What encouraged some water species to evolve into land-based creatures? This is what some scientists attempted to determine by analyzing the bodies of terrestrial vertebrates that existed about 385 million years ago. (MacIver, Schmitz, Mugan, Murphey, & Mobley, 2017) They found that their eyes – rather than their limbs – may have played a large …
At the end of December 2016, Chinese officials honed in on an illegal trafficking operation involving pangolin scales. In total, about 3.4 tons of pangolin scales were seized at a port in Shanghai. According to Chinese media, it was the largest seizure of its type in the history of the country – but what are …
Bird counting might seem like a needless, time-consuming hobby, but many people look forward to it annually around the holiday season. Thanks to the National Audubon Society, bird enthusiasts can collectively come together to count birds in their local areas each year. The Christmas Bird Count, as it’s been titled, is an event held every …
Dogs are man’s (and woman’s) best friend, and they know about us than we may think. This is what researchers have concluded in a report published in Current Biology. As it turns out, dogs might remember and relive experiences just as their [human] owners do. The researchers looked at a group of 17 dogs to …
If you love snow leopards, you might want to prepare yourself for some disheartening news. A new report from TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, claims that there are only about 4,000 snow leopards left in the wild. Additionally, an average of four leopards a week are being poached, according to experts. However, not everyone …
Editor’s note: This post has been updated and broken links removed. Please see our policy on broken hyperlinks for more. You might have heard of creatures, such as sharks and whales, finding themselves in fishermen’s nets during harvest. In some instances, these creatures can be saved, but what happens after these nets are used? As it turns …
Rats are a problem in many large cities in the U.S., but what if they were considered to be immensely disruptive to our country as a whole? This is what New Zealand is claiming in its decision to eradicate rats from all of its islands by 2050. Additionally, it wants to get rid of stoats …
What if delicious snacks were the solution to saving some of the world’s endangered species? This is what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is hoping as it looks to save black-footed ferrets. In a new plan, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is looking to save these endangered critters in Montana with drones and snacks …
Alligators are a normal part of the scenery for Floridians, meaning it shouldn’t have come as a shock when a species of crocodile started making its home in the state. However, not everyone is happy with the new creature residing in Florida, which comes all the way from Africa. In Nile crocodile, as it’s called, …
A new report published in PeerJ shows that leopards, one of the most iconic big cats, has lost approximately 75 percent of its historic range. This conclusion was drawn by the National Geographic Society’s Big Cats initiative, the Zoological Society of London, Panthera, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Cat Specialist Group. …