In a video posted on YouTube on February 6, 2017, a woman fishes a juvenile shark out of the waters of the Fernando de Noronha, an archipelago-cum-national park off Brazil's…
A species has just three options in the face of environmental change: move, adapt or die. As global temperatures rise many species are shifting their ranges, particularly towards the cooler…
Islands possess many unique gifts from evolution. Their isolation from the mainland give them an identity all their own: these small pieces of land are often filled with species that…
Within the seemingly boundless Mysore Plateau of southern India, the newly-discovered Bangalore geckoella (Cyrtodactylus srilekhae) and Rishi Valley geckoella (Cyrtodactylus rishivalleyensis) pace – centred, unhurried, and only prone to flurries…
Indonesian police arrested five fishermen last week for trafficking 38 sea turtles from an important nesting site in the archipelago country’s eastern waters. Six of the turtles were dead. The…
When at risk, go naked. At least that’s the defense strategy of a newly described species of gecko that can shed its scales in the face – or in this…
The legal commercial exotic animal trade is a booming enterprise that ships ornamental fish, mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians around the world. These pets, livestock and other animals can carry…
The Jeypore ground gecko (Geckoella jeyporensis) was first noted and described by a British colonel in 1877, but was not seen again for more than 130 years, and presumed extinct.…
The southern coast of Java — from Pelabuhan Ratu in the west to Puger Beach at the Indonesian island's eastern tip — is an important breeding ground for sea turtles.…
Discovering a new species is always exciting -- it shows that much of our world remains to be explored and described. This year, too, scientists discovered and described several thousand new…
A simple ink pen can conceal two or three freshwater fish larvae. Traffickers switch out the ink cartridge for water, transforming them into tiny tanks used to smuggle even tinier…
Bolivia introduced a general and indefinite ban on the wildlife trade two decades ago, but this measure has failed to stop the trafficking of wild animals. Birds, monkeys, turtles and…
Juan Manuel Carrión recalls that 30 years ago he was one of the first to warn that wildlife trafficking would become a major threat to Ecuador's biodiversity. "A foreigner would…
Melaka - The expanse of sand stretches hundreds of meters in both directions, featureless and flat, its dusty monotony alleviated only by the excavators, trucks and dredgers that dump sand…
Brazil is forging ahead with plans to build a vast hydropower dam complex in the heart of the Amazon that would convert the now remote and wild Tapajós river system…
Bombs and biodiversity can go hand in hand, a new study has found. Military training areas — used for the training of armed forces — can maintain biodiversity and even…
Global average temperatures have risen by about 1°C since 1880. But just one degree of human-induced warming has impacted nearly all aspects of life on our planet, concludes a new…
The world’s most endangered alligator -- the Chinese alligator -- is making a comeback. Scientists have recently photographed baby Chinese alligators swimming in Dongtan Wetland Park in Shanghai. Fewer than 150…
If current trends persist, the population abundance of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish could decline an average of 67 percent by 2020. That’s one of several sobering findings detailed…
Scientists have long proposed that the international trade in furs and skins that took off in the 20th century led to an “empty forest” scenario in the Amazon, but no…
Last week, the government of Belize announced that it would begin oil exploration in the Atlantic-Caribbean waters, very close to the world’s second largest reef system -- the Belize Barrier…
Travel website TripAdvisor, and its booking service Viator, will no longer sell tickets to tourism experiences that allow petting or touching of wild animals, the company announced on October 12.…
BINJAI, Indonesia — A man on the Southeast Asian country's main western island of Sumatra said goodbye to his pet crocodile this week, handing it over to authorities after learning…
It was a sunny afternoon in North Sumatra when Muhamad Syahrial, a worker on a rubber estate in the Indonesian province, spotted a slithering snake among the children at play in…
Since September 24, representatives from more than 180 countries have been gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa for the seventeenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP17) to the Convention…
Data on illegal wildlife trade collected by enforcement agencies is riddled with gaps, concludes a new report by the University of Oxford Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) and World Animal…
One of the world’s rarest tortoises, the ploughshare tortoise, is about to become extinct. Fewer than 100 ploughshare tortoises (Astrochelys yniphora) remain in the wild, conservationists estimate, and continued poaching…
The latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species reports that species like the Giant Panda, Tibetan Antelope, the Bridled Nailtail Wallaby, and the Greater Stick-nest rat have…
On July 26, a Chinese court sentenced seven people to prison terms for smuggling more than 300 rare radiated tortoises. These critically endangered tortoises, popular as pets, were being smuggled…
or much of the year, the painted terrapin’s name doesn’t make much sense. The carapace of this large Asian river turtle is usually an unremarkable grey/brown. But during the breeding…
