The wayward continent of Australia is famous for the strange and relictual creatures that have evolved in near-complete isolation. The insects are no exception. I spent December travelling the great southern continent, and of the 3,000 exposures I took during the month here are a few of my favorites:

Why do some koalas die from chlamydia and an AIDS-like retrovirus whereas others manage to avoid contracting the sexually transmitted diseases? The answer, it seems, may be in the genes. Scientists in Australia announced last week that they have sequenced the koala interferon gamma (IFN-g) gene, a discovery that they call the “holy grail” for [...]

Australia has a feral cat problem. Cats and other invasive predators have driven dozens of the country’s native bird, reptile and small mammal species into extinction, and continue to threaten several others. So many feral felines roam the country that the government often traps, shoots or poisons the animals in order to control populations. Most [...]

Scientists and conservationists this week said they will petition the Australian government to change the status of the Leadbeater’s possum from “endangered” to “critically endangered,” a designation shared by only four other Australian mammals. The tiny marsupial (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) is one of two faunal emblems of Australia’s State of Victoria, but it has suffered badly [...]

People often ask me, “How can you write about endangered species all the time? Isn’t it depressing?” Sure, it can be, but not as depressing as the sheer number of stories that I don’t get to write about. So let’s catch up on some of the stories that should have made headlines this month. First [...]

A tiny new lizard species has been discovered in Western Australia, and just in time: its only known habitat is already being destroyed. The six-centimeter-long coastal plains skink (Ctenotus ora) lives in the sand dunes of the Swan Coastal Plain, which starts about 70 kilometers south of Perth. According to the researchers from Australian National [...]

When an otherwise nocturnal wombat shows up in the daylight, acting lethargic and having trouble walking, you know that animal is in trouble. When thousands of wombats turn up sick, emaciated, balding and dying, you know you have a crisis. That’s what’s happening in Murraylands, South Australia, where up to 85 percent of the region’s [...]

Last year we learned that climate change could soon make Australia too hot for the cold-loving, iconic platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus). Now we have word of a new threat to these unique, egg-laying mammals: inbreeding, which has put the platypuses living on two small Australian islands at enhanced risk of disease. According to research published March [...]

It’s been a rough year for Western Australia’s iconic but endangered Carnaby’s black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus latirostris), which are endemic to the state and live nowhere else in the world. Their population has dropped 37 percent in the past year, from 12,954 roosting birds in 2010 to just 8,365 in 2011, according to the third Great [...]

Australia has a long history of invasive species that have damaged the island nation’s ecology and driven several species into extinction. The most famous example, of course, is the cane toad (Rhinella marina), which was introduced by Australia in 1935 in an attempt to control sugar cane pests, but which instead proved devastating to many [...]

Is the northern hairy-nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii) the most interesting endangered species in the world? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t—but it has definitely attracted the attention of the Dos Equis beer commercial spokesperson known only as “the Most Interesting Man in the World.” The television advertising icon and Dos Equis have launched an auction [...]

Why not bring elephants to Australia? That’s the proposal made by biologist David Bowman of the University of Tasmania in a comment published February 2 in Nature. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) The pachyderms could help to polish off gamba grass, introduced from Africa to Australia in the 1930s as fodder for [...]

Of all the amazing octopus species out there, the mimic octopus, Thaumoctopus mimicus, is perhaps the most bewildering. While most known octopuses are able to change color and shape for camouflage, mimic octopuses can also impersonate other animals to deter would-be predators. They can contort their bodies and long, striped arms to look—and swim—like other [...]