Species News

Gibbons, hornbills, komodo dragons and even Sumatran orangutans — these are just a few of the animals once kept illegally behind bars at a small zoo in North Sumatra, Indonesia.…

Luke Mahler didn’t exactly set out to study lizards that could breathe underwater. But when he and fellow scientist Rich Glor were out on a research expedition in Haiti in…

Ten days ago, Sebastian di Martino was kayaking along the Bermejo River in Argentina’s Impenetrable National Park when he heard a splash. He looked around and saw a brown-furred animal…

Aina Randriarisoa found a perch for Labramia ambondrombeensis on the taxonomical tree of life. She helped identify the tree from its genetic signature, the arrangement of its leaves, the shape…

A tropical continental island located close to the Indian subcontinent, endemic fauna and flora form an integral part of Sri Lanka’s rich biodiversity. The island’s biodiversity is globally recognized for…

JAKARTA — To improve ecosystem management in Borneo, look at the population trends of key bird species on the island, researchers say. The scientists from the Center for International Forestry…

Sea sponges don’t move. At least, that’s what a lot of people used to think about these aquatic invertebrates. But a new study has upended this assumption, and pushed and…

The team works quickly. As soon as a rhino is safely sedated, they motor up a chainsaw and begin shearing off the animal’s signature horns. White flakes of keratin fly…

Shoes, watches, wallets and bags — anything made from exotic reptile skins — were plucked from the shelves in Selfridges, a high-end department store in the U.K., in February 2019.…

Endemic species face a greater risk of going extinct because of climate change than native or introduced species, a recent study in Biological Conservation has found. Species that are exclusive…

It’s been called a “river monster,” and for good reason. The arapaima (Arapaima gigas) is a freshwater fish that can grow longer than a horse and weigh up to 200…

In 2012, researchers described a teensy, aspirin-sized chameleon, Brookesia nana, from a thin slice of rainforest in northern Madagascar. The species, which experts believe is the smallest reptile in the world, grabbed plenty…

In some parts of Hawaiʻi, the ocean is a blue canvas streaked with light-hued threads that curve and meander across the surface. These threads, called “surface slicks” or “bio slicks,”…

A recorder is fastened to a tree, its microphone pointed downward. It captures a fusion of sound: the high-pitched buzz of cicadas, bird calls, and also the rumbling of a…

COLOMBO — Sixteen-year-old Pasindu Dilshan from Padukka, a small town in Sri Lanka’s Western province, has always been fascinated by the study of nature. When the COVID-19 lockdown left him…

The kitefin shark is a guitar-sized creature with brownish-black skin and large, gaping eyes. But there is more to this shark than initially meets the eye: in the dark, it will…

In 1993, a lone stream frog was discovered once but never found again in the wild. Herpetologists thought the frog species went extinct before it could be studied. Then, last…

Three years ago, Panji Gusti Akbar was flipping through the pages of Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago when he came across a photo of a bird with brown wings and…

MANILA — The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 spewed enough volcanic ash into the atmosphere to cool the world. In the immediate vicinity of the volcano,…

Pangolins, orchids and chameleons — these are just a few species that are regularly traded in local and international wildlife markets, contributing to a global industry worth billions of dollars…

Becca Brunner was standing chest-deep in an Ecuadoran rainforest stream, holding up audio equipment as she recorded the high-pitched call of an elusive glass frog. But then she encountered something…

DIANA REGION, Madagascar — With the sun still low in the sky, my taxi boat pulled up to a floating wooden pontoon in the bustling port of Ankify in northwestern…

On a calm, cloudy morning in May 2019, a lookout on a research vessel lowered his binoculars and shouted, “Beaked whales! Beaked whales!” As Massimiliano Rosso, one of the scientists…

An ocelot, a spotted and striped carnivore twice the size of a house cat, had just stopped at a water hole for a drink. But something was waiting for him:…

Books have provided a welcome refuge in 2020. The global pandemic has, in many cases, turned even routine travel into a risk not worth taking, and it has left many…

When a trio of beaked whales surfaced off Mexico’s Pacific coast, researchers thought they’d found the elusive Perrin’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon perrini), an endangered species that’s never been officially sighted…

For years, Anthony Caere, an anti-poaching pilot at Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), peered through the windows of his helicopter to see a landscape mostly…

A few months after the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 began to pop up in the U.S., a piece of news came out of the Bronx Zoo in New York…

Europe is failing to protect its oceans, despite having policies in place to safeguard its marine environment, according to a report published by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) on…

In 2016, conservation biologist Holly O’Donnell was striding through the Amazon rainforest in southwestern Peru, recording every mammal she saw or heard while performing a line transect survey for the…