Few people have ever seen a critically endangered Malherbe’s parakeet (Cyanoramphus malherbi) in the wild. Luis Ortiz-Catedral has not only seen more of the birds than just about anyone else, one of them has landed on his head. He has also witnessed something that almost no one else has ever seen among this species: mating. [...]

What if there were only a couple dozen police officers to patrol all of Manhattan? Now imagine that the borough protected something far more valuable than gold, something that heavily armed criminals were willing to kill to get. How could those few officers keep the peace over such a large territory? That’s roughly the equivalent [...]

Unlike a lot of other endangered species, the Florida manatee didn’t have all that bad a year in 2012. Only 392 manatees were found dead in Florida last year (pdf), according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. This figure is a drop from 453 in 2011 (pdf) and well below the record high [...]

This has been the deadliest year on record for Florida panthers (Puma or Felis concolor coryi), but the critically endangered big cats also ended 2012 with some pretty amazing news. For the first time, an uncollared female has been photographed carrying her cubs to a new den. The photographs, taken by motion-sensitive camera traps two [...]

Two American zoos have helped to save an African amphibian from extinction. The Kihansi spray toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis) was declared extinct in the wild in 2009 after its only habitat, the waterfalls of Kihansi Gorge in Tanzania, dried up following the establishment of a nearby hydroelectric dam. But this month 2,000 toads returned to Kihansi, [...]

Scientists and conservationists this week said they will petition the Australian government to change the status of the Leadbeater’s possum from “endangered” to “critically endangered,” a designation shared by only four other Australian mammals. The tiny marsupial (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) is one of two faunal emblems of Australia’s State of Victoria, but it has suffered badly [...]

Protecting the adorable but endangered slow loris—the world’s only venomous primate—from the illegal pet trade suddenly got a little harder. According to a paper pending publication in the American Journal of Primatology, what was once recognized as one slow loris species and two subspecies is actually four different species. Lead author Rachel Munds, an anthropology [...]

If you have seen any of Peter Jackson’s movies, such as this week’s release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, then you have probably noticed the logo for the special effects company Weta Workshop, which works on most of the director’s New Zealand–based projects. The workshop is named after a bunch of endemic New Zealand [...]

In May 2011, after months of preparation, Jakob Shockey and two fellow biology students from Evergreen State College in Washington State found themselves on a tiny Panamanian island staring at one of the rarest mammals in the world: the pygmy three-toed sloth (Bradypus pygmaeus). “I felt humbled to finally stand knee-deep in the mud of [...]

Every day 20 unusual lions greet visitors at a tiny animal park in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. These lions, which have spent generations in captivity, are not like most African lions (Panthera leo leo). For one thing, they are slightly smaller than the wild lions found elsewhere on the continent. For another, the males carry distinctive [...]