From tiny, jewel-toned metallic bees to cartoonish and lumbering bumblebees, the United States is home to more than 4,000 native and 55 non-native bee species. Now, scientists have announced a…
Frogs usually land on their feet, but one group of tiny toadlets from Brazil are so small they can’t stick a landing. Pumpkin toadlets (Brachycephalus spp.) are teensy, about the…
Plants build themselves from sunlight, water, and soil. And, as it turns out, what crops “eat” can influence the nutrients on our own plates. A recent study, published in the…
A California court has ruled that state legislation on endangered species can apply to invertebrates. The decision this week by the Third District Court of Appeal means insects, including four endangered native…
The rainforest is dense with sound. Like musicians in an orchestra, each animal plays a part, occupying its own “acoustic niche” in both frequency and time. But repeated fires are…
Seven grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today, on May 25. Known as the Green Nobel Prize, the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from each of…
In the world’s largest rainforest, wildlife crawls, hops, flies and prowls through every nook and cranny. Most animals are adept at hiding from humans, though, so finding them can be…
Satellites have detected forest clearing within Triunfo do Xingu this year, an area that’s supposed to be a legally protected swath of Amazon rainforest in Brazil’s northern state of Pará.…
The Amazon gets a lot of attention, but there’s another massive forest in South America: the Gran Chaco. This hot, dry forest stretches across Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina, covering 87…
Conservation has a price tag, but the costs are rarely reported. This lack of transparency makes it difficult for people to decide on the most cost-effective methods to conserve wildlife…
President Joe Biden signed an executive order today aimed at protecting old-growth forests on federal lands across the United States. Federal agencies are directed to define, inventory, and better protect…
Trees and soils keep a lot of carbon trapped in the forest, pulling it from the atmosphere, where it can do more harm than good. In fact, roughly 30% of…
A frog that looks like chocolate, a resplendent rainbow fish, and 14 Sulawesi shrews were added to a growing list of “new to science” species over the past few months.…
When Milan Klöwer spoke to Mongabay, he was fresh off the train in Germany. As a postdoctoral researcher and climate scientist at the University of Oxford, Klöwer said he does…
The Amazon Rainforest is resilient: the largest rainforest on the planet has been around for at least 55 million years, surviving repeated ice ages and warming. But human impacts, combined…
As more people are born onto this great green planet, the demand for food grows. Feeding the nearly 8 billion of us here today is a challenge, not only because…
Out in the azure waters and colorful corals of the Maldives, a resplendent, rainbow-hued fish has become the first to be named and described by a Maldivian researcher. New to…
“When we caught it, we all just looked at it and said, ‘You look ridiculous. Look how big your nose leaf is,’” Jon Flanders, director of endangered species interventions at…
A photo of an odd-looking amphibian drew attention on Twitter last week, where it was described as a “smooth lil fella”, compared to a melted tootsie roll candy, and likened…
Eagles, regarded by some as a symbol for American freedom, are being poisoned by lead from ammunition. Scientists sampled the blood from 1,210 living and dead bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)…
Amid the smog, butterflies, bees and other insects are having a hard time smelling the flowers they so dutifully pollinate. Researchers found that common, ground-level air pollutants such as nitrogen…
Botanist Álvaro Pérez didn’t expect to discover a new species of magnolia while hiking through Ecuador’s Canandé Reserve. He said it was the enormous, unique fruit that tipped him off.…
After reaching a historic low, the population of monarch butterflies overwintering in California has increased a hundredfold, according to the annual Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count. More than 247,000 butterflies were…
Animals that eat fruit and spread the seeds in their droppings offer an all-inclusive transportation service for half the world’s flora. But as more seed-dispersing birds and mammals die off…
Up in the trees of a misty sky island, folded into the foliage, a tiny rainfrog bears the name of a climate giant. The new-to-science species, found on a mountain…
When researchers found a begonia plant twice as tall as a person, they knew they had something extraordinary. Of the more than 2,000 known begonia species, most are the size…
Chances are, if you live in North America, you’ve eaten corn from the Corn Belt, a region in the United States Midwest that produces 75% of U.S. corn. Scientists have…
For the Amazon, 2021 was yet another year under the pandemic where the onslaught against nature never seemed to end. Deforestation continues, surging at year’s end Deforestation continued in the…
With humans sending probes to Mars and the sun, one might think we’ve already explored the full extent of our own planet. But scientists say we’ve only begun to find…
Under a midnight summer sun, the Inari Sámi gather reindeer. New calves, born just months before, are given a distinctive earmark by the Indigenous herders and then released to graze…
