On May 1, forestry officials in the Indian state of Uttarakhand discovered a tiger cub, abandoned and injured. They attempted to rescue the animal, but had arrived too late –…
Dealers in India are trying to sell dried penises of illegally caught monitor lizards to unwitting customers looking to buy a rare Indian plant root called "Hatha Jodi", a wildlife…
The Bronx Zoo’s wild animal keeper sends out a special call, and eight of the most critically endangered animals on earth take a break from basking to scoot up the…
On the evening of Jan. 13, 2013, Deba Kumar Datta was on his way to a remote camp inside Manas National Park, a 500-square-kilometer (193-square-mile) protected area in the northeastern…
Naturalists in India have rediscovered a rare flowering plant -- Arisaema translucens -- after nearly 80 years. Botanist Edward Barnes first collected this plant in 1932 from the Nilgiri mountains in southern India. The…
It started out as an interest in lacertids – a family of small lizards native to Asia, Europe, and Africa – an itch to “understand what was going on with…
New research published in the Journal of Heredity suggests that there are three subspecies of snow leopard, which researchers say could create new conservation opportunities for the elusive species that…
WEST BENGAL, India — Nibbling at tender grasses, with its grey-brown skin partially camouflaged by the sandy river bed, a solitary rhinoceros slowly ambled along barely three feet away from…
Malaysian customs officials have seized 330 tortoises that were smuggle into the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The tortoises, which included 325 Radiated tortoises as well as five Ploughshare tortoises, were…
JALDAPARA NATIONAL PARK, India: The floodplains of the River Torsa, along the Eastern Himalayan foothills, are a world of their own. Rolling meadows of long swaying grasses stretch for miles,…
New research suggests that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is overestimating the ranges of several bird species endemic to the Western Ghats mountain range in India,…
Beef has never been a favored meat in most of Asia. Cows are harder to raise than chickens and pigs, which take up less space and can be fed scraps.…
The world's most prestigious award for grassroots environmental activism has announced its winners for 2017. Every year, the Goldman Environmental Prize, dubbed the Green Nobel Prize, honors grassroots environmental heroes…
Scientists have discovered anti-flu molecules in an Indian frog's skin secretions. The slimy mucus of the brightly colored wide-spread Fungoid Frog (Hydrophylax bahuvistara) contains molecules that normally protect the frogs…
In the dead of night on February 15, gunshots blasted the guards into action in India’s Kaziranga National Park. Rangers stationed in a nearby camp quickly spread out, searching for…
BORJURI, India — A baby rhino is easy to dismiss as cute. With a barely visible stub of a horn and thick, folded skin that resembles armor, a young rhino…
In three short months during monsoon season, India historically receives 75 percent of their annual precipitation. Imagine awaiting this promised, bountiful rainfall and receiving 14 percent less than average. This…
In the state of Orissa in India, a herd of elephant faces a grim situation. A video shot by the NGO Sanctuary Nature Foundation shows hundreds of men descending upon the elephants…
Within the seemingly boundless Mysore Plateau of southern India, the newly-discovered Bangalore geckoella (Cyrtodactylus srilekhae) and Rishi Valley geckoella (Cyrtodactylus rishivalleyensis) pace – centred, unhurried, and only prone to flurries…
Indian scientists have discovered seven new species of frogs in the Western Ghats, a biodiversity-rich mountain range in India. All the newly described species belong to the genus Nyctibatrachus, commonly known as…
Over the past thirty years demand and production of oils crops like oil palm and soybeans has boomed across the tropics thanks to rising incomes, macroeconomic changes and government policies,…
LALMATIA, India -- When the Lalmatia coal mine in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand collapsed on Dec. 29, mining supervisor Hem Narayan Yadav was working 100 feet (30 meters)…
Deforestation is estimated to be responsible for about 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, which is why mechanisms for reducing forest destruction and promoting the reforestation of already degraded forestlands…
BARPETA, India -- When Babulal Orang, a field staffer in the Manas National Park in the northeast Indian state of Assam, tried to stop a group of armed Bodo youths…
It takes less than 20 milligrams of rhino horn to prosecute poachers. This is all scientists need to discover a rhinoceros' unique DNA pattern, a sort of genetic fingerprint investigators…
The Jeypore ground gecko (Geckoella jeyporensis) was first noted and described by a British colonel in 1877, but was not seen again for more than 130 years, and presumed extinct.…
Last November, BBC returned with a sequel to its hit nature documentary series -- Planet Earth. The new six-part series Planet Earth II, presented by Sir David Attenborough, showcased some…
Fourteen members of a poaching gang were recently arrested in southern India for shooting protected wildlife. They had shot and killed two Sambar deer (Rusa unicolor) around Bhadra Tiger Reserve in…
Nestled on the banks of the River Brahmaputra, lost to tall thickets of elephant grass, marshlands and wooded hills, is a teeming world of biodiversity: the Kaziranga National Park (KNP)…
As always, Mongabay covered a mix of environmental stories this year. While some species went extinct, several new species were discovered. Some forests were wiped out, but others were restored. Below, we take a look…