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It's been just five years since the deadly fungus was first identified in a small population of New York bats. In that time, "white nose syndrome" has spread to 16 states and four Canadian provinces. Once infected, afflicted bats have been known to behave erratically, flying far from their nests, never to be seen again, making it difficult to identify the true impact of the disease. More »
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Feast your eyes on this stop-motion music video by animator Kevin Parry. The short took about six months to film, and required hundreds of paper cutouts, but we think you'll agree that Parry did a pretty great job serving up a splendid depiction of Earth's past, present and (possible) future. More »
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Myrrh and frankincense have bewildered countless generations of children who have no idea what they are, nor why they'd be given as a present to the baby Jesus in the Biblical myth that's celebrated on Christmas. Now, future generations will be even more confused, because Balthazar's present of frankincense may be on its way to extinction. Frankincense is resin from the Boswellia tree, generally found in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. It's used for perfume and incense, partly due to its link to the Christmas story. Now research is showing that farming, coupled with environmental hazards, have put the population of this tree severely at risk. More »
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A team of Russian and Japanese scientists recently announced that they have discovered pristine DNA samples of woolly mammoths, and they will clone a living mammoth within five years. It's tremendously exciting...but almost certainly not going to happen. Here's why. More »
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There are animals with badass names, and then there's the Ozark Hellbender. This salamander-like creature might sound like a reject from a particularly gritty and/or rural episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but it's actually a critically endangered species. More »
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In 2006, researchers undertook an extensive search for Western black rhinos in Cameroon, the place where the species was last sighted. No rhinos were found. Researchers failed to turn up any evidence of their dung, tracks, or signs of feeding. Had the rare subspecies of black rhinoceros gone the way of the dodo? Sadly, yes. More »
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You're looking at three of the last known hirola on Earth. Since the 1970s, unregulated hunting, habitat destruction and drought linked to climate change have driven the number of these large African antelopes living in Kenya and Somalia from over 14,000 to fewer than 400. More »
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The extinction of the Neanderthals remains a matter of intense debate. Were we smarter than them? More warlike? Or perhaps we simply sexed them into extinction? The real answer might have more to do with our quantity than our qualities. More »
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We're almost certain that a giant meteor hit Earth 65 million years ago. But a mysterious "three-meter gap" in the fossil record might mean dinosaurs were already dying off. Now a newly discovered fossil might finally reveal the whole story. More »
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This is an artist's conception of the river turtle Boremys, which is one of the first known species whose existence actually improved in the immediate aftermath of the massive extinction event, 65 million years ago. More »
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Darwin's frog, found in the forest streams of Argentina and Chile, has quite possibly the weirdest birthing method of any creature. Instead of hanging out in ponds, these little tadpoles help give new meaning to fathers with big fat mouths. More »
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Time is running out for the red colubus monkey, which lives in Uganda's Kibale National Park. Chimpanzees appear to be huntings these poor guys to death. It's the first time that one primate species has overhunted another, without humans being involved. More »
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In the isolated islands of the Pacific Ocean, a lack of large land mammals created openings for some truly unusual animals to dominate the ecosystem. Land crabs once ruled Hawaii...at least until humans and their pets showed up. More »
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The ivory-billed woodpecker was hunted to the point of extinction back in the 1930s, and ornithologists had long assumed it had died out entirely. But one amateur birdwatcher swears that he's seen them...and now he's out to get some proof. More »
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Earth has had five mass extinction events in the last 540 million years, in which more than three-quarters of animal species went extinct. We're on the verge of the sixth mass extinction, but it's not too late to stop it. More »
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Scientists say woolly mammoths may be cloned and walking around by 2020. But there are other extinct creatures whose DNA could be used to bring them back too. Here are some of the leading contenders for reanimation. More »
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It's not enough that birds are dropping from the skies and fish are washing up on our shores...now we've got disappearing bumblebees to contend with. Some American bumblebee species saw a massive 96% population drop in the last 20 years. More »
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375 million years ago, Earth suffered through its worst extinction event ever: 95% of all species perished. But here's the paradox: extinctions weren't actually any more common then than they are now. The real secret is that Earth's biodiversity collapsed. More »
