KATHMANDU/NEW DELHI — Media outlets in Nepal were abuzz recently with reports that the country’s iconic Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris), on whose protection the government and various NGOs lavish…
As more people are born onto this great green planet, the demand for food grows. Feeding the nearly 8 billion of us here today is a challenge, not only because…
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…
Tiger sharks sometimes swim thousands of kilometers—far enough to move among oceans. Their flexible diets and adaptable behaviors set them up to be successful jet-setters, zipping around the world and…
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…
Mozambique's 15-year civil war changed the face of its national parks, which underwent rampant poaching of big mammals, including elephants. It did much more. It changed the face of female…
Exequiel Ezcurra was dubious when he first heard about the possibility of mangroves on the San Pedro Mártir River in southern Mexico from Carlos Burelo-Ramos, a botanist at Mexico’s University…
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…
A European meadow viper (Vipera ursinii), one of the world’s most threatened snakes, glides undetected between blades of grass in an Alpine meadow. It slips into a rocky outcrop and…
The outlook is bleak for Sumatran rhinos. Decades of poaching and habitat loss have precipitated a steep population decline. Once found across Southeast Asia, from the Himalayan foothills to the…
The bison circled four times around the holding pen, before the lead animals took them into the 3,400-hectare (8,500-acre) pasture, their new home on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in the…
By the time the war broke out in Syria, researchers from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) had already duplicated and safely transported most of…
Experts estimate that nearly 2,000 chimpanzees may be lost to the wildlife trade each year. Once taken from the wild, young chimpanzees that survive the trauma of capture are sold…
When searching for mouse lemurs in Madagascar's forests, scientists seek out their gleaming eyes in the dark. Their eyes are large for an animal about the size of a fist…
As a young boy living on South Dakota’s Rosebud Indian Reservation, Wizipan Little Elk remembers the first time he saw a buffalo herd. The experience ignited a passion, and at…
SIDAMA, Ethiopia — For Lidya Ashango and 14 million other Ethiopians, the false banana plant widely known as enset is a staple food and, on many occasions, a supplementary source…
A mysterious disease is wiping out one of the world’s smallest bats, the aptly named “little brown bat,” which has an extensive range across the United States and Canada. But…
Let’s be honest: many conservationists may start their careers with big ambitions. But as they, and their careers, age, those ambitions — especially in light of the Anthropocene — understandably…
MANILA — There might be more fruit bat species in the Philippines than previously thought, according to a genetic study, underlining the possibility that each individual species might be more…
There’s some uncertainty about his exact age at death, but it’s now been confirmed that “Nandy,” who suffered a crushing blow to his head as a youth, lived to a…
A new subspecies of fin whale, the second-largest species on Earth after the blue whale, has been discovered by scientists in the Pacific Ocean. There are currently three recognized subspecies…
A newly discovered species of grouper almost became someone’s dinner before it could be described to science. Jeff Johnson, an ichthyologist with Australia’s Queensland Museum, had been asked about the…
Think of a reptile that’s been genetically mutated, and Godzilla springs to mind. Or maybe ninja turtles. But the real thing is here, and it’s neither hell-bent on destroying Tokyo…
In September 2014, Nepali zoologist Madhu Chetri asked his professor Morten Odden a strange question during their fieldwork. "Are you tired?" he asked Odden as the duo from the Inland…
Feeding aquatic sponges could provide biologists with unexpected underwater data collection assistance. Sponges (phylum Porifera) are immobile aquatic animals that eat by filtering out food particles from the water around…
Diego Cardeñosa wasn’t expecting any work calls on a Saturday, and certainly not one from the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department. The urgency of the matter, however, became quickly…
Faster and cheaper Surveying and studying coral takes a lot of work. It’s usually done manually, which requires wet suits and air tanks and SCUBA gear and people. But it’s…
In 1995, there were only 51 kākāpō left on Earth, and it seemed that the giant flightless parrots were headed for extinction. Once abundant in New Zealand, the ground-dwelling kākāpō…
The waters of the eastern Baltic Sea around Finland are home to the flounder, a flatfish with both its eyes on one side of the head that uses its camouflage…
Researchers find that the biome, under assault by soy agribusiness, may need 300 to 3,000 years of focused conservation to recover and maintain its genetic diversity.
