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A Djouroutou chimpanzee cracks open a panda nut on a wooden anvil. Photo credit: Liran Samuni, Taï Chimpanzee Project

Chimpanzee nut cracking leaves telltale marks on stones, providing clues to human evolution

Kate Hull 13 Dec 2022
Red ants forming chains.

How many ants live on Earth? At least 20 quadrillion, scientists say

Shannon Banks 12 Dec 2022
Two natterjack toads (Epidalea calamita) in mating position. Image courtesy of Christoph Bühler.

If you build it, the amphibians will come: Swiss researchers show new ponds boost species at risk

Elissa Welle 9 Dec 2022
A sea butterfly (Limacina helicina) whose shell has been weakened by ocean acidification. (NOAA Photo Library, CC-BY-2.0)

Melting ice created the perfect storm for a rapidly acidifying Arctic Ocean

Luis Melecio-Zambrano 7 Dec 2022
Although Bitcoin is a virtual currency, some collectors trade metal coins with codes for amounts of Bitcoin printed on them, not unlike a gift certificate. Photo by Dmitry Demidko on Unsplash.

Climate damage from Bitcoin mining grew more than 125 times worse in just five years

Sean Cummings 5 Dec 2022
Evergreen huckleberry, a traditional and ceremonial food for the Karuk Tribe. Image courtesy of Rosewoman on Flickr

Indigenous knowledge guides the conservation of culturally important plants

Roxanne Hoorn 5 Dec 2022
A Humboldt’s woolly monkey (Lagothrix lagotricha) explores the forest floor in Colombia. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Some tree-dwelling primates may adapt more easily to life on the ground, massive study shows

Elise Overgaard 2 Dec 2022
The spectral tarsier is a close relative of the western tarsier. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler

Extinction not only threatens primates—their parasites are in danger, too

McKenzie Prillaman 1 Dec 2021
Climate change challenges southern right whale survival. Following strong El Niño events a high proportion of females were missing from their breeding sites. After one year of gestation followed by another year of lactation, reproductive females are vulnerable to a reduced availability of krill, and they may potentially fail to fully recover. Photo by Nicolás Lewin

El Niño takes a toll on southern right whales in the Atlantic Ocean

Brian Phan 1 Dec 2021
Image courtesy of Rixster II

Potty-trained cows? Teaching cattle where to urinate could help reduce greenhouse gases

Emily Moskal 30 Nov 2021
Large tiger sharks overwinter in the Bahamas and migrate thousands of kilometers into open ocean in the summer, but they remain in the Atlantic. Photo credit: © Christopher Vaughan-Jones

Geneticists have identified new groups of tiger sharks to protect

Graycen Wheeler 30 Nov 2021
Researchers found hermit crabs scuttling across some of the study’s 240 plots. Photo credit: Sebastian Steibl

Insects and other invertebrates on tropical islands face challenges as development and tourism expand

Brittney J. Miller 29 Nov 2021
A white-necked jacobin with the brightly colored feather patterns typical of males. Photo by Irene Mendez Cruz.

Some hummingbird females display male coloring to avoid being harassed

Megan Kalomiris 23 Nov 2021
Jaguar in a river in Mexico. Photo credit: Gerardo Ceballos

Jaguars in Mexico are growing in number, a promising sign that national conservation strategies are working

Guananí Gómez-Van Cortright 22 Nov 2021

“Earthshine” from the Moon shows our planet is dimming, intensifying global warming

Zack Savitsky 18 Nov 2021
A black bear family cautiously attempting a road crossing. Photo by Bridget Donaldson, Virginia Transportation Research Council.

Carnivores avoid rush hour by taking to roads at night

Elyse DeFranco 17 Nov 2021
Worker bees cluster on the honeycomb to eat and deposit nectar. Photo by Jude Coleman

Honey bees find food more easily in cities, thanks to abundant urban gardens

Jude Coleman 15 Nov 2021
Degraded forests are highly susceptible to fires set by ranchers and farmers. This August 2019 is burning into degraded forest from a recently cleared area. Image © Fábio Nascimento.

