How do you search for the world’s smallest monkey? Earlier this year, Nicolás Schuldt Durán took on this task after he was approached by members of an Indigenous community in Ecuador. Ever since, he’s been tapping into the knowledge of the Siekopai people and combining it with passive acoustic monitoring technology to look for pygmy […]
Tag: Amazon rainforest
The land deal threatening a vital piece of Bolivia’s Chiquitano dry forest
A large forest in eastern Bolivia is on the verge of being sold to an international agriculture company, raising concerns that it might be razed to make room for new cropland. The 30,019-hectare (74,179-acre) plot in Bolivia’s northeastern Chiquitano dry forest has been sustainably managed for years. But now the land is on the verge […]
Climate Crisis Speeds Up as Coral Reefs and Rainforests Edge Toward Collapse
According to Reuters, the pace of Global warming is accelerating faster than at any time in recorded history — and the Earth’s most vital ecosystems are beginning to crumble under the pressure. New research shows the planet‘s temperature is rising at about 0.27°C per decade, nearly 50% faster than in the 1990s, while sea levels […]
As forests are cut down, butterflies are losing their colours
The world is becoming less colourful. For butterflies, bold and bright wings once meant survival, helping them attract mates and hide from prey. But a new research project suggests that as humans replace rich tropical forests with monochrome, the colour of other creatures is leaching away. “The colours on a butterfly’s wings are not trivial […]
Amazon Rainforest Birds Suffer Mysterious Declines in Pristine Habitats
Populations of Amazonian birds have been quietly plummeting for years, even in forests untouched by human activity. According to research highlighted by Tess McClure in The Guardian, scientists working at remote sites in Ecuador, Brazil, and Panama have found that bird numbers are falling generation by generation. These spots, such as the Tiputini Biodiversity Research […]
In the most untouched, pristine parts of the Amazon, birds are dying. Scientists may finally know why
Something was happening to the birds at Tiputini. The biodiversity research centre, buried deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, has always been special. It is astonishingly remote: a tiny scattering of research cabins in 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) of virgin forest. For scientists, it comes about as close as you can to observing rainforest wildlife in […]
Fate of endangered monkey hinges on Brazilian city’s planning policy
The fate of one of the world’s most threatened primates will be on the line in the coming months when Brazilian authorities decide whether to incorporate the pied tamarin into the urban planning policies of Manaus. Conservationists say the inclusion is crucial not just to protect the critically endangered monkey but as an indicator of […]
‘Bear’s-eye camera’ reveals elusive Andean bear cannibalism and treetop mating
In the mountains of Peru, where ancient cloud forests meet the Amazon Rainforest, an Andean bear made scientific history. For four months, a camera collar captured the wild male’s daily life, revealing behaviors never before documented in the Southern Hemisphere’s only bear species, from treetop mating rituals to unexpected acts of cannibalism. The study, published […]