The combination of sunny spring weather and habitat improved by a herd of red Devon cattle has led to a surge in numbers of one of the UK’s rarest butterflies on moorland in the English west country. As well as increasing in established pockets on Exmoor, the heath fritillary is spreading to new areas, which […]
Tag: butterflies
Lake District hikers called to join hunt for England’s only mountain butterfly as scientists fear climate change may squeeze it from its habitat
Hikers enjoying the peaks in England’s largest national park are being asked to keep their eyes on something other than the spectacular views this summer. Wildlife experts at charity Butterfly Conservation are asking trekkers in the Lake District to keep a look out for England’s only butterfly that lives in the mountains, the mountain ringlet. […]
The fate of this beloved American creature is in Trump’s hands
In late 2021, I stood in a forest about two hours from Mexico City and watched as a river of butterflies passed overhead. They were monarchs — the iconic, Halloween-colored butterflies — and they were coming here from the US to rest for the cold winter months. Nearly all of the monarchs east of the […]
Petition: Save Butterflies From Extinction – Act Now
A recent study has revealed that a whopping 22% of butterfly species in the United States have disappeared in the last 20 years. Make no mistake – this is an emergency. The loss of butterflies is not just a tragic consequence for these beautiful insects, but a sign of a much larger environmental crisis. Despite […]
Hummingbird Chicks Observed for the First Time Pretending to be Caterpillars to Avoid Being Eaten
When Jay Falk and Scott Taylor first saw the white-necked Jacobin hummingbird chick in Panama’s dense rainforest, the bird biologists didn’t know what they were looking at. The day-old bird, smaller than a pinky finger, had brown fuzz all over its body. When Falk and Taylor walked closer to the nest, the chick began twitching […]
Butterfly population in US shrinking by 22% over last 20 years, study shows
Butterflies may be among the most beloved of all creatures, routinely deified in art and verse, but they are in alarming decline in the United States with populations plummeting by a fifth in just the past two decades, according to the most comprehensive study yet of their fortunes. The abundance of butterflies in the US […]
In São Paulo, free-flight lessons help teach macaws to survive in the wild
“I remember my grandfather telling me about the macaws in this region. So, it’s impossible not to smile seeing them back. We know where they sleep and feed, so every time we want to find them, we know where they are,” says biologist Humberto Mendes, a professor at the Federal University of Alfenas in Brazil‘s […]
High fertiliser use halves numbers of pollinators, world’s longest study finds
Using high levels of common fertilisers on grassland halves pollinator numbers and drastically reduces the number of flowers, research from the world’s longest-running ecological experiment has found. Increasing the amount of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus doused on agricultural grassland reduced flower numbers fivefold and halved the number of pollinating insects, according to the paper by […]