Australia News

New research finds that the mass bleaching event that led to the death of 30 percent of shallow-water corals on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 also had a substantial…

Few plants capture the imagination quite like orchids. When orchid fever gripped England in the early 1800s, wealthy aristocrats sent out orchid hunters to forests around the world in search…

Prior to the back-to-back bleaching events that hit the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017, the UNESCO World Heritage Site had suffered two other bouts of extensive bleaching in…

A team of biologists researching sea snakes in the mining town of Weipa in Australia’s remote Cape York Peninsula have accidentally discovered a venomous snake that’s new to science. The black-and-white…

Mangroves, the dense tangled forests that buffer land from sea in many coastal areas of the tropics, are renowned for their ability to store carbon and help fight climate change.…

JAKARTA — Puan, the world’s oldest living Sumatran orangutan, has died at an Australian zoo after a lifetime spent in service to the conservation of the critically endangered species. Officials…

Coral reef conservation efforts will soon get a major boost with a global monitoring system that will detect physical changes in coral cover at high resolution on a daily basis,…

The antechinus is a strange little mouse-like creature that endures two to three weeks of marathon mating sessions that leave the male so exhausted that it ultimately dies. But suicidal…

Fish talk. They boom, buzz, croak, and chatter. They even create a dawn chorus similar to birds. Shrimp vocalize too, by snapping and popping. A reef’s soundscape—the variety of sounds…

The Australian Government has announced more than 500 million Australian dollars ($379 million) in funding to protect the Great Barrier Reef. This "represents the single largest investment for reef conservation and…

Some strategies for protecting forests and wildlife, such as protected areas and community forestry, have become immensely popular around the world. But do these conservation strategies truly achieve the objectives…

Carving up rainforests to make room for farming, ranching and other uses induces a host of changes into the ecosystem, many of which scientists are only just beginning to understand.…

Sharks are in trouble worldwide, with one study estimating that people kill up to 100 million of them each year through illegal fishing, shark finning, and bycatch. The negative public…

Australia is known for protecting its sea life in a 3.3 million square kilometer (1.3 million square mile) system of marine parks that covers 36 percent of the country’s oceans.…

Scientists have just described a new species of “pygmy squid” the size of a thumbnail. The tiny marine creature is not a true squid, though. Rather, it belongs to a group…

Wildlife DJ Ben Mirin has teamed up with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Cornell Hip Hop Collection on a new online game that is sure to entrance nature…

Why are scientists turning to aerial images to monitor the health of ecosystems found beneath the ocean’s surface? Coral reefs support millions of species ranging from single-celled algae to sharks…

Spiders are one of the most ubiquitous creatures on Earth, found on every continent except Antarctica. Whether in underground caves in the Amazon or the icy climes of Mount Everest,…

Jarrod Hodgson is one of very few scientists who have used rubber ducks as part of their Ph.D. research. Hodgson and colleagues at the University of Adelaide compared the accuracy…

Divers have discovered a new population of what is considered to be one of the world’s rarest fish. Until recently, scientists knew of only one tiny population of about 20…

Animals that live in trees in the tropics are likely to be better at crossing mountains and dealing with climate change compared to ground-dwelling animals, a new study published in…

Some birds in Australia use smoldering sticks to spread wildfires and flush out smaller birds, insects, frogs and other prey, according to a recent study published in the Journal of…

Is Australia’s Great Barrier Reef losing its male sea turtles? A new study has found that green sea turtle hatchlings in one of the world’s largest colonies are increasingly female,…

Vast swaths of the world’s oceans are turning into “dead zones” as global warming and pollution strips them of oxygen, threatening marine life on a massive scale, a new study…

Coral bleaching has accelerated to a clip at which established reefs can no longer keep up, reports a team of scientists Thursday in the journal Science. Severe bleaching can blot…

Between America's abandonment of leadership on conservation and environmental policy, Brazil's backtracking on forest conservation, massive forest fires worldwide, and the revelation of a sharp increase in global forest loss…

The Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) of Sumatra is both the world’s newest known great ape species and its most threatened, after being officially categorized this week as “Critically Endangered,” or…

In Bonn, Trump administration delegation provides cover for developed nations to stall financing for climate adaptation and loss for world’s most impacted developing nations.

The Australian state of Queensland is losing tree cover at the fastest rate in more than a decade, according to a government study released in September. “It’s even worse than…

Coral reefs support 25% of the world’s marine species, protect shorelines, support fisheries, and encourage eco-tourism—their global economic value is over US $30 billion per year. A new film, “Chasing…