When Manuel Lopes-Lima set out to survey aquatic biodiversity on the Corubal River in 2022, he’d set his expectations very low. The river that straddles the West African nations of…
It’s hard to imagine the history that lies behind the cacao trees grown on agroforestry farms in the Amazon today. For a long time, people believed that cacao’s origins lay…
They might comprise close to 75% of all known animal species. But when it comes to the monitoring and protection of insects, global efforts have been inadequate. The numbers tell…
What do lakes tell us about life on the land surrounding it? When environmental DNA scientist Kristy Deiner and her team started thinking about this question, the answer seemed evident:…
After the first flower bloomed on the Earth, flowering plants evolved a staggering diversity and now make up about 90% of all plant life. Charles Darwin called this rapid domination…
The Negros fruit dove was described from a single specimen collected in the Philippines in 1953 — then never seen again by scientists. Now, thanks to advances in DNA sequencing,…
Shark conservation groups in Thailand are calling for greater marine protections and improved traceability in shark trade supply chains following a study that identified threatened shark species in products commonly…
Scientists named hundreds of new to science species this year, including an electric blue tarantula, two pygmy squids, a silent frog, and some thumb-sized chameleons. These newly uncovered creatures give…
Over the past 50 years, lion numbers have decreased by three-quarters. Only 20,000 to 40,000 of these majestic big cats survive in the wild today. A third of lion deaths…
With their camouflaged coats, impossibly long tails, and extraordinary tree-climbing skills, clouded leopards are evolutionary marvels. They’re beautifully adapted to a feline life in the trees. But what evolution hadn’t…
When they embarked upon an experiment to swab leaves at Kibale National Park in Uganda in June 2022, Christina Lynggaard, Jan Gogarten and Patrick Omeja had little to no expectations.…
From getting alerts about injured elephants to tracking ones that are straying too close to villages, the Mara Elephant Project has used the EarthRanger platform since 2019 to manage the…
A new study foresees a 20% increase in cases of viruses like dengue, Zika and chikungunya over the next 30 years due to climate change. Higher temperatures are already causing the diseases carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito to spread in cooler regions like southern Brazil and southern Europe.
SINGAPORE — A huge drone hums and hovers above the canopy of a tree. Just as one might start to think that the show is over, the action begins. Slowly,…
KATHMANDU — With the start of the monsoon season in Nepal in mid-June, rivers originating from the mountains and the hills of the country become swollen and reach the peak…
KATHMANDU — If you were a grumpy cat, you’d probably want to avoid company. And if you were the world’s grumpiest, as David Attenborough once described the elusive manul, what…
A resplendent rainbow fish, a frog that looks like chocolate, a Thai tarantula, an anemone that rides on a back of a hermit crab, and the world's largest waterlily are…
It’s tough enough to study one particular species endemic to Sagarmatha, the Nepali name for Mount Everest. Imagine attempting to catalog the entire wealth of biodiversity that makes its home…
Wide-eyed, slow-moving and roughly the bulk of a small loaf of bread, pygmy lorises seem fairly unassuming at first glance. They spend their slow, nocturnal lives meticulously picking through the…
A hawksbill turtle’s protective shell is in some ways its greatest weakness. Exquisitely patterned and thick enough to sculpt, hawksbill shells are the most popular type of tortoiseshell, a material…
“Initially we were all excited because we had intercepted a record-breaking ivory shipment,” says veterinarian Charlene Fernandez of Singapore’s new Centre for Wildlife Forensics. “But when we started carrying the…
Shark meat from vulnerable species is being processed into cat food for major brands, according to a new study. Researchers from the National University of Singapore used DNA barcoding technology…
Environmental DNA has changed the way conservationists monitor biodiversity. By sequencing the genetic material found in water and soil samples, scientists can study entire ecosystems or detect rare animals too…
The article has been significantly amended in light of challenges to both the research itself and Mongabay's coverage of the journal article. If you get yourself a map of Peninsular…
With humans sending probes to Mars and the sun, one might think we’ve already explored the full extent of our own planet. But scientists say we’ve only begun to find…
A new study has found that the small nation of Gabon is the “last stronghold” for the critically endangered African forest elephant. Researchers reached this conclusion after conducting a DNA-based…
As a fisheries biologist in Indonesia, Andhika Prasetyo connects with fishers by accompanying them on their voyages out to sea. He can always tell from their faces whether the day’s…
To hear an audio reading of this article listen here: The familiar striped skunk of North America (think of the cartoon Pepé Le Pew) has a lesser-known cousin: the spotted…
Scientists have debated the evolution of the world’s five living rhinoceros species ever since Charles Darwin addressed the question in a treatise in the mid-1800s, predating On the Origin of…
When Demian Chapman and his colleague first started setting up underwater cameras on reefs in 2015, the aim was to capture a lot of shark video. But sometimes they got…
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…
Last recorded in 1968, Megaelosia bocainensis, a frog known for its rounded snout and granular skin, was thought extinct until researchers tracked down its environmental DNA in Brazil’s São Paulo state.
