One of the most spectacular migrations on Earth is that of the Christmas Island red crab (Gecarcoidea natalis).  Acknowledged as one of the wonders of the natural world, every year millions of the crabs simultaneously embark on a five-kilometre breeding migration. Now, scientists have discovered the key to their remarkable athletic feat.

A new ecological network is urgently needed in Northern Ireland to ensure the continued survival of its precious lizard population, according to researchers at Queen's University Belfast.

Lizards are found in coastal areas, heath and boglands around Northern Ireland, but a Queen's study, published in international journal Amphibia-Reptilia, has found their natural habitats may have been replaced through agricultural intensification.

Guam has been an important military, communication, aviation, and shipping hub of Micronesia for many years. The importation of vegetables from Korea and the Philippines has resulted in the arrival of several invasive mite species.

Wild porcupine might be a tasty treat in countries around the world, but populations of the spiky rodent are coming under threat in Vietnam due to illegal hunting.

Research from the University of East Anglia, published in Biological Conservation, has shown that the consumption of the Southeast Asian porcupine (Hystrix brachyura) as a speciality food is having a devastating effect on wild populations.

Scientists at Georgetown University, the National Aquarium and the University of Queensland are the first to extract DNA from dolphin blow (breath exhalations).
The researchers found that blow-sampling, which involves collecting exhalations from the blowholes of whales, dolphins and porpoises, could be developed as a less invasive method for DNA collection. Their findings are explained in the Aug. 25 edition of the online journal PLoS ONE in an article titled "Thar She Blows! A Novel Method for DNA Collection from Cetacean Blow."

Crews with bulldozers buried 49 pilot whales in sand dunes on an isolated northern New Zealand beach Sunday after rescuers managed to save only nine from a group that was stranded on the beach for two days.

Indigenous Maori elders chanted prayers over the carcasses before bulldozers stripped open a trench above the waterline to bury the mammals, which died despite efforts by more than 200 rescuers.

Nearly 60 pilot whales have died after becoming stranded on a beach in New Zealand on Friday, conservation officials said.

The mass stranding of a pod of 73 whales was discovered mid-morning and Carolyn Smith from the Department of Conservation said the whales probably beached overnight, which was why so many died before a rescue operation was launched.

Insects in flight must somehow calculate and control their height above the ground, and researchers reporting online on August 19 in Current Biology, have new insight into how fruit flies do it. The answer is simpler than expected.

The flies establish an altitude set point on the basis of nearby horizontal edges and tend to fly at the same height as those features, the researchers report.

Females with fewer sexual partners can explain where bird species have evolved to cooperate in the rearing of their young, according to Oxford University research.

In a study of 267 bird species, the researchers found that promiscuity rates overall were three times higher among species that show no social cooperation than in species where adult birds other than the parents help in raising chicks, for example by assisting in providing food, incubation or defence. The findings are reported in the journal Nature.