Meet the olinguito, a tiny elusive mammal described by scientists as a cross between a teddy bear and a house cat. Olinguitos were misidentified for over a century, despite the fact that there are many specimens in museum collections and some have even resided at zoos. It wasn’t until 2013 that a team researching its […] More
Male turkeys are really into themselves, apparently. One particularly confident turkey was captured on video in New Jersey obsessively circling a car, admiring himself in the shiny exterior for hours. A Mount Laurel resident noticed the wayward turkey strutting around her son’s new Honda Civic, apparently quite lovestruck with the vehicle — er, his own […] More
Florida’s manatees are having a rough year — 761 of them died in just one lagoon in the first 5 months of 2021. That’s 10% of the state’s population. The sunshine state’s iconic West Indian manatees have been starving to death because their main food source, seagrass, is unable to grow in the some of […] More
Researchers have just discovered a Fernandina giant tortoise — a species believed to have gone extinct over a century ago. Found alive and well on the Galápagos Islands, the single female represents Chelonoidis phantasticus, a species that hasn’t been observed since 1906. A team of scientists from the California Academy of Sciences located the tortoise on […] More
A marine biologist in Australia recently captured incredible cephalopod video footage — an octopus rolling a plastic pipe containing its eggs back into the ocean after it had washed ashore. Sheree Marris was walking along a beach in Melbourne when she happened upon a discarded plastic pipe. Picking it up to examine it, she noticed […] More
Everyone’s favorite cute, cuddly critter is, well…not. Otters are actually terrifying apex predators, dominating the food chains of our river ecosystems. But they’re also in trouble. Global populations have dropped, and in Argentina, the fate of the world’s largest otter rests in the hands – er, paws – of two former captives. Voices Kate Morgan […]
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Endangered Tasmanian devils — 7 to be exact — were born in the wild on the Australian mainland for the first time in over 3,000 years. The newborn Tasmanian devils, or “joeys,” were born at the Barrington Wildlife Sanctuary in New South Wales in late May. While they’re still extremely tiny — newborn joeys weigh […] More
A giant river otter thought to be locally extinct was recently spotted in Argentina for the first time in over 30 years. Researchers unexpectedly sighted the otter as it was swimming in El Impenetrable National Park’s Bermejo River. Sebastián Di Martino, the director of conservation at Fundacion Rewilding Argentina, was kayaking down the river when […] More
A discovery made over 50 years ago by a fossil collector turned out to be quite an extraordinary find: A fossil of an ancient squid that was attempting to eat a crustacean — but was then itself bitten in half by a shark. The fossil was originally discovered in 1970 by amateur collector Dieter Weber […] More
The Everglades have been invaded. A million insatiable, invasive snakes are slithering their way through the swamp, eating everything in sight. The only hope to save the world’s most unique ecosystem is an extraordinary army: the python hunters. Sometime in the late 1970s, a population of Burmese pythons began to reproduce in South Florida. The […]
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In case massive, destructive wildfires don’t already make you nervous, here’s something new: fires that burn so hot and fast they become tornadoes. Yes, firenadoes are real, and they are not as rare as you want them to be. For all of earth’s long and wild history, fire has played a major role on the […]
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My, what bulging eyes you have! Meet the potoo, a weird and wonderful wide-eyed bird found in the lowland forests of Central and South America. These guys are nocturnal, solitary, vocal, and look like they came straight out of a cartoon. The common potoo doesn’t look like a very smart bird but its haunting melancholic […] More
