In the 18th century Carl Linnaeus named them lemurs, after the Latin lemures—spirits of the dead, wandering ghosts. He knew the primates roamed Madagascar’s forests at night, their large eyes brimming with moonlight, their shrill cries crashing through the treetops. One of the smallest lemurs on the island, the fat-tailed dwarf lemur, resembled a phantom [...]

The news about endangered species doesn’t slow down. Here, we update some Extinction Countdown stories covered in recent weeks: A plan to save bats The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a national plan to combat the bat-killing white-nose syndrome (WNS) on May 17. As we have reported here many times before, the fungus that [...]

Entrepreneur and adventure-seeker Sir Richard Branson wants to import endangered lemurs to one of his two private islands in the British Virgin Islands (B.V.I.), giving them a safe haven from the political unrest and habitat destruction on their native Madagascar. But scientists and conservationists aren’t exactly hopping with pleasure over the plan. Operating under the [...]

Endangered lemurs have become luxury items on the menus of some Madagascar restaurants, reports Conservation International (CI) and its local partner, the environmental nonprofit Fanamby. The Indian Ocean island nation has experienced political upheaval in recent months, with its president stepping down in March under intense pressure. The unrest has resulted in Madagascar’s suspension from [...]

Today is the publication day of Pink Boots and the Machete, book by Mireya Mayor, physical anthropologist, National Geographic Explorer, and former NFL Cheerleader. For this occasion, we have invited Darlene Cavalier to conduct a brief interview with the author. Darlene: You discovered the world’s smallest primate in existence in Madagascar. Walk me through the [...]

As a little boy, I was always drawn to books about wilderness, exotic places, explorers and wild animals. I hungrily read accounts of real events, from Joy Adamson to Gerald Durrell, and works of fiction, from The Jungle Book to The White Fang, from Henryk Sienkiewicz’s In Desert and Wilderness to the entire Doctor Dolittle [...]

If you gave an infinite number of (or six) monkeys (and related, which I think means mammals) an infinite (also six) number of synthesizers, will they eventually produce Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, or ACDC’s Back in Black or, well, anything? Someone thought they’d give it a go as an advertisement for Voltfestivalen — The place [...]