Wildlife traffickers are increasingly targeting critically endangered maleo birds from coastal Indonesia for the international exotic pet trade, according to a recent study. In 2024, enforcement agencies recorded three separate seizures totaling 25 live juvenile maleo birds (Macrocephalon maleo) en route to or within India. The ground-dwelling, black-and-white birds are endemic to the Indonesian island […]
VOTE for the Best Photo of the Month October 2026
Welcome to the “Best Photo of the Month” competition showcasing and celebrating the biodiversity of Planet Earth. Voting is easy and lots of fun. By popular request the number of images to be selected has been increased to six. First click an image and the slideshow will start automatically. Select the SIX images you like best […]
“Long, curved talons can crush the skull and break the spine of large prey – and carcasses too heavy to carry are dismembered where they fall”
The crowned eagle is considered Africa’s most powerful raptor. Built for ambushing prey among the trees, it kills monkeys and antelopes almost four times its own weight, crushing their skulls in its enormous talons. Its prowess may even have made it a hunter of our distant ancestors. Yet its strength offers little protection against the disappearance of […]
Six beluga deaths cast a shadow over rescue from Canada’s Marineland
Six members of a pod of 30 belugas, a fifth of the whales that were transferred from a marine park in Canada to facilities in the U.S. and Spain as part of a massive rescue operation, have died in the last two months. They were transported to the facilities in July and August after languishing […]
Lurking beneath the surface, this deadly reptile strikes fear with glowing red eyes and teeth built to grip struggling prey — including humans
At night on an Amazonian lake, a torch beam catches two eyes glowing red just above the water. The rest of the enormous reptile is hidden below the surface. It is an arresting glimpse of the world’s largest caiman, a predator that can exceed 5m in length and has even been observed eating juvenile members […]
Loss of a rare lake reveals how warming has hit the Canadian Arctic’s ‘planetary fridge’
When an ice shelf blocks a polar fjord, it sparks the creation of an ecosystem like no other: the epishelf lake. Meltwater pools up behind the ice shelf, floating above the denser seawater, with both freshwater and marine species found in distinct layers within the same water column. But Canada’s last known epishelf lake, at […]
Experts tested whales’ teeth for nuclear fallout – and accidentally found the oldest killer whale on record
By analysing the teeth of five whales who died on Scottish shores in the past three decades, researchers created a ‘dental time machine’ – allowing them to reconstruct the life stories of the animals and identify one of the oldest male killer whales on record. The study, which relied on traces of radioactive fallout trapped in […]
‘Crucial opportunity to act’ as study finds most of Europe’s wild bee species in decline
Most of Europe’s wild bee species and about half of its hover fly species have declined over the last century, a study has found, as a UN biodiversity summit begins in Armenia. Records since 1921 show more bee species are declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alpine region. The richness of […]