Tropical deforestation may spur the transmission of malaria at levels much higher than once thought, according to a recent study. Disease ecologist Andrew MacDonald and his Stanford University colleague Erin…
Light pollution could lead to more infections with West Nile virus by increasing the amount of time that small songbirds hold on to the virus, according to a new study.…
Fines and the threat of disease could dissuade consumers from buying bushmeat, according to recent surveys of markets where wildlife species are sold for food in the Southeast Asian country…
Between 2005 and 2010, 24 huemul deer in Chile’s Bernardo O’Higgins National Park developed a mysterious foot disease. Their hooves swelled, they limped and appeared to be in pain. In…
Chimpanzees' health is not just an issue of concern for conservationists or animal rights activists. Great apes can spread plagues of biblical proportions — the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) first…
Parrots around the globe are captured and sold as pets in a thriving illegal market that has carried more than 19 million birds across borders since 1975. The deadly beak…
Indonesia's Ujung Kulon National Park sits at the westernmost tip of Java Island. Its remote peninsular location offers access only from the east, along a rough road used mostly by…
Rising temperatures seem to have made a southern African park less hospitable to the tsetse fly (Glossina spp.), the carrier of a dangerous disease-causing microorganism, new research shows. Named for…
A team at University of Texas Austin has developed a new method for identifying whether a mosquito is of the Aedes aegypti species, which is responsible for transmitting Zika, dengue and other deadly diseases. The…
Armadillos are a popular bushmeat in the Brazilian Amazon, but handling and eating these scaly mammals could put humans at risk of leprosy, a new study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical…
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…
Leopards are among the most widespread of all big cats, with a historical range covering large parts of Africa and Asia. Though humans have whittled away about 80 percent of…
A burned-out stump was all that remained by the time a team of virologists arrived in Méliandou in 2014. They had been hunting for the source of the deadly outbreak…
What lurks in the soil beneath your feet? In the soil beneath us live billions of organisms, ranging in size from one-celled bacteria to gophers. These critters aerate the soil,…
It is regarded as the deadliest Ebola outbreak in human history: the 2014-2016 epidemic in West Africa claimed the lives of 11,325 people and resulted in 28,652 suspected, probable, and…
Great apes should be humanity’s best bet for conservation — charismatic, intelligent, strikingly familiar, with big emoting eyes. It’s hard to think of creatures with whom the public empathizes more…
The deadly yellow fever -- an infectious disease caused by a mosquito-borne virus -- has spread rapidly throughout Brazil, wiping out populations of the brown howler monkey (Alouatta guariba). Thousands of…
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…
A transmissible cancer -- the devil facial tumor disease (DFTD) -- has decimated Tasmanian devil populations. The contagious cancer, first recorded in 1996, has wiped out over 90 percent of…
aria Josefa de Oliveira stands in the doorway of her home in the Imbiribeira neighborhood of Recife — a city of 3.7 million in northeast Brazil. The bars on the…
