Panthera: At least 500 jaguars lost their lives or habitat in Amazon fires
The fires ravaging the Amazon forest in Brazil and Bolivia this year have burned key habitats of at least 500 adult, resident jaguars as of Sept. 17, rendering them dead…
Articles by Shreya Dasgupta
Shreya is a science and environmental writer based in India. A former wildlife researcher, she writes about animals, conservation, biology, people and places. Her work has appeared in BBC Earth, New Scientist, Ensia, The Scientist, The Guardian and others. She lives in Bangalore with her husband and cat.
‘Radically changing’ a rare Mauritian plant’s story: Q&A with ecologist Prishnee Bissessur
The plant Roussea simplex, usually referred to by its scientific name, is one of a kind. It grows only in the mountains of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius; it’s…
Nail paint helps researchers estimate numbers of rare Cuban bat species
One of the world’s rarest bats, the Cuban greater funnel-eared bat, is known from just a single remote cave in the island’s west. The bat was in fact thought to…
New monkey species found in Amazon forest area that’s fast disappearing
From an area of southern Amazonia, where forests are rapidly being cut for gold mining, agriculture, cattle pastures, and construction of dams, researchers have described a species of marmoset that’s…
‘Holy grail’: Nest of extremely rare bird captured on video in Russia
In June this year, researchers surveying a remote part of the Russian Far East finally managed to find what they had been looking for: a Nordmann’s greenshank sitting on a…
Humans have been transforming Earth for thousands of years, study says
Look around, and you’ll see examples of how we’ve modified our planet’s land surface: roads, buildings, farms, plantations. But is the widespread human impact on Earth a modern occurrence? No,…
Wild orchid trade in China is huge, overlooked and ‘devastating,’ study finds
If you’re looking to buy orchids from plant markets in southern China, chances are you’ll find plenty of orchids that have been collected from the wild, sometimes illegally. And these…
Mysterious plants that thrive in darkness, steal food: Q&A with botanist Kenji Suetsugu
When Kenji Suetsugu is out looking for plants in Japan’s forests, he's not looking for the usual green ones. Instead, on dark forest floors, where little light penetrates, Suetsugu painstakingly…
Protecting the strange sea pangolin and other animals: Q&A with deep sea biologist Chong Chen
When Chong Chen was in high school, he came across a paper published in 2003 that described a peculiar species of snail from the Indian Ocean, thousands of feet below…
Some turtle embryos can influence their own sex, study finds
The sex of some turtle species is influenced not by genes but by the temperatures they experience in the nest. Eggs incubated at cooler temperatures develop into males, while those…
‘Extremely rare’ fossil tooth of hamster-sized monkey found in Peru
In 2016, researchers digging along the Río Alto Madre de Dios in the Peruvian Amazon uncovered hundreds of fossils of rodents, bats and other animals. Among the fossils was an…
Where did the birds go?: Q&A with river tern researcher Bosco Chan
The case of the river tern is a curious one. The medium-sized gray bird with a forked tail, a black cap and a white belly is quite common along rivers…
Building a global inventory of plants: Q&A with botanist Patrick Weigelt
For more than 200 years, naturalists, adventurers, explorers and plant hunters have navigated the Earth, documenting the planet’s rich, unique plant life in journal pages, books and herbaria. From hard…
From over 100,000 species assessments in IUCN update, zero improvements
From rays to deep-sea snails, primates to rosewood trees, the latest IUCN Red List update paints a gloomy picture for our world’s species. The update, which includes assessments of 105,732…
Study finds lemurs in degraded Madagascar forest skinny and stunted
An iconic yet critically endangered species of lemur living in heavily degraded forests in Madagascar appears to be in poor health, a recent study has found. The study’s lead author,…
Deadly virus detected in wild frog populations in Brazil
In November 2017, Joice Ruggeri and her colleagues came upon a pond with several dead tadpoles and a few dead fish in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in…
Chance rescue turns out to be first record of elusive tortoise species in India
It was a chance encounter. But it turned Bunty Tao's life around. In mid-June, a group of boys were heading back from a fishing trip to a forest near the…
Great Indian bustard eggs being collected to kick-start captive breeding
The great Indian bustard has been in deep trouble for a while. Once found across India’s grasslands and dry landscapes, the critically endangered bird is now down to just 160-odd…
Belize to protect critical wildlife corridor that’s home to jaguars and more
In a boost to jaguars and other iconic wildlife of Central America, the government of Belize has approved a proposal to protect the Maya Forest Corridor, a key stretch of…
All that glitters: Cameras spot Asian golden cat in more than one shade
When Sahil Nijhawan and his colleagues placed cameras across the Dibang Valley in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh in 2014 and 2015, they hoped to learn about the…
Special series
Endangered environmentalists
- ‘Weird’ police probe rules Indonesian activist died in drink-driving crash
- Suspicions of murder in death of Indonesian environmental activist
- Oil palm, cattle and coca take a toll on Colombia’s indigenous Jiw
Indonesias forest guardians
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
- On the island of Java, a social forestry scheme creates jobs at home
Amazon infrastructure
- Yanomami Amazon reserve invaded by 20,000 miners; Bolsonaro fails to act
- Amazon infrastructure puts 68% of indigenous lands / protected areas at risk: report
- Amazon fish kill at Sinop spotlights risk from 80+ Tapajós basin dams
Asian rhinos
- For India’s flood-hit rhinos, refuge depends increasingly on humans
- Sumatra survey looks to identify at-risk rhinos for captive breeding
- Bid to breed Sumatran rhino is handicapped by bureaucratic ‘quibbling’