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The human race could be wiped off the Earth's surface at any moment — so why don't people understand the urgency of colonizing space? In this excerpt from his book Reopening the Space Frontier, Professor John Hickman explains our foot-dragging. More »
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Woolly mammoths were breastfed for far, far longer than any of their modern counterparts, sometimes going three years before eating solid food. This ancient parenting choice might ultimately have driven mammoths to extinction. More »
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49,000 years ago in a cave in northern Spain, twelve Neanderthals were murdered and eaten by another group of Neanderthals. This grisly scene may tell a larger story about the reasons why our humanoid cousins ultimately died out. More »
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250 million years ago, 95% of life on Earth perished, probably from megavolcanoes. 65 million years ago, a meteor strike destroyed the dinosaurs. Now, some say another mass extinction is underway. Scientists tell you how to survive it. More »
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English readers will be horrified to know that the Rosser's sac spider still lives amongst them. Thought to be extinct in England, the spider was recently spotted, alive, well, and probably plotting evil. More »
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This map shows extinction hot spots for vertebrates (mammals, birds, and amphibians). Brown areas and blue areas are regions of intense die-offs. It's from a massive research study published today, showing nearly one-fifth of vertebrates are threatened with extinction. More »
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All species on the road to extinction reach a critical moment when their overall chances of survival drop to zero. We might be able to identify when this moment approaches, allowing us to save species on the brink of extinction. More »
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The 2.5-foot-long hellbender (a.k.a. "the snot otter" a.k.a. "the devil dog" a.k.a. North America's largest salamander) once populated the waterways all over the northeastern United States. Now, its population has declined such that scientists are cryopreserving its spiral-shaped sperm. More »
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This little guy is an adult male Horton Plains slender loris. This nocturnal primate has been spotted only four times since its discovery in 1937. Scientists assumed it went extinct after deforestation disrupted its habitat in Sri Lanka. [AFP] More »
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The mass extinctions that wiped out the dinosaurs aren't the worst in our planet's history, Paul Gilster explains. The absolute worst extinction event occurred around 2.4 billion years ago. More »
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Among paleontologists, it's sometimes called the "Great Dying." Roughly a quarter of a billion years ago, 90-95 percent of all life on Earth died out. It took 30 million years for the planet to recover. What happened? More »
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In the following essay, Greg Laden muses on the glacial pace it takes for geological theories to be widely accepted and the difficulty of pinpointing exactly when the dinosaurs went extinct. More »
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The songs blue whales use to communicate and attract mates have been dropping in pitch worldwide for decades, and researchers think it might actually be a sign that an endangered population is recovering. More »
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The brown bear population has been declining in parts of France for decades, but now a group of scientists say they have an unorthodox solution. Just bring in more female bears. But not for the reasons you might think. More »
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Dinosaurs may not have been Earth's only creatures to face extinction from above. A team of researchers has found evidence that suggests a comet once hit North America, taking the continent's mammals down with it. More »
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Entire species of plants are dying off in droves, just like mammals. And there's no way to save them all, say scientists. How do you decide which plant species to preserve at all costs, and which ones to consign to oblivion forever? Answering that question may mean the difference between selective extinction for some — and worldwide extinction for all. More »
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When Charles Darwin wrote about giant tortoises living on Floreana in 1835, he noted a marked decline in their population from previous years. Eleven years later, another visitor to the island declared the entire species extinct. But a fortuitous discovery has led researchers to believe that they can bring this animal back from the evolutionary grave. More »
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When it comes to comet impacts, the denizens of Earth may be living on borrowed time. Of course, comets are only about half the problem — there are plenty of asteroids whizzing around the inner solar system too — so we decided to have a look and see just how close modern society has come to destruction since 1900, and how close we're going to come over the next 100 years. The answers, provided in our nifty infographic, aren't reassuring. More »
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Must-read graphic novels are futuristic classics that shouldn't be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That's why we've rated them 1-5 on the patented "crunchy goodness" scale. More »
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