Rogues of the Rainforest
Tropical vines are wandering, as they always have, but recent environmental changes are giving them an edge over other rainforest plants—a shift that could have enduring impacts on climates around the globe.
Water Makes a Hive Thrive 11.04.2021 Spotlight - Just like us, honeybees can die if they get too hot. To cool off, they’ve devised their own kind of air conditioning, ferrying water home and then fanning it with their wings. 
Bringing out the Dead 10.28.2021 Article - By sinking a wide array of carcasses into the deep ocean and studying what turns up when they fall, scientists are learning about some of the world’s most exotic scavengers and the roles they play in the darkness. 
Eye Spy 10.28.2021 Spotlight - While this highly adapted fish peers out on its prey- and predator-rich surroundings, shapeshifting, pigmented cells enable it to all but disappear into its environment. 
Hanging with Dad 10.22.2021 Spotlight - A male African jacana has his feathers full while navigating Botswana’s rich but treacherous wetlands. 
A River’s Right to Flow 10.22.2021 Article - Indigenous communities and conservationists around the world are challenging the view of water as a human commodity, and fighting to keep this precious resource in the ecosystems it sustains. Can the same approach work in the arid Southwest? 
Letters Between Trees 09.09.2021 Article - With a pandemic and record-breaking fire season raging, two individuals, seemingly worlds apart, find solace in their connections with one another and within the ecosystems they call home. 
Heeding the Pandemic’s Warnings 08.27.2021 Article - While wildlife trafficking receives more media attention, experts are urging global leaders to clamp down on legal wildlife trade and the significant disease threats it poses. 
Starling-Studded Skies 07.13.2021 Photo Essay - A modern approach to a 19th-century photography technique celebrates both the art and science behind one of the planet’s most mesmerizing spectacles. 
Signs of the Times 07.08.2021 Article - Despite their perceived abundance, the periodical cicadas that emerged across the eastern United States this summer point to a growing set of threats facing both the insects themselves and the ecosystems they help support. 
What it Means to be Wild 07.08.2021 Opinion, Review - Against the backdrop of a world so thoroughly altered by humankind, Emma Marris's latest book, Wild Souls, challenges our assumptions about nature and how we protect it. 
Into the Wild 06.18.2021 Article - North America’s rarest wolf subspecies is finally reclaiming its native territory in the Southwest, thanks in part to a fostering program that places captive-born pups into wild dens. 
The Big Picture 2021 05.27.2021 Photo Gallery - From the beautiful to the bizarre, this photographic showcase of life on Earth shines a light on some of our planet's most amazing species and places. 
Antarctica’s Upside Down World 05.12.2021 Article - Clinging to the underside of ice hundreds of meters thick, strange communities of sea life eke out a living in perpetual darkness. Now, researchers are racing to find and study these creatures before they—and their ice sheets—disappear. 
Life, Death, and Renewal in the Campo Rupestre 04.22.2021 Photo Essay - In a little-known region of Brazil that calls to mind Tolkien’s Middle-earth, unique lifeforms have evolved to endure innumerable environmental challenges. Can they survive the country's latest era of deregulation? 
Are You My Mother? 03.29.2021 Spotlight - Before a timber rattlesnake mom leaves her babies to fend for themselves, she passes on an important piece of information: her scent. 
Extraordinary Animals and the People Who Love Them 03.29.2021 Review - The new book Beloved Beasts hacks through the undergrowth of the conservation movement in search of a clear path forward. 
Home on the Range 03.23.2021 Article - Once thought to be extinct, tule elk have returned to roam across California's Point Reyes National Seashore, but the park—which also supports beef and dairy cattle—is getting crowded. 
Scales of Reference 03.11.2021 Article - Collected at the tail end of British Columbia's "silver fever," hundred-year-old salmon scales are now helping conservation scientists reconstruct and better manage the populations of one of Canada's most important fish. 
How to Count a Wolf 02.25.2021 Video - The first step in managing a rare and controversial predator—particularly in a state where it's been absent for decades—is knowing how many you have. That’s easier said than done with a species as elusive as this one. 
