Super variable California salamander is ‘an evolutionist’s dream’
The ensatina is a fairly common salamander. From southern British Columbia in Canada to northern Baja California in Mexico, it can be found lurking under logs in forests along the…
Mongabay series: Salamanders
Habitat loss, pigs, disease: U.S. salamanders face a ‘tough situation’
North America is the world’s hotspot of salamander diversity. The continent is home to all salamander families but one (Hynobiidae, found only in Asia) and nearly half of all salamander…
As a pandemic looms, researchers rush to test salamander vulnerability
It all started in 2008 when scientists started noticing fire salamanders in the Netherlands were disappearing. By 2011, nearly all salamanders in affected Dutch populations had been killed off, as…
Disappearing salamanders: New research aims to solve a decades-old mystery
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Biologists Chace Holzheuser and Bruce Means are on their hands and knees in a Florida swamp, pawing through dark water, leaves and muck as cicadas hum unceasingly…
‘Snot otters’ threatened by disease and stress
Growing more than two feet in length, the hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) is the largest salamander species in North America. Hellbenders have been on the decline for at least 30 years,…
Essential ubiquity: How one tiny salamander species has a huge impact
The red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) is a creature of Earth, although a brief physical description can cast sufficient doubt. One deep red stripe runs the length of its body, though…
‘Death by a thousand holes’: Scientists race to avert a salamander crisis
Any day now. That’s when Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal), the “salamander-eating” fungus, is expected to arrive in the United States, home to more than a third of the world’s species of…
Super-spreaders: How the curious life of a newt could ignite a pandemic
If you take a stroll in the woods, it’s worth pausing for a moment to take in the sights and sounds, peer into the undergrowth, or even turn over a…
Will trade bans stop a deadly salamander plague from invading the US?
If it happens, it’ll likely go something like this: American parents decide to buy something special for their child’s birthday – a pet salamander. Although immediately excited, the child quickly loses…
On the hunt for a silent salamander-killer
It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack — except the needle is invisible and the hay stretches for thousands of miles. Oh, and there may not actually be…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Bolivia’s El Curichi Las Garzas protected area taken over by land-grabbers
- Authorities struggle to protect Bolivian national park from drug-fueled deforestation
- Poverty and plantations: Nigerian reserve struggles against the odds
- Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea
Oceans
- Warming seas push India’s fishers into distant, and more dangerous, waters
- No protection from bottom trawling for seamount chain in northern Pacific
- Annual ocean conference raises $11.3b in pledges for marine conservation
- Caribbean startups are turning excess seaweed into an agroecology solution
Amazon Conservation
- Deforestation haunts top Peruvian reserve and its Indigenous communities
- Amid record-high fires across the Amazon, Brazil loses primary forests
- A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon
- Brazil boosts protection of Amazon mangroves with new reserves in Pará state
Land rights and extractives
- Hyundai ends aluminum deal with Adaro Minerals following K-pop protest
- Brazil’s illegal gold trade takes a hammering, but persists underground
- Maluku bone collector unearths troubling consequence of coastal abrasion
- New FPIC guide designed to help protect Indigenous rights as mineral mining booms
Endangered Environmentalists
- Indonesian activists face jail over FB posts flagging damage to marine park
- Vietnamese environmentalist sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion
- Son of slain Quilombola leader will still strive for community’s rights
- Video: Five Tembé Indigenous activists shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
Conservation Effectiveness
- The conservation sector must communicate better (commentary)
- Thailand tries nature-based water management to adapt to climate change
- Forest restoration to boost biomass doesn’t have to sacrifice tree diversity
- How scientists and a community are bringing a Bornean river corridor back to life
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
