The number of fires burning in standing Amazon rainforest spiked dramatically in recent weeks, threatening the forest’s biodiversity — a richness of flora and fauna not adapted to withstand the…
For six decades, 28 crickets from the Philippines have been stored in natural history collections at a U.S. museum, unidentified. Now, they finally have names, thanks to a new study.…
In an episode of the Netflix dystopian sci-fi show “Black Mirror,” artificial bees have been deployed to pollinate the world’s plants after a massive pollinator extinction. A great idea, until…
Filipino lepidopterist Jade Aster T. Badon is accustomed to traveling to some of the remotest parts of the Philippines in search of new butterfly species. In August 2019, he made…
KURUNEGALA, Sri Lanka -- With the COVID-19 pandemic contained following a strict two-month lockdown, Sri Lanka relaxed restrictions in late May 2020. But now, several farming communities are facing a…
MANILA — It took a closer look at the male jumping spiders’ reproductive organ – the shape of it, to be precise — for two Filipino scientists to declare three…
The giant panda, tiny tamaraw buffalo, riverine rabbit and Iberian lynx all have something in common: they join a growing list of animals on the brink of extinction. A newly…
Scientists, agricultural officers and farmers are struggling to protect crops from a fresh wave of desert locusts. Earlier swarms overran the Horn of Africa region in December 2019, and the…
The side of the road isn’t usually thought of as ideal habitat. But for insects, such as butterflies and their caterpillars, the long expanses of land along roads and utility…
As climate change impact dramatically alters the world we live in, the biodiversity around us is also experiencing rapid and alarming changes. For dragonflies and damselflies (odonates), having an amphibious…
The famed entomologist Terry L. Erwin, a prolific scholar who revolutionized the scientific understanding of the diversity of life on Earth and set up some of the world’s first global…
Insects touch nearly every corner of life on this planet, filling endless functional roles and providing services too vast to name — and they are disappearing. According to the largest…
Up in the cool Mexican mountains, countless monarch butterflies gather together for the winter. When the sun warms their wings to just the right temperature, the mass of monarchs take…
Let’s be honest: many conservationists may start their careers with big ambitions. But as they, and their careers, age, those ambitions — especially in light of the Anthropocene — understandably…
LIMURU, Kenya — In the lush, rolling highlands of Limuru in central Kenya lies a farm like few others. From the outside, it could be growing anything in its rows…
The number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico is down by more than half this year, according to new survey results. The National Commission of Protected Natural Areas of Mexico,…
Scientists have uncovered alarming declines in caterpillar diversity and their parasites across 22 years of monitoring in a protected forest in Costa Rica. In their study, published in Scientific Reports,…
Dung beetle species populations are moving toward collapse in parts of the Brazilian Amazon apparently due to climate change-driven drought, fires, and other human disturbances.
Researchers have described a new species of praying mantis from Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, adding to the 250 known mantis species native to the country.
Monarch butterfly populations are at a critical low, according to the annual Western Monarch Count in California. In the fall and winter, western monarchs (Danaus plexippus plexippus) stop to roost…
Researchers have discovered 15 new wasp species in lowland Amazon rainforests and Andean cloud forests that parasitize spiders in a “complex way.” The discoveries were made by a research group…
Homero Gómez González took a circuitous path to becoming an advocate for butterflies. After strongly opposing the creation of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, he became one of its most…
ACCRA — “Beginning now, the full-scale exploitation of Ghanaian bauxite resources will commence,” Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said last June. “I am satisfied by what I have been…
MASAKA, Uganda — “The harvest season was good when the forests were not yet cut down, but now they don’t have any food,” says John Mulindwa, 58, sitting behind a…
On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we speak with Laurel Symes, a biologist who is using bioacoustics to study tropical katydids in Central America. Listen here: Laurel Symes…
LOC NINH DISTRICT, Vietnam — A spade strikes the bone-dry Cambodian dirt with a crunch, and the hunt is on. Chem Wai, a lanky, deeply tanned 53-year-old former soldier, has…
The discovery of a new-to-science species is always an awe-inspiring bit of news, filling us with hope. This year, researchers introduced us to several such species. Some were the result…
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — The upstart deforestation over the past year and a half that's sidling up to Pochon Lili’s land has him worried. "As a landowner, I'm…
Forty percent of samples collected from 116 tapirs in a Cerrado study were poisoned with 13 toxic residues including 9 insecticides and herbicides, plus 4 heavy metals: report.
British actor Idris Elba has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and five Primetime Emmy Awards in addition to being named one of the "Sexiest Men Alive." Now he’s…