Lasers reveal steep decline in ecosystem function of degraded Amazon forests

Tess Joosse 16 Dec 2020
Pangolin bust, Medan, Indonesia, April 2015. Over 4000 frozen, 97 live and 77 kg of scale where confiscated during a WCS and national police bust of a wildlife trade. Photo: Paul Hilton for WCS

In China, public support grows to rein in the wildlife trade in the wake of the pandemic

Emily Harwitz 9 Dec 2020
Palm Jumeriah, an artificial island, off the coast of Dubai. Photo credit: Zoom.Earth / Maxar Technologies

Humanity’s construction footprint in the seas amounts to 32,000 square kilometers

Allison Gasparini 4 Dec 2020
Woman slaughtering rats at a market in Dong Thap, Vietnam (left), and vendor selling live rats in cages (right). Photo credit: WCS/Viet Nam (Huong, et al, 2020)

Coronavirus risk grows as animals move through wildlife trade

Stephanie Melchor 3 Dec 2020
Even if snowfall rates returned to those of the 1980s, the ice sheet would continue to shrink. Image credit: Michalea King.

The glaciers of the Greenland Ice Sheet are running away

Nikk Ogasa 2 Dec 2020
A trail camera captures a rare shot of a New Guinea singing dog in 2016. These pictures were the first solid evidence that the dogs were present around Grasberg mine. Photo credit: James McIntyre.

The New Guinea singing dog, once thought extinct, is alive in the wild

Freda Kreier 1 Dec 2020
Recreation of a wooly rhino made from a preserved baby wooly rhino discovered in Siberia. Photo credit: Albert Protopopov

Why did the woolly rhino go extinct?

Carolina Cuellar Colmenares 30 Nov 2020

Big mammals are at risk in the world’s poorest countries, even within parks

Tess Joosse 27 Nov 2020
Plastic pollution endangers marine animals, such as this young monk seal, which may get entangled in or ingest litter. Photo credit: the Ocean Cleanup/Matthew Chauvin

Clean up efforts won’t solve the plastic pollution crisis in the world’s seas

Isabella Backman 25 Nov 2020
Nine of the 15 pygmy sperm whales (Kogia breviceps) autopsied for the study were emaciated when they died, zero were considered to be in ‘robust’ condition. Photo Credit: Inwater Research Group

Are industrial chemicals killing rare whales and familiar dolphins?

Cypress Hansen 24 Nov 2020
Coral garden. Photo credit: Raising Coral Costa Rica

Scientists in Costa Rica are growing new corals to save reefs

Ashleigh Papp 12 Nov 2020
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef near the Whitsunday Islands. Astronaut photograph ISS045-E-56257 was acquired on October 12, 2015, with a Nikon D4 digital camera using an 1150 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. Courtesy of NASA/JSC.

Protecting living corals could help defend the Great Barrier Reef from ocean acidification for decades

Ariana Remmel 6 Dec 2019
A white-nosed saki (Chiropotes albinasus) in the Amazon rainforest canopy. Climate change will shrink the habitat of these endangered primates and deforestation may limit their ability to find new homes, a new study reports. Photo by João Paulo Krajewski.

Amazon primates face barriers in responding to climate change

Erin Malsbury 3 Dec 2019
Nyeema Harris and her crew deployed motion-detecting cameras throughout their study site in West Africa. Credit: University of Michigan Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab

Camera traps yield surprises in West Africa’s largest protected area

Jerimiah Oetting 2 Dec 2019
Glass eels are a juvenile form of the European eel (Anguilla anguilla), a species that undergoes an incredible 10,000 kilometer (6,200 mile) migration. Photo courtesy of Alessandro Cresci.

Moon and Earth’s magnetic field guide European eels on their epic migration

Amanda Heidt 2 Dec 2019

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