The Victorian government sat on a report for more than 12 months that found the state’s koala population was in chronically poor health. The review of the state’s koala populations, led by state science agency the Arthur Rylah Institute in conjunction with scientists from major universities, was completed for the Victorian government in June 2025. […]
Tag: Genet
“That puzzled us quite a bit.” Scientists found another astonishing thing about narwhals after X-raying their tusks
An international team of researchers has solved the mystery of how narwhal tusks acquire their twisted structure. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Communications. Narwhals are often called the ‘unicorns of the seas’, and not without reason. Back in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the narwhal tusk was often sold as a unicorn horn. The mythical […]
Kākāpō rising: 90 chicks swell population of the world’s heaviest parrot
The population of the world’s heaviest parrot, the kākāpō, has surpassed 300 birds for the first time in 75 years, after a record breeding season triggered by the mass fruiting of a native New Zealand tree. Ninety chicks were officially added to the population of the critically endangered birds on 1 September, pushing the total to […]
When Truth Becomes Optional: The War on Grizzly Bears
There is something deeply disturbing about the way grizzly bears are being talked about today. It isn’t simply that people disagree about grizzly bear management. Disagreement is healthy. Debate is necessary. Science should be questioned and management strategies should be examined. But that is not what we are watching. We are watching a growing willingness […]
It’s the size of a pet cat, looks like a bandit and uses its enormous tail to flirt
Like all lemur species, ring-tailed lemurs are endemic to Madagascar, an island off the coast of East Africa. Lemurs are the world’s most endangered group of mammals; they are even the world’s most endangered group of vertebrates. The 2020 IUCN Red List update found that 98% of lemur species are Endangered, and 31% of species are […]
Killer fungus: how a disease threatening bat species has spread to northern Canada
Crawling through a narrow passage in a cave beneath a boreal forest near Fort Smith in Canada’s Northwest Territories in May, two biologists spotted a lifeless bat on a limestone ledge, its body covered in a spindly white fungus. When they shone their headlamps to get a closer look, they saw another bat with the […]
Why do some animals die during or after sex?
You might be thinking ‘what on earth is the evolutionary advantage of dying during or after sex‘, but actually there are plenty of advantages for the species, and even for the specific individual, even if they don’t survive to benefit from them. Why do animals die during or after sex? The main reason is ensuring […]
Australia’s earless dragon is so rare it was thought extinct, until two ecologists got an unexpected surprise…
Deep within the grasslands west of Melbourne, Australia, a population of Victorian grassland earless dragons has been quietly living and reproducing out of sight of humans. So out of sight, that there hasn’t been a verifiable record since 1969 despite several targeted searches, and many feared that the species was extinct. However, in January 2023, […]