly 160 years—two world wars, Sri Lanka's independence, and a man on the moon—when a recent expedition into Sri Lanka's Peak Wilderness rediscovered a beguiling frog with pinkish specks.

Extinction warning: racing to save the little dodo from its cousin's fate

2013-03-04T16:28:00Z

Sometime in the late 1600s the world's last dodo perished on the island of Mauritius. No one knows how it spent its final moments—rather in the grip of some invasive predator or simply fading away from loneliness—but with its passing came an icon of extinction, that final breath passed by the last of its kind. The dodo, a giant flightless pigeon, was a marvel of the animal world: now another island ground pigeon, known as the little dodo, is facing its namesake's fate. Found only in Samoa, composed of ten islands, the bird has many names: the tooth-billed pigeon, the Manumea (local name), and Didunculus ("little dodo") strigirostris, which lead one scientist to Christen it the Dodlet. But according to recent surveys without rapid action the Dodlet may soon be as extinct as the dodo.

Animal picture of the day: the world's biggest cat

2013-02-07T17:51:00Z

The Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), also known as the Siberian tiger, is the world's biggest cat. An adult male weighs on average about 390 pounds (176 kilograms). The largest yet recorded weighed 460 pounds (207 kilograms), although there are reports of considerably larger animals in the past.

Cute animal picture of the day: white-cheeked gibbon baby

2013-01-16T17:58:00Z

A northern white-cheeked gibbon pair (Nomascus leucogenys) at the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Bronx Zoo have given birth to a brand new infant. This is the mother gibbon's 11th infant.

Cute animal picture of the day: cheetahs in the snow

2012-12-05T15:48:00Z

Cheetah cubs at the Zoological Society of London's Whipsnade Zoo attempt to make sense of snow. Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), currently found in many African countries as well as Iran, are generally warm weather animals.

Photos: Chinese leopard wins camera trap contest

2012-11-27T19:15:00Z

The third annual BBC Wildlife Magazine Camera Trap Photo of the Year contest has produced some stunning and surprising images, including a snow leopard sticking its tongue out, a rare giant pangolin, and wrestling monitor lizards. But the winner this year was the perfect shot of a young leopard in China.

Legislation leaves future of world's largest temperate rainforest up in the air

2012-11-27T16:47:00Z

Although unlikely to pass anytime in the near term, recurring legislation that would hand over 80,000 acres of the Tongass Rainforest to a Native-owned logging corporation has put local communities on guard in Southeast Alaska. "The legislation privatizes a public resource. It takes land that belongs to all of us, and that all of us have a say in the use and management of, and it gives that land to a private for-profit corporation," Andrew Thoms, Executive Director of the Sitka Conservation Society, told mongabay.com in a recent interview.

Photos reveal destruction of Cameroon rainforest for palm oil

2012-11-26T21:20:00Z

Newly released photos by Greenpeace show the dramatic destruction of tropical forest in Cameroon for an oil palm plantation operated by SG Sustainable Oils Cameroon (SGSOC), a subsidiary of the U.S. company Herakles Farm. The agriculture company is planning to convert 73,000 hectares to palm oil plantations on the edge of several protected areas, but has faced considerable opposition from environmentalists and some local communities. In addition to the aerial photos, Greenpeace alleges that ongoing forest clearing by Herakles is illegal since the companies 99-year lease has yet to be fully approved by the Cameroonian government.

Wolves, mole rats, and nyala: the struggle to conserve Ethiopia's highlands

2012-11-20T20:47:00Z

There is a place in the world where wolves live almost entirely off mountain rodents, lions dwell in forests, and freshwater rolls downstream to 12 million people, but the place—Ethiopia's Bale Mountains National Park—remains imperiled by a lack of legal boundaries and encroachment by a growing human population. "Much of the land in Africa above 3,000 meters has been altered or degraded to the point where it isn’t able to perform most of the ecosystem functions that it is designed to do. Bale, although under threat and already impacted to a degree by anthropogenic activities, is still able to perform its most important ecosystem functions, and as such ranks among only a handful of representative alpine ecosystems in Africa."

