Ecuador is investigating the deaths of 4 Galápagos tortoises that they believe were hunted and eaten. Although killing Galápagos giant tortoises has been prohibited since 1933, the population continues to decline. Experts estimate that there are only about 15,000 giant tortoises left compared to a whopping 200,000 in the 1800s. The carcasses were found on […]
Tag: Ecuador
Petition: Protect the Newly Discovered Blue-Throated Hillstar Hummingbird From Extinction!
Land exploitation harms the planet and drives many animals to near extinction. The most popular example would be what deforestation for palm oil production has done to orangutan populations. When humans destroy a species’ natural habitat, the animals are left with very limited amounts of land to live on and limited places to find food. […]
25,000 seabirds die in southern cone fisheries every year
The turbulent waters around the southern part of South America are some of the most productive in the world, with upwellings of nutrients that support a whole suite of species. Along the Patagonian Shelf to the east, around the southern tip of the continent at Cape Horn and up into the Humboldt Current to the […]
Recently discovered ‘punkrocker’ frog changes skin texture in minutes
In 2006, a husband-and-wife team – Katherine and Tim Krynak – discovered a tiny new frog species, smaller than a U.S. quarter, in the Reserva Las Gralarias, a nature reserve in north-central Ecuador. They took its photograph and nicknamed it the “punkrocker” frog because of spine-like projections coming out of its skin. For the next […]
Colorful New ‘Dwarf Dragons’ Found in South America
Attention Game of Thrones: Three new species of “dwarf dragon” have been discovered in Peru and Ecuador, a new study says. Due to political unrest in Ecuador, it took nearly a decade for scientists to identify the reptiles, which are commonly called wood lizards. They are the Alto Tambo wood lizard (Enyalioides altotambo), rough-scaled wood […]
New report connects human health to biodiversity protection
During February, the 14th World Congress on Public Health in Kolkata, India, revealed a new “ground-breaking” report entitled, Connecting Global Priorities: Biodiversity and Human Health, which demonstrates human health benefits yielded from protecting Earth’s biodiversity. It’s designed to be the new “flagship publication,” acting as a primary source of information that supports the upcoming 2015 […]
Hummingbirds Use Their Delicate Beaks as Dagger-Like Weapons
The study, published in the journal Behavioral Ecology, focuses on the Long-billed hermit (Phaethornis longirostris) – a large species of hummingbird native to Costa Rica, central Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and western Ecuador. This bird averages 15 cm long and has a mass of 6 grams. It has a very long bill that is more than […]
Photos: slumbering lions win top photo prize
The king of beasts took this year’s top prize in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which is co-owned by the Natural History Museum (London) and the BBC. The photo, of female lions and their cubs resting on a rock face in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, was taken by Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols, […]