On Feb. 14, 2018, a group of scientists led by Arum Setiawan recognized a rather odd-looking baby rabbit for sale on a WhatsApp group that they had infiltrated in Indonesia.…
For the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper, a tiny shorebird that makes an 8,000-kilometer (5,000-mile) migration each year, wetlands are vital stopover points. To boost the small bird’s population, the Rainforest…
This may sound familiar: you’re sitting at home, absorbed in your daily activities, when THUD; a bird crashes into your window. You jump, or at least look up, and feel…
The Isha Foundation, a spiritual organization headquartered in south India, is taking on the cause of revitalizing India’s imperiled rivers. With government and public support, it says it has successfully…
Gurney’s pitta may be running out of time. The tiny, vibrantly colored bird, first described from the Tanintharyi region of Myanmar in 1875, was thought to have gone extinct when…
Nopporn Nontapa had always wanted to take care of forests, but this dream was initially shattered when the Thai government rejected his application for a forestry job. Thirty years later,…
Over the past decade, the world has begun to realize that microscopic plastic particles infest our lakes, our seas, and even our bodies. A new study reveals that even the…
What do a helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), a narwhal (Monodon monoceros), and a tiger (Panthera tigris) have in common? Find your way to the right message board and you’ll see…
This past summer, the world was gripped by the flames that tore through the Amazon rainforest and released huge volumes of trapped carbon dioxide in the process. Half a world…
In the Czech Republic, horses have become the knights in shining armor. A study published in the Journal for Nature Conservation suggests that returning feral horses to grasslands in Podyjí…
Indonesia and Malaysia have long occupied the spotlight for oil palm plantations and their adverse consequences, including deforestation, habitat loss, climate change, and struggles with indigenous and local people. But…
The tenkile, or Scott’s tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus scottae), doesn’t bounce exactly — more of an awkward hop — but the animal is climbing its way back from the edge of…
Pines, firs, junipers, cedars — the world’s magnificent conifers have adapted to survive in unique landscapes and adverse environments, from snowy mountains and drought-ridden lowlands, to small, lonely islands. But…
As oil palm plantations expand across the world, razing swaths of tropical rainforests in their path, fears about their impact on the environment have also grown. In the plantations of…
In a recently published study, Canadian researchers monitored the fine-scale movements of GPS-tagged fishers (Pekania pennanti), a member of the weasel family, across a terrain of over 700 protected areas…
In 1981, a team of scientists led by zoologist Shyamrup Biswas discovered the Namdapha flying squirrel (Biswamoyopterus biswasi) in the ironwood jungles of Arunachal Pradesh state, India. Little did they…
With a reported top speed of 74 kilometers per hour (46 miles per hour), the shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) is one of the fastest creatures in the sea. It can…
As you explore the high altitudes of Luzon Island in the Philippines, you’ll encounter plenty of earthworms. There’s an abundance of them. So the ecosystem did exactly what nature does…
While wandering through northwestern Myanmar in 2016, a group of scientists stumbled on hundreds of huge tracks in the ground. According to a new paper in the journal Mammalia, these…
A unique island ecosystem and culture lying 270 kilometers (170 miles) off Papua New Guinea is once more in the crosshairs. Over the past decade, Woodlark Islanders have defended their…
On a July day in 2014, biologists Henri Silegowa and Jean Pierre Kapale were buying rice in Bafundo, a village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, when they noticed…
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…
Climate change has widely reported negative consequences, including exacerbating severe weather patterns, harming wildlife and potentially worsening human conflict and migration. In an attempt to minimize these planetary changes, the…
BUKIT BAKA BUKIT RAYA NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia -- In the heart of Indonesian Borneo, a dwindling population of orangutans is getting a new lease on life thanks to a group of…
When a mining company came to exploit an old-growth cloud forest near Edicson Parra’s hometown of Fusagasuga in Colombia, he decided to take action. He rallied as many relatives and…
While we fumble and crash without any light, bats zipping away in the dark, effortlessly skirting obstacles and pouncing on prey, seem magical. To better understand this ability of bats…
Many hundreds of years ago, the first Polynesian boats arrived on the shores of what is now known as New Zealand. In the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean, the…
Weeks after the deadly cyclone Idai tore through Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, the human toll is still being tallied. Entire communities remain submerged, more than a thousand people lost their…
Ritidian, a cliff-top refuge on the island of Guam, is one of the last places in the Pacific where you can find the mossy pillars and plunging crevices of a…
The ‘landscape of fear’ is not a new term among biologists. From the now-iconic study of how elk and bison gradually adjusted their vigilance levels after wolves were reintroduced into…