Photos: Mozambique creates Africa's biggest marine protected area

2012-11-13T15:45:00Z

Last week, the East African nation of Mozambique announced it was protecting 10,411 square kilometers (4,020 square miles) of coastal marine waters, making the new Marine Protected Area (MPA) the biggest on the continent. The protected area, dubbed the Primeiras and Segundas Archipelago ("First" and "Second" islands), includes ten islands as well as mangrove forests, rich coral reefs, and seagrass ecosystems.

Cute animal picture of the day: baby giraffe

2012-11-12T21:51:00Z

Reticulated giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata), one of nine subspecies, are found in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. The world's tallest land animal, giraffes can stand as high as 5–6 meters (16–20 feet).

Picture of the day: cheetah cubs wrestle Halloween pumpkins

2012-10-31T15:30:00Z

The fastest land animal in the world, cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) can exceed 110 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour) in short bursts. This speed allows them to take down prey using rapid-fire ambush hunting.

Photo: high-altitude bird rediscovered after 80 years

2012-10-29T13:56:00Z

In 1929 the U.S. Stock Market collapsed, the Geneva Convention set standards for prisoners of war, the first Academy Awards was celebrated, and Jérôme Alexander Sillem collected two bird specimens on a high plateau in Xinjiang, China. For 62 years, the specimens sat in a drawer at the Zoological Museum of Amsterdam until C. S. Roselaar found them, studied them, and determined they, in fact, represented a new species of bird: Sillem's mountain finch (Leucosticte sillemi). Now, 83 years after Sillem collected the only known specimens, a French photographer, Yann Muzika, unwittingly took photographic proof that the finch species still survives.

Picture of the day: a bizarre baby bird with oral 'fingerprints'

2012-10-25T15:08:00Z

The crested coua (Coua cristata) is native to island of Madagascar. Unlike much of Madagascar's wildlife, the crested coua is not considered threatened with extinction, but is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN Red List. There are around nine species of coua in the world, all found in Madagascar; the unique birds belong to the cuckoo family.

Cute animal picture of the day: baby pygmy hippo

2012-10-22T15:32:00Z

A new pygmy hippo calf has been born at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) Whipsnade Zoo. Named Georgina, the calf is the second for parents Flora and Tapon.

Photos: emperor penguins take first place in renowned wildlife photo contest

2012-10-18T16:47:00Z

Photographer, Paul Nicklen, says he'll never forget the moment when a slew of emperor penguins burst by him in the frigid Ross Sea; he'd waited in the cold water, using a snorkel, to capture this image. Now, Nicklen has won the much-coveted Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition for the antic, bubbling photograph. Owned by the Natural History Museum and BBC Worldwide, this is the 48th year of the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year, which hands out awards to 100 notable wildlife and environment photos.

Picture of the day: the maned lioness

2012-10-15T19:57:00Z

The title is not a typo. Sometimes lioness grow manes as rich and large as males, and there appears to be larger proportion of such 'maned lionesses' in Botswana's Okavango Delta.

Cute animal picture of the day: baby walruses on the mend

2012-10-11T16:33:00Z

Two walrus male calves were discovered over the summer near Barrow, Alaska, dehydrated and ill, after their separate mothers perished. The calves have been receiving care at the Alaska SeaLife Center, but one will soon be moved to the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) New York Aquarium and the other to the Indianapolis Zoo.

Cute animal picture of the day: red panda kits

2012-10-04T16:56:00Z

Although called red pandas, these Asian animals are neither pandas nor bears, and despite a resemblance to raccoons they are not closely related to them either. Red pandas (Ailurus fulgens) are actually now thought to be the sole living representative of the taxonomic family, Ailuridae. The rest of their near-relatives are extinct, making red pandas a very important species.

In midst of rhino poaching epidemic, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy has happy problem: too many black rhinos

2012-10-02T18:58:00Z

So far this year, South Africa has lost 430 rhinos to poachers, more than one animal a day. The epidemic of rhino poaching, fueled by demand for black-market powdered rhino horn in Vietnam and China, is decimating rhino species worldwide. In fact, last year saw the official extinction of two rhino subspecies: the Vietnamese rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus), a subspecies of the Javan, and the western black rhino (Diceros bicornis longipes), a subspecies of the black. However there is one place where rhinos still thrive. The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya has found itself with a unique, but happy, problem: they have so many black rhinos, which are considered Critically Endangered by the IUNC Red List, that they need to move some to stop rhino-fights. In other words, their rhino population has hit its limit for the 25,000 hectare (62,000 acre) nonprofit protected area.

