Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…
The waters off the Galápagos Islands have nearly 10 times more alien marine invertebrates than previously recorded, a recent study has found. Located 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off Ecuador, the…
Countries should concentrate on outcomes instead of actions when they set aside areas for parks and reserves to shore up the loss of biodiversity, according to a group of scientists.…
The puma family took biologist Mark Elbroch by surprise. They were supposed to be a ways off. But here they were, year-old kittens, bungling the final moments of a baby…
The chief minister of the Malaysian state of Sabah has called on construction crews working on the multi-billion-dollar Pan Borneo Highway project to avoid breaking up the region’s forests and…
Animals around the globe are losing ground to farming and ranching, and their numbers are dwindling at the hands of human hunters. But the question of where to direct precious…
For the first time, researchers have documented a giant spider eating an opossum in the Amazon rainforest. Writing in the February 28th issue of the journal Amphibian & Reptile Conservation,…
The last time scientists officially reported seeing a living Wallace’s giant bee (Megachile pluto), the world’s largest known bee, was in 1981. Now, in Indonesia’s North Maluku archipelago, the giant bee has…
With efforts underway around the globe to develop commercial octopus farming operations, scientists from Australia, Spain, and the U.S. have penned an article, published in the journal Issues in Science…
Research on soft-bodied marine invertebrates such as squid and jellyfish has been slow in coming. Squid are keystone taxa and important food sources for myriad larger species, said T. Aran…
Droughts can transform tropical forests. They kill trees and slow their growth. They also affect microbes that are critical to keeping the forest soil healthy. But termites, better known for…
On the first day of 2019, George, the last known member of the Hawaiian snail species Achatinella apexfulva, died. He was 14 years old. Named after Lonesome George, the last known…
The devastation wrought by hurricanes and cyclones, persistent and growing threats in today’s changing climate, can ripple through communities dependent on harvesting food from the sea, a new study has…
On a midsummer evening earlier this year, Tracy Pham was on a walk along Huntington Beach, California, an outing she usually made to photograph birds. This time, along the way,…
When a vibrant coral reef teeming with life transforms into a barren skeleton in the tropical shallows — as a result of bleaching linked to climate change, for example —…
From lavender to orange, pink to yellow polka dots — researchers have just described 17 stunning new species of sea slugs that live among coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific region.…
Changing climate has already affected where some species live. To determine how changes in temperature and rainfall patterns may affect a given plant or animal, researchers need to know where…
While it might lack the coordinated attacks that lions or wolves can mount against their prey, a species of coral has shown that it, too, can pull together a collaborative…
Scientists have long suspected a relationship between deforestation and some infectious diseases. For instance, the 2014 Ebola crisis has been linked to logging that may have put workers and their…
High up in the treetops of Borneo live “exploding ants,” so named because of their unique defensive behavior. When a potential enemy threatens their colony, these ants kill themselves by…
Monarch butterflies depend on milkweed and its poisonous compounds that are deadly to most other insects. But a new study finds global warming may be making the very plant monarch…
If you’re curious about the natural world, chances are you’ve seen Emily Graslie’s YouTube channel, The Brain Scoop. From wondering about peregrine falcon promiscuity and how owl vomit helps us…
Saproxylic beetles live in and eat dead and decaying wood, and play important ecological roles in nutrient recycling and pollination, and as an important food source for birds and other…
In a first-of-its-kind expedition, a team of more than 100 scientists and students have surveyed the largely unexplored Penang Hill in the Malaysian state of Penang. The landscape of rolling…
While walking through the forests of Guyana's Potaro Plateau one night in 2014, herpetologist Andrew Snyder noticed a flash of bright cobalt blue peeking out of hole in a rotting…
The changes wrought by climate change on the conditions that support life on Earth force some plants and animals into different ranges. To address this issue, certain conservation strategies aim…
Researchers have developed a new acoustic monitoring method to measure bees’ productivity to facilitate management and response to population decline.
Australian Mick Fanning is a three-time world champion surfer, and now he has another accolade to his name: an eponymous spider species. Pisauridae mickfanningi is a newly discovered species of…
A two-week expedition in Australia's Cape York Peninsula has uncovered 50 new species of spiders. The expedition, which identified spiders ranging from tarantulas as big as a human face to ant-mimicking…
The Census of Marine Life (CoML), a 10-year international effort to determine the diversity of life found in Earth’s oceans, described over 1 million species, ranging from single-celled microbes to…