Biodiversity

"The number of monarch butterflies at their overwintering areas in Mexico dropped precipitously this year to the second-lowest level on record, according to an annual survey." "Scientists said the decline appeared to be driven by hot, dry conditions in the United States and Canada that reduced food supply."

"Octopuses are capable of sophisticated tasks, from solving puzzles to decorating their dens to remembering people's faces. So when a company in Spain announced that it wanted to commercially farm octopuses to harvest them for seafood, the plan sparked an uproar."

"A coalition of environmental and animal protection groups said Wednesday that it will sue to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove Northern Rocky gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act."

"Jaguars once roamed throughout the American south-west, but they were hunted to local extinction by the 1960s. In the 1990s, the elusive cat began to occasionally reappear in the rugged Sky Islands mountain ranges in New Mexico and Arizona. Now, a series of sightings in the region over the past year marks the endangered predators’ tentative return."

"Researchers said big-headed ants started an “ecological chain reaction” in a Kenya conservancy, impacting lions and other animals".

"Gray wolves that inhabit the Northern Rocky Mountains will not receive protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced Friday."

"Native to the tropics, these pollinators are taking a lead role in one of the latest efforts to conserve the Amazon rainforest."

"As a child, Heriberto Vela, an Indigenous resident of Loreto, Peru, watched his father pull nests of wild stingless bees from trees in the Amazon forest. Together, the two then extracted honey from the nests to help cure colds and other ailments.

"The return of sea otters and their voracious appetites has helped rescue a section of California marshland, a new study shows. Sea otters eat constantly and one of their favorite snacks is the striped shore crab. These crabs dig burrows and also nibble away roots of the marsh grass pickleweed that holds dirt in place."

"A deadly type of bird flu has been found in gentoo penguins for the first time, according to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), stoking concern that the virus could spread among Antarctica's huge penguin colonies."

"The megalodon went extinct 3.6 million years ago, and is thought to be the largest shark that ever swam the Earth. But there's debate over what it looked like."