Cute animal picture of the day: new gorilla baby and mom

2012-10-02T14:36:00Z

A baby western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) was born recently at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust's (DWCT) to mother, Hlala Kahilli and first-time father, Badongo.

Cute animal picture of the day: caracal kitten in Yemen

2012-10-01T10:55:00Z

The first ever research project on the caracal (Caracal caracal) in Yemen has taken an astounding photo of a mother caracal and her kitten in the Hawf Protected Area. Conducted by largely local researchers, the study is aiming to estimate Yemen's caracal population and better understand the threats to the species.

Penguins face a slippery future

2012-09-26T18:33:00Z

Penguins have spent years fooling us. With their image seemingly every where we turn—entertaining us in animated films, awing us in documentaries, and winking at us in commercials—they have made most of us believe they are doing just fine; the penguin's charming demeanor has lulled us into complacency about their fate. But penguin populations are facing historic declines even as their popularity in human society rises. Overfishing is decimating some of their prey species, climate change is shifting their resources and imperiling their habitat, meanwhile pollution, such as oil spills, are putting even healthy colonies at risk. Now, a young organization, the Global Penguin Society (GPS), is working to save all of the world's 18 penguin species by working with scientists, governments, and local communities.

Cute animal picture of the day: tiger triplets

2012-09-25T19:06:00Z

Last month, the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Bronx Zoo saw the arrival of three Siberian tiger cubs (Panthera tigris altaica). Also known as Amur tigers, they are the world's largest cats with adult males weighing up to 318 kilograms (700 pounds). Most of the population is found in far eastern Russia, however a few animals also survive across the border in China.

Conflict and perseverance: rehabilitating a forgotten park in the Congo

2012-09-19T18:35:00Z

Zebra racing across the yellow-green savannah is an iconic image for Africa, but imagine you're seeing this not in Kenya or South Africa, but in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Welcome to Upemba National Park: once a jewel in the African wildlife crown, this protected area has been decimated by civil war. Now, a new bold initiative by the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), dubbed Forgotten Parks, is working to rehabilitate Upemba after not only decades of conflict but also poaching, neglect, and severe poverty.

Cute picture of the day: armadillo carrying baby

2012-09-19T15:05:00Z

A rare image of a female six-banded armadillo (Euphractus sexcinctus) moving her image was captured by the Embiara Lodge in Brazil's Pantanal.

Pictures: Bolivian park may have the world's highest biodiversity

2012-09-12T19:14:00Z

With over 90 species of bat, 50 species of snake, 300 fish, 12,000 plants, and 11 percent of the world's bird species, Madidi National Park in Bolivia may be the world's most biodiverse place, according to new surveys by the the Bolivian Park Service (SERNAP) with aid from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

NASA image shows why San Francisco is foggy

2012-09-12T14:09:00Z

The short answer to why San Francisco, California is foggy? The Pacific Ocean's marine layer. A new image by NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite shows the marine layer—cool, heavy air produced by a colder ocean surface meeting warmer air—encroaching on the metropolis. Western winds push the marine layer over the city, which brings dense cloud cover over the city, and often engulfs buildings, bridges, and people in fog.

Photos: camera traps capture wildlife bonanza in Borneo forest corridor

2012-09-10T17:56:00Z

Camera traps placed in a corridor connecting two forest fragments have revealed (in stunning visuals) the importance of such linkages for Borneo's imperiled mammals and birds. Over 18 months, researchers with the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) and the Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) have photographed wildlife utilizing the corridor located in the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in Malaysian Borneo.

Picture of the day: baby Grevy's zebra

2012-09-10T13:57:00Z

Not only is the Grevy's zebra (Equus grevyi) the biggest of the three zebra species, it is also the world's largest wild horse species. Once roaming throughout the horn of Africa, today the species is confined to a few populations in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Teetering on the edge: the world's 100 most endangered species (photos)

2012-09-10T12:41:00Z

From the Baishan fir (five left in the world) to the Sumatran rhino (around 250), a new report highlights the world's top 100 most endangered species, according to the the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). The list spans the taxonomic gamut, from fungi (Cryptomyces maximus) to amphibians (the Table Mountain ghost frog) to flowers (the Cayman Islands ghost orchid) and much more (see full list at the end of the article).

