COLOMBO — The Sinharaja Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site is a large complex of lowland wilderness that is largely fragmented due to human activity. Walankanda and Viharakanda are…
KATHMANDU – Thousands of pilgrims from Nepal and India visit a garden in Siraha in eastern Nepal on the first day of the Nepali New Year (around the second week…
With humans sending probes to Mars and the sun, one might think we’ve already explored the full extent of our own planet. But scientists say we’ve only begun to find…
MINDANAO, Philippines — Rising 2,064 meters, or nearly 6,800 feet, above sea level, Mount Busa is the tallest peak in the Philippines’ Sarangani province and home to one of the…
On an expedition in the tepuis, or “sprouting rock,” landscape of the Guiana Highlands in South America, Mateusz Wrazidlo snapped a photo of an orchid he had never seen before.…
In this well-trodden world, the discovery of a species new to science is an exciting event, a glimmer of the uncharted riches of biodiversity still hidden around the globe. “Every…
An expedition into the cloud forests of the Bolivian Andes has uncovered 20 species new to science, including a frog that may be the smallest in the Andes, a new…
A new tiny orchid species with fiery orange flowers has been discovered on a mountain peak in the northern Philippines’ Cordilleras range. The wild orchid species was named Dendrochilum ignisiflorum…
COLOMBO — A rare new orchid described from a tropical lowland rainforest in Sri Lanka now bears the name of two of the island’s pioneering forest ecologists. A new paper…
If you’re looking to buy orchids from plant markets in southern China, chances are you’ll find plenty of orchids that have been collected from the wild, sometimes illegally. And these…
When Kenji Suetsugu is out looking for plants in Japan’s forests, he's not looking for the usual green ones. Instead, on dark forest floors, where little light penetrates, Suetsugu painstakingly…
From Japan’s Amami-Oshima and Tokunoshima islands, researchers have described a new-to-science species of orchid that produces dark brown flowers that likely never bloom. Kenji Suetsugu of the Kobe University Graduate…
After two years of severe drought, lacking electricity and water, with a $500 annual budget, the Botanical Garden of Caracas struggles valiantly to protect its precious collection.
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…
Reports of illegal trafficking in elephant ivory or rhino horn abound, but plants are actually more frequent victims of the illicit trade than wildlife. In fact, roughly 30,000 of the…
Scientists have discovered a new species of orchid in the Amazonian rainforests of Peru. SERNANP, Peru’s national parks service, announced that the new species was discovered on Bella Durmiente mountain,…
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…
When tropical forests are felled and converted into land for oil palm or rubber plantations, it’s easy to think of the orangutans or the tigers that may lose their lives…
BOGOTA, Colombia - In March 2000, two Englishmen in their early twenties, Tom Hart Dyke and his friend Paul Winder, decided to trek through the Darién Gap in the war-torn…
On the Japanese island of Kuroshima, a scientist has discovered a new species of plant that does not use photosynthesis to derive its nutrition. It steals nutrients from fungi instead. The plant…
In the forests of southern Colombia, scientists have discovered a new species of a reddish-violet orchid that is already on the verge of extinction. Researchers have named the new orchid…
Last week, the Australian government added 49 species of plants and animals to its Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) list of threatened and endangered species. The new…
Rainforest Trust holds Halloween drive to raise $28,000 towards purchase of 652 acres of Chocó forest Deep in the dark, cool forests of Ecuador live strange and mysterious organisms. Some…
Orchids indicate ecosystem health, can be used to predict extinction of other species, manage forests High in a humid tropical forest in the Sierra de Cayey, Puerto Rico, Benjamin Crain…
Sazima's tarantula: one of the top ten new species discovered in 2011 according to the annual list by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. Photo by:…
