Evolution News

While Madagascar is famous for its incredible diversity of plants and animals, a new study suggests that the island's rate of speciation has slowed to a crawl. The research, published…

Somewhere in the wet pine forests of Chile, a male frog is gulping-up a bunch of eggs. No he's not eating them, he's just being a good dad. Darwin's frogs…

Aristotle (384–322 BC) reported a mysterious light, distinct from fire, emanating from decaying wood. Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) mentioned feasting on a glowing, sweet fungus found on trees in…

A common little moth turns out to have the best ears in the animal kingdom. According to a new study in Biology Letters, the greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella) is…

A new species of forcepfly named Austromerope brasiliensis, was recently discovered in Brazil and described in the open access journal Zoo Keys. This is the first discovery of forcepfly in…

The Role of Science for Conservation, edited by Matthias Wolff and Mark Gardner, celebrates Charles Darwin’s Bicentennial and 50 years of research by the Charles Darwin Foundation in The Galápagos,…

Rainforest-covered karst mountains with pristine mangroves beneath characterizes one of the most stunning protected areas in the Caribbean: Los Haitises National Park. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. For its stunning variety…

Wallace's original map published in 1876, denoting six biogeographical realms. A recent study in Science extends Wallace's findings, creating eleven realms (see below). Click to enlarge. In 1876, British biologist…

Cropped close-up of New Guinea singing dog. This is arguably the first time the dingo-like canine has been photographed in the wild. Photo by: Tom Hewitt. A rarely seen canine…

Click image to enlarge Scientists have created an evolutionary maps for all the world's nearly 10,000 bird species. The 'tree of life' is published in the current issue of the…

Chinese soft-shelled turtle in captivity. Photo by: Bastet78. One of China's most commonly farmed turtles for consumption, the Chinese soft-shelled turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis), has a unique ability: it urinates out…

David Quammen has done consistent and conscientious reporting from the trenches of ecological and evolutionary research for over thirty years now. Few in the world can claim as intimate and…

A rodent unlike any other: Paucidentomys vermidax. Photo from: Esselstyn et al. The Indonesian island of Sulawesi is a workshop of bizarre evolutionary experiments. Think of the babirusa, pig-like species…

Lonesome George, the last of his kind, has passed away. Lonesome George, the sole surviving member of the Pinta Island tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni), was found dead on Sunday by…

Trachylepis cristinae, a newly described skink that is only found on Abd Al Kuri Island. Photo by: Fabio Pupin. Few people have ever heard of the Socotra Archipelago even though,…

Coyote feeding on elk carcass in Yellowstone National Park. Photo by: Jim Peaco/U.S. National Park Service. Not long ago, geologically speaking, coyotes (Canis latrans) were bigger and more robust than…

One of EDGE's focal mammals: the red slender loris (Loris tardigradus). Photo by: James T. Reardon/ZSL. What do Attenborough's echidna, the bumblebee bat, and the purple frog have in common?…

Famed paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey envisions the future with a view that remembers the past Looking Back: A family world famous for discovery. Richard Leakey and his parents, Louis and Mary…

Shell of the new micro-snail, Ditropopsis mirabilis. Photo by: Kristine Greke. A new species of snail with a bizarre shell has surprised scientists. Discovered near massive waterfalls in pristine lowland…

Everyone knows the tiger, the panda, the blue whale, but what about the other five to thirty million species estimated to inhabit our Earth? Many of these marvelous, stunning, and…

Honeybees in an apiary in Germany. Photo by: Björn Appel. May Berenbaum knows a thing or two about insects: in recognition of her lifelong work on the interactions between insects…

In the cloud forests and grasslands of India's Western Ghats, known as sholas, researchers have for the first time comprehensively studied the inhabiting dung beetle populations. The resulting study in…

A lot can change in three years. In January 2007, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) jumpstarted a program unique in the conservation world: EDGE, which stands for Evolutionarily Distinct…

Just six years ago the beautiful medium-sized Asian cat, the clouded leopard, was considered a single species. Then in 2006 researchers announced that there were, in fact, two unique species…

Researchers have discovered that the thick wing bones of an ancient flightless bird which once lived in Jamaica may have been used as clubs to beat predators and even members…

The melting of the Arctic Ocean may result in a loss of marine mammal biodiversity, reports a new study published in the journal Nature and conducted jointly by the National…

Scientists have discovered an extinct massive stork, standing nearly 6 feet tall (1.8 meter) and weighing 35 pounds (15 kilograms), which would have shared the island of Flores with the…

Down to just over 100 individuals, DNA analysis has revealed one of the world's most imperiled bird species: the western ground parrot Pezoporus flaviventris.. Genetic evidence collected from museums specimens,…

British photographer Jeremy Holden recently discovered a new species of carnivorous pitcher plant in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains during a survey with Fauna & Flora International (FFI). "The Cardamom Mountains are…

A new study in Science has found that the incredible biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest goes back much further than expected, perhaps upending old ideas about how the Amazon basin…