Unidentified poodle moth takes Internet by storm

2012-08-29T16:36:00Z

A white moth from Venezuela that bears a striking resemblance to a poodle has become an Internet sensation, after cryptozoologist Karl Shuker posted about the bizarre-looking species on his blog. Photographed in 2009 in Venezulea's Canaima National Park in the Gran Sabana region by zoologist Arthur Anker from Kyrgyzstan, the white, cuddly-looking moth with massive black eyes has yet to be identified and could be a species still unknown to science.

Picture of the day: Yao Ming with baby elephant orphaned by ivory trade

2012-08-27T12:52:00Z

Former NBA Basketball player and Olympian, Yao Ming is taking his first trip through Africa in order to see the on-the-ground impacts of the black-market ivory and rhino trades in East Asia. Ming, who stands 7-and-a-half feet (2.3 meters), has become not only well-known for his athletic prowess, but also his devotion to endangered wildlife.

Animal picture of the day: Critically Endangered macaws

2012-08-23T13:47:00Z

Found in only one location in northern Bolivia, the blue-throated macaw (Ara glaucogularis) is thought to number little more than 100 individuals in the wild. However the species is protected from utter extinction by a much larger captive population.

Pictures of the day: NASA captures stunning images of U.S. wildfires at night

2012-08-21T16:21:00Z

NASA is now able to capture satellite images of wildfires—at night. Using the The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite (S-NPP), which has instruments that are particularly sensitive to light, NASA was able to take images of fires burning nocturnally across the American West in what has been a record year, to date, for fires in the country.

Cute animal pictures of the day: gorilla toddler saved from illegal pet trade

2012-08-20T14:43:00Z

A two-year-old western lowland gorilla female was recently confiscated from a beach restaurant, popular with expats, in Equatorial Guinea.

Animal pictures of the day: booming captive breeding for Mauritius skinks

2012-08-14T16:44:00Z

Three female orange-tailed skinks skinks have produced 16 skink babies in just four months, according to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (DWCT), which is captive breeding the Critically Endangered species. The breeding efforts are all the more remarkable since the females only produce two eggs at a time.

King of the jungle: lions discovered in rainforests

2012-08-13T18:25:00Z

Calling the African lion (Panthera leo) the 'king of the jungle' is usually a misnomer, as the species is almost always found in savannah or dry forests, but recent photos by the Germany-based Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) document lions in Ethiopian rainforests. Taken in the Kafa Biosphere Reserve, the photos show a female lion hiding out in thick montane jungle.

Cute animal pictures of the day: Humboldt penguin chick meets water

2012-08-13T13:47:00Z

Humboldt penguins was found along the western edge of South America in Chile and Argentina. They face a barrage of threats including overfishing, drowning as bycatch, El Nino conditions that affect food availability, and climate change. Significant population declines have led to the species being listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.

Cute animal pictures of the day: smooth-coated otter cubs

2012-08-07T22:44:00Z

Smooth-coated otters (Lutrogale perspicillata) are found from India to Sumatra. They are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List due to destruction of wetlands for hydropower, agriculture, and other development.

Pictures of the day: pangolins saved in Thailand from poachers

2012-08-06T11:47:00Z

Earlier this summer, 110 Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) were rescued by Thai customs officials from poachers in a pickup truck. While the driver of the vehicle escaped, a passenger was arrested, but released after paying a fine of $75,000, reports the NGO FREELAND Foundation.

Cute animal pictures of the day: lynx triplets

2012-07-31T14:22:00Z

With a massive range, spanning from scattered populations in Western Europe to Eastern Siberia, the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is a highly successful mid-sized predator. Listed as Least Concern by the IUCN Red List, the wild cat is now being reintroduced into parts of Western Europe where it was hunted to local extinction.

Cute animal picture of the day: spur-winged lapwing chick

2012-07-30T13:34:00Z

A baby spur-winged lapwing (Vanellus spinosus) hatched recently at the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo. Spur-winged lapwings are found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but some populations breed in the Mediterranean. It is named 'spur-winged' for a spur hidden in its wing, which is uses to fight off predators and defend its chicks.