By Livia Albeck-Ripka
© The New York Times Co.
PACIFIC GROVE, CALIF. » On a recent Sunday, I found myself among a crowd of hushed humans in a eucalyptus grove near Monterey, our necks craned toward the tree canopy.
Above us, thousands of Western monarch butterflies were clustered on branc...
By Sabrina Imbler
© The New York Times Co.
The male Bornean rock frog cannot scream over the sound of a waterfall. Instead, he threatens other frogs with his feet. The frog intimidates his male competitors with a can-can-like gesture: kicking his leg up into the air, fully extendin...
By Maria Cramer
© The New York Times Co.
About 50 days after the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands erupted in September, unleashing lava flows and destroying homes, churches and stores, a beekeeper returned to one of the devastated villages to see what the volcano had done...
By Asher Elbein
© The New York Times Co.
The southern cassowary is often called the world’s most dangerous bird.
While shy and secretive in the forests of its native New Guinea and Northern Australia, it can be aggressive in captivity. In 2019, kicks from a captive cassowary mortally woun...
By Cara Giaimo
© The New York Times Co.
Adult paper wasps are capable builders, painstakingly mouth-crafting nests out of plant matter and spit. But they start out as larvae that carry out construction projects of their own.
Just before these youngsters begin a metamorphosis into maturity, most p...
Black fur, white stripes, foul smelling liquid — everybody can identify the striped skunk. But did you know these malodorous mammals have smaller cousins marked by black and white blots? They’re the spotted skunks, and they do something the stripeys can’t.
Spotted skunks perform a spread-eagled han...
By Philip Marcelo
The Associated Press
BOSTON » When Boston socialites Minna Hall and Harriet Hemenway sought to end the slaughter of birds in the name of 19th century high fashion, they picked a logical namesake for their cause: John James Audubon, a naturalist celebrate...
Colorado has launched a four-year study of bald eagles to determine how the raptors have adapted to population growth along the metropolitan Front Range and identify planning measures that could ensure the bird’s future.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife says the study, involving biologists and v...
By Seth Borenstein
The Associated Press
The coelacanth — a giant weird fish still around from dinosaur times — can live for 100 years, a new study found.
These slow-moving, people-sized fish of the deep, nicknamed a “living fossil,” are the opposite of the live-fast, die-young mantra. The...
In 2019 Audubon’s Survival by Degrees report sounded a stark warning: Without meaningful action to mitigate the impacts of climate change, two-thirds of North American bird species are at risk of extinction. This Natural Climate Solutions Report provides a scientific framework to help us address thi...
By Shelly Bradbury
The Denver Post
and © The New York Times Co.
Despite federal protections, wild horses across the West are ending up in slaughterhouses under a new Bureau of Land Management adoption program, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Dist...
NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALES ARE SHRINKING
One of the giants of the deep is shrinking before our eyes, a new study says. The younger generation of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are on average about three feet shorter than whales were 20 years, drone and aircraft data show in...
By Emma Bubola
© The New York Times Co.
ROME » It seemed like just another violation of coronavirus social-distance restrictions when Italian police broke up a luncheon of about 20 people last week near the northern city of Brescia.
But then they stumbled onto an illegal massacre on the...
By Emily Anthes
© The New York Times Co.
Male tanagers are meant to be noticed. Many species of the small, tropical bird sport deep black feathers and splashes of eye-catching color — electric yellows, traffic-cone oranges and nearly neon scarlets.
To achieve this flashiness, the birds must spend...
The New York Times, In summer 2019, when joking about omens of the apocalypse still seemed fresh and fun, an endless swarm of grasshoppers descended on the Las Vegas Strip.
For weeks, after sunset, their flapping wings filled the Sky Beam shining up from the pyramid of the Luxor casino, and their d...
By Christina Larson and Julie Watson
The Associated Press shared from The Denver Post
SAN DIEGO » The coughing among the western lowland gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in January was the first warning sign. Soon the fears were confirmed: A troop of gorillas b...
text by Helen H. Richardson The Denver Post
Spring is arriving in the San Luis Valley on the wings of the sandhill cranes and other migratory birds such as Canada geese and ducks as they migrate through southern Colorado.
The valley is rich with wildlife and open land, offering refuge t...
TOKYO » Scientists have discovered the ultimate case of regeneration: Some decapitated sea slugs can regrow hearts and whole new bodies.
This “wonder of nature,” reported in a biology journal on Monday, could eventually help scientists better understand and tackle regeneration of human tissue.
One...
By Matthew Brown and John Flesher The Associated Press
BILLINGS, MONT. » The Biden administration on Monday reversed a policy imposed under former President Donald Trump that drastically weakened the government’s power to enforce a century-old law that protects most U.S. bird species.
...
At more than 70 years young, Wisdom, the world’s oldest known banded wild bird, is taking on the challenge of motherhood again.
An egg laid by Wisdom, a Laysan albatross, late last year on a speck of land in the Pacific Ocean hatched at the beginning of last month, the U.S. Fish and...
