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It’s been a year since African cheetahs were brought to India in an attempt to reintroduce the species that had been extinct on the subcontinent for 70 years. So far the project is going … not great.
A scent-detecting dog named Dory has been sniffing out the location of sea turtle eggs on the Florida coast for the past five years or so. Researchers monitored her uncanny ability and found she was better at it than the human volunteers who normally scour the beaches.
When Australian surfer Higor Fiuza took his bredli carpet python Shiva out to catch some waves, he got a lot of positive attention — a viral video on social media and an interview with Nine News. But then the Queensland Department of Environment and Science wanted a word.
In 1996 severe flooding around Brisbane, Australia swept six young bull sharks into a landlocked (mostly) freshwater lake on a golf course. The floodwaters receded but the sharks were trapped in the 51-acre lake off the 14th hole. Incredibly, the sharks lived there for 17 years.
Escaped murderer Danelo Cavalcante was finally nabbed this week after two weeks on the lam. US Marshals and the Pennsylvania State Police deployed search teams, armored carriers, horses, helicopters, and aircraft equipped with thermal imaging to catch the killer, but the ultimate hero in the capture was Yoda, a 4-year-old Belgian Malinois.
The ferruginous pygmy owl, found in the American Southwest and northern Mexico, once again enjoys the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Last month the US Fish and Wildlife Service restored the status of the little hooters after it lost those protections 17 years ago.
The bulldog breed known as the American bully XL could be exiled forever from the UK, after a number of attacks, including the fatal mauling of a 10-year-old boy. Home Secretary Suella Braverman says she is seeking “urgent advice” on whether to ban the breed.
While the damage wrought by Hurricane Idalia is still being assessed, one pleasant consequence of the storm has been the extensive dispersal of the American flamingo. The big pink birds are being spotted throughout much of the Eastern Seaboard this week, no worse for wear.
A fifteen-year-old lion named Ruben lived in solitary misery for years in an abandoned zoo in Armenia. The “world’s loneliest lion” has found freedom at last in a South Africa sanctuary. After the private zoo in Armenia shut down, all its animals found new homes except for one, according to the animal-rescue group Animal Defenders International. Ruben spent five years in a small concrete cell, alone, as his health deteriorated due to malnutrition and lack of exercise.
A number of books on foraging mushrooms and related cookbooks sold on Amazon are not authored by expert mycophagists or even by humans. They are generated by artificial intelligence and they are dangerous.
Yellow police tape surrounds Victor Crowell Park in Middlesex Borough, New Jersey, as an escaped 4-foot alligator continues to evade capture. In the past week, the escapee has been spotted at least a half dozen times in Ambrose Brook, a conduit between Lake Creighton and the Raritan River.
Wolverines will likely soon find a home in Colorado – again – as policymakers in the state sort out exactly how they will reintroduce these rare mammals. Much depends on whether the US Fish and Wildlife Service determines that the species will be protected under the Endangered Species Act, a decision it is expected to make in the coming months.
A surgeon performing a biopsy in Australia was shocked to pluck a wriggling worm from her patient’s brain. Neurosurgeon Hari Priya Bandi was investigating the patient’s mysterious symptoms when she happened upon the 3-inch parasite, which she extracted with forceps.
An intensive search over the weekend for the legendary (mythical? elusive? imaginary?) Loch Ness Monster has turned up no specific evidence of Nessie’s existence, so far. Hundreds of researchers, tourists, and assorted Nessie enthusiasts took part in what is being touted as the biggest search for the beast in fifty years.
A king penguin in Scotland’s Edinburgh Zoo reached a new career milestone this week as he was promoted to Major General in the King’s Guard of Norway. His new title is a mouthful: Major General Sir Nils Olav III, Baron of the Bouvet Islands.
Aerial surveys of the North Sea show that some seals practice social distancing, probably for the same reason that humans do – to keep disease from spreading. The research appears in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
Every year the London Zoo takes on the Herculean task of weighing every one of its 14,000 residents. The zookeepers look like they’re having a blast.
Brights Zoo in East Tennessee has announced the birth of a spotless giraffe, the only one of its kind in the world. Now a month and a half old, the baby girl is six feet tall, healthy, and a very fetching tawny brown.
Police in Pinellas County, Florida are asking residents to please, do not call them if you happen to see manatees flopping around in the water en masse, they’re just having an orgy.
Scientists in Peru discovered a new species of snake in the Andes Mountains, which they promptly named after a movie star whose most famous character happens to hate snakes: Tachymenoides harrisonfordi.
