News and research about endangered species from around the world
This has been the deadliest year on record for Florida panthers ( Puma or Felis concolor coryi ), but the critically endangered big cats also ended 2012 with some pretty amazing news.
Two American zoos have helped to save an African amphibian from extinction. The Kihansi spray toad ( Nectophrynoides asperginis ) was declared extinct in the wild in 2009 after its only habitat, the waterfalls of Kihansi Gorge in Tanzania, dried up following the establishment of a nearby hydroelectric dam...
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...
Protecting the adorable but endangered slow loris—the world's only venomous primate—from the illegal pet trade suddenly got a little harder. According to a paper pending publication in the American Journal of Primatology , what was once recognized as one slow loris species and two subspecies is actually four different species.Lead author Rachel Munds, an anthropology doctoral student at the University of Missouri, Columbia, (MU), says the loris's nocturnal nature and relatively similar appearance hid these species from science until the animals were examined more closely...
If you have seen any of Peter Jackson's movies, such as this week's release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey , then you have probably noticed the logo for the special effects company Weta Workshop, which works on most of the director's New Zealand–based projects...
In May 2011, after months of preparation, Jakob Shockey and two fellow biology students from Evergreen State College in Washington State found themselves on a tiny Panamanian island staring at one of the rarest mammals in the world: the pygmy three-toed sloth ( Bradypus pygmaeus )...
Every day 20 unusual lions greet visitors at a tiny animal park in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. These lions, which have spent generations in captivity, are not like most African lions ( Panthera leo leo )...
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...
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week that African lions ( Panthera leo leo ) may deserve protected status under the Endangered Species Act.
The sad death of conservation icon Lonesome George this past June in the Galápagos Islands marked the long-dreaded extinction of the Pinta Island tortoise ( Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni )...
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