From Reviled to Adored 02.23.2021 Photo Essay - How one community—and one woman in particular—have found a way to protect the rarest stork in the world simply by learning to appreciate the species and embracing it as one of their own. 
Swamp Sentinels 02.18.2021 Article - Buried in mud for millennia, some of New Zealand's ancient kauri trees are revealing surprising clues about Earth's climate—past, present, and future. 
A New Hope 01.27.2021 Photo Essay - Discovered a mere four years ago, the Skywalker gibbon quickly landed on the list of the world's 25 most endangered primates. While its status remains precarious, the species is inspiring a newfound effort to protect and restore the forests of… 
The Other COVID Nurses 01.01.2021 Photo Essay - Caring for sick and injured wildlife has always been challenging, but during the pandemic, for many rehabilitators, it has become a grueling, 24/7 labor of love. 
Convenient Conveyance 12.24.2020 Spotlight - For a jellyfish, there are few hitchhikers more harmful than this juvenile brown paper nautilus, and for the nautilus, few rides could be more handy. 
Saving Slovenia’s “Human Fish” 12.15.2020 Article - Scientists in this Central European country are leading the charge to understand and protect a charismatic, cave-dwelling salamander—and the subterranean habitats that supply much of the region's drinking water. 
Mother Load 12.11.2020 Spotlight - Multitasking bat moms carry their nursing pups underwing all while navigating a growing array of threats in the Australian forests they call home. 
Lens on Life 12.04.2020 Photo Gallery - While 2020 has thrown an endless string of challenges at many of us, nature hasn't gone anywhere. It's just as impressive and inspiring—and in many cases, just as imperiled as ever. 
Billfish Bounty 11.25.2020 Spotlight - A striped marlin slices through a shoal of baitfish, a beautiful reminder of the struggle between predator and prey—as well as the fragility and importance of healthy ecosystems. 
Africa’s Pandemic-fueled Conservation Crisis 11.17.2020 Article - The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exposed long-standing weaknesses in how we protect African wilderness and species. But it has also given us an opportunity to vastly improve our approach to these urgent challenges. 
Chennai Ran Out of Water — But That’s Only Half the Story 10.30.2020 Article - To reduce flooding and bridge droughts, India’s southern coastal metropolis is using ancient knowledge, community action, and wetlands restoration to harness its monsoon rains. 
Northern Lights from the Deep 10.28.2020 Spotlight - What could easily be an atmospheric apparition is in fact a formidable predator, and a critical member of its strange, open-ocean ecosystem 
The Gibbon’s Tail 10.14.2020 Article - For the world’s rarest ape, survival may depend on stories passed down for centuries among the people of its Chinese island home. 
A Novel Demise 09.22.2020 Spotlight - Although we’ve marveled over carnivorous plants for centuries, the plants’ penchant for vertebrate flesh has been largely overlooked. 
Raising Nature on Florida Ranchlands 08.11.2020 Article - “Rancher vs Environmentalist” has been a longstanding trope. But in the Sunshine State, ranching just may be the last, best hope for ecological salvation. 
Pandemics of Our Own Making 07.21.2020 Opinion - While it's critical that we devote our scientific ingenuity to beating back the current pandemic, we must also address our broken relationship with nature in a concerted effort to prevent similar outbreaks in the future. 
Wanted Alive 07.14.2020 Spotlight - For the first time in decades, Icelandic whalers have stopped hunting fin whales, thanks in part to a growing appreciation for the value these mammals bring to both marine and human communities. 
The Big Picture 2020 05.05.2020 Photo Gallery - From the beautiful to the bizarre, this photographic showcase of life on Earth shines a light on some of our planet's most amazing species and places. 
Farming Insects to Save Lemurs 03.19.2020 Article - A reimagined approach to an age-old practice is helping to fight malnutrition in Madagascar—and may have the added benefit of protecting the island nation's imperiled primates and the forests they call home. 
