Japan’s refusal to stop ivory trade undermines bans elsewhere
Even though other countries are clamping down on illegal ivory, the unconstrained trade in Japan may offer loopholes for criminals to keep selling ivory – fuelling elephant poaching
Sumatran tigers fall 17 per cent and have just two strongholds
There are now only two viable populations of Sumatran tigers left in the wild, so if the cats are to be saved those areas have to be protected
Baby pterosaurs were cute, defenceless and unable to fly
Over 200 pterosaur eggs have been found at a site in China, the largest such discovery on record, and the embryos inside reveal what newly-hatched pterosaurs were like
Human arrivals wiped out the Caribbean’s giant ground sloths
Many giant mammals in the Americas have died out but it has been hard to say whether humans or natural events were responsible. Now, in the Caribbean at least, we know
Dinosaur mass-extinction let mammals come out in the day
The extinction of the dinosaurs allowed our distant mammalian ancestors to start foraging during the day for the first time – and shaped our early evolution
Geese-like birds seem to have survived the dinosaur extinction
A bird group named the Vegaviidae, which resembled modern loons and geese, is the first identified with members that lived before and after the Cretaceous extinction
Secret lifestyle of the dodo revealed for the first time
A study of dodo bones has revealed how the legendary birds matured, bred and moulted, and explains discrepancies in sailors’ descriptions of them
Wiping out a population of animals might help the species
Mass deaths might not be all bad, because local die-offs could help to ensure the survival of the species as a whole
World’s most endangered marine mammal has 30 individuals left
The vaquita porpoise lives in the Gulf of California, Mexico, where illegal fishing with gill nets has slashed the population by a total of 90 per cent in the past five years
Large asteroid impacts may be rare, but we should be prepared
It would be wise to heed calls to build a dedicated rocket primed to defend Earth against a large incoming asteroid or comet, says Geraint Lewis