The gopher tortoise is a land-dwelling reptile native to the southeastern United States that digs deep burrows used by hundreds of other animals. More than two decades after two Mississippi landowners began restoring their land to help an endangered tortoise, their work has now created a new home for one of North America’s rarest amphibians….

For millions of years, birds have been changing in ways that are difficult to see from the present day. A skeleton in a museum may look like a fixed record of one species, but taken together, thousands of specimens can reveal how bodies changed across vast stretches of time. That is what a team at…

Seth NabatPhoto: Society for Science Every year, nearly 1,900 of the nation’s most promising high school seniors submit original research to the Regeneron Science Talent Search (Regeneron STS), the oldest and most prestigious science and mathematics competition in the United States. According to the Society for Science, which runs the competition, the Regeneron STS recognises…

Joel Sartore started the project with a simple but powerful idea: to photograph animals one species at a time, creating a visual record before they are gone. (Image: Instagram/joelsartore) In a world where species can disappear before most people even know they exist, photographer Joel Sartore has spent two decades making sure wildlife is seen….

Jane Goodall spent decades studying chimpanzees in the wild before becoming one of the world’s most recognisable voices for wildlife conservation and environmental protection. Her work changed how scientists understood chimpanzee behaviour and helped demonstrate the importance of protecting animals and their habitats. One of her most widely shared messages is simple: “Every individual matters….

In the sun-drenched hills of Andalusia, Spain, an unlikely team of firefighters is making headlines. They don’t carry hoses, wear helmets, or race to blazes in red trucks. Instead, they have four legs, long ears and a simple mission: eat grass. Meet the “firefighting donkeys” of Doñana National Park, a group of 18 rescued animals…

Rhinocyllus conicus (Image Credit: Canva) A biological control programme launched in the United States more than five decades ago has become a cautionary example of how attempts to manage invasive species can produce unexpected ecological consequences. According to a USDA Forest Service assessment of invasive species in the Southwest, the thistle seedhead weevil (Rhinocyllus conicus)…

The milestone was achieved on Wednesday by the Chinese private space company LandSpace China has successfully recovered the first stage of an orbital rocket on land for the first time, marking a major step in Beijing’s efforts to develop reusable launch technology and reduce the cost of putting satellites into space.The milestone was achieved on…

In 2011, Ivy was released into a Massachusetts marsh as a tiny seven-gram Blanding’s turtle after spending her first months in human care. Then she disappeared. For more than a decade, there was no confirmed sign of the turtle, leaving conservationists with no way of knowing whether she had survived. According to the Commonwealth of…

The study began with an unusual marine worm, Olavius algarvensis. The little animal has neither a mouth nor a digestive tract. Long before humans learned how to turn petroleum into bottles and bags and packaging, nature had already invented her own plastic. These natural polymers have been made for hundreds of millions of years hidden…