Recent studies of Twitter posts have shown that people can be quick to shrug off extreme weather as normal. However, researchers are also finding that some wildlife — maybe better…
Explorer Robert Swan is the first person to walk to both the North and South Poles unassisted. Those expeditions inspired him to dedicate his life advocating for the protection of…
For decades, sea ice in Antarctica has increased while that in the Arctic has declined drastically. But in a puzzling turn of events, Antarctic sea ice has been decreasing rapidly…
Feeding aquatic sponges could provide biologists with unexpected underwater data collection assistance. Sponges (phylum Porifera) are immobile aquatic animals that eat by filtering out food particles from the water around…
In the extremely cold, seemingly barren Antarctic continent, poop powers life. Literally. Where colonies of penguins and elephant seals aggregate, their droppings, rich in nitrogen, enrich the soil and support…
Antarctica’s second-largest colony of emperor penguins has likely not produced any chicks over the last three years, a new study has found. Until recently, the emperor penguin colony at Halley…
For years, there have been stories and photographs of “odd-looking” killer whales lurking in some of the roughest parts of the sub-Antarctic seas. They’ve been spotted by fishermen on passing…
Baby krill living around Antarctica are struggling to cope with rising sea temperatures, new research suggests. The study, published online Jan. 21 in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that…
Antarctica is losing ice at a rate that’s about six times faster than in the late 1970s, and that’s pushed up the global sea level by around 14 millimeters (0.55…
Everyone loves camera trap photos. Remotely installed cameras triggered by motion or heat of a passing person or animal, have helped research projects document the occurrence of species or describe…
On this episode we get an update direct from Antarctica’s McMurdo Station about ongoing work to document emperor penguin populations, an important indicator species of the Southern Ocean’s health. Listen…
The world’s largest colony of king penguins has declined drastically by nearly 90 percent, a new study has found. The massive king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) colony on the remote island…
A majority of krill fishing companies have announced their commitment to voluntarily stop harvesting the tiny crustaceans from vast areas of the Antarctic Peninsula, including around important breeding penguin colonies. The…
In a counterintuitive surprise, a new study finds that fish species evolve more than twice as rapidly at the poles than in the tropics. The reason why isn’t currently known.
Cameras add monitoring power Field data collection is challenging in the best of conditions, and in an environment as harsh as Antarctica, large-scale, long-term field monitoring studies are rare. To…
In July of last year, a 5,800-square-kilometer (2,239-square-mile) block of ice broke off of the Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica and fell into the Southern Ocean. The newly created iceberg…
The remote island of South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean has finally been declared free of invasive rats and mice in the world’s largest-ever rodent eradication effort. A monitoring…
Populations of humpback whales living in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica could be rebounding, new research suggests. During the late 19th and early 20th century, commercial whalers hunted humpback whales…
In Antarctica, it’s usually the whales, seals and penguins that take the spotlight, but a new report focuses on an animal further down the food chain: the Antarctic krill (Euphausia…
Every Antarctic summer between December and January, a group of biologists heads out into the vast wilderness. They do not look for the giant whales or the emperor penguins that…
Scientists have discovered a 'supercolony' of Adélie penguins in Antarctica's remote Danger Islands, raising hopes that the bird's population isn't declining as rapidly as previously thought. The discovery, which is…
Scientists in Antarctica recently tested a novel technique to measure the body size and mass of wildlife — aerial photography. The method, used on leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx), allows scientists…
You can now see the Antarctic from a minke whale’s point of view. For the very first time, scientists in Antarctica have attached a “whale cam” to the back of…
1. U.S. drops out of Paris In our 2015 ocean top 10 list, we celebrated the adoption of the Paris Agreement as a monumental achievement for slowing the warming, acidification…
On Wednesday, all eyes were on Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf as a long-awaited one-trillion tonne iceberg, the size of the U.S. state of Delaware, was found to have finally…
Picture the blue whale, the largest known animal ever to have lived. This endangered mammal can grow up to 30 metres (about 98 feet) and weigh 173 tonnes; it has…
As always, Mongabay covered a mix of environmental stories this year. While some species went extinct, several new species were discovered. Some forests were wiped out, but others were restored. Below, we take a look…
Water and air temperatures and shifts in wind patterns conspired to hold down sea ice extent, setting record lows for the month of November in both the Arctic and the…
Last week, 24 countries and the European Union unanimously agreed to create the world’s largest marine protected area off Antarctica. The deal was brokered at the meeting of the Commission…
Antarctic minke whale caught be Japanese vessel, the Yushin Maru, in 2008. Photo by: Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. Last year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that…
