In the high Andes of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, you can still find the vicuña, a shy, elusive camelid, revered by Indigenous people. It has reasons to be cautious of humans. Long-prized for its fine wool, European colonists hunted it relentlessly. Flocks in the millions were reduced to 6,000 individuals by the 1960s. Indigenous-driven […]
“I was dragged into the murk. I clawed at the sand in hope of grabbing a rock to hit it with and pry my leg out from its jaws”
We were in the Jardines de la Reina archipelago off the south coast of Cuba, looking for the mysterious ‘Reina’ – a giant hammerhead that locals said had been spotted around the area. Interested to see if ‘Reina’ was indeed just one large female or in fact many different sharks, I decided to head into […]
Mass sardine die-off pits survival of South Africa’s penguins against fishers’ livelihoods
It began on 28 July, when fishers near Saldanha Bay on the west coast of South Africa reported seeing dead sardines (also known as pilchards) floating at sea. Then, in early August, more dead sardines began washing up on beaches near Cape Town. In the weeks that followed, similar reports came in from places across […]
Why do octopuses have three hearts, when humans only have one?
Compared to many other animals, octopuses have rather a complicated circulatory system to ensure oxygenated blood reaches the extremities of their multi-limbed body. Why do octopuses have three hearts? Octopuses pump their blood around their circulatory system using three hearts instead of one. While a ‘systemic’ heart supplies the animal’s body, two ‘branchial’ hearts supply […]
Pakistan expands protected habitat for Indus River dolphin as recovery offers hope
Between 11 million and 16 million years ago, during the high sea levels of the middle Miocene period, the ancestors of the Indus River dolphin entered the muddy waters of what is the Indus Basin today. Over millennia, they adapted to their new environment through extraordinary evolutionary shifts, developing sophisticated echolocation while gradually losing their […]
“To survive it consumes a large portion of its internal organs, including its kidneys, liver, gizzard and intestine”
It takes guts to migrate long distances – literally, if you’re a bar-tailed godwit Limosa lapponica baueri. This crow-sized shorebird burns not just flab, but even some innards to fuel its marathon migrations. Each autumn, the godwit flies from its breeding grounds in Alaska and Siberia to Australia or New Zealand to spend the winter. […]
Outfoxed: How well do you know your native animals? Australians’ questionable quoll knowledge exposed
Most people identify wombats and kangaroos as Australian animals, but one in six people surveyed in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria think red foxes are native wildlife. The polling commissioned by the Invasive Species Council also revealed that one in three Australians on the east coast did not know that quolls were native. More […]
Sharks have a deadly secret sixth – and possibly – seventh sense to locate prey — and it’s more terrifying than you think
Sharks have all the senses humans have – along with additional senses that enable them to detect electrical signals and vibrations in the water. Small pores on a shark’s snout, known as ‘ampullae of Lorenzini’, can detect the tiny electrical currents in the water given off by living animals and inanimate objects, such as camera […]