Nature & Wildlife
Ethereal ghosts, bodiless brains, spooky spiders, hairy wolves, slimy eyeballs, creepy cyclops, shadowy bats and severed limbs. What more could you want for Halloween? I’m guessing not much, and there’s a one-stop shop for all of it: science.
Nature & Wildlife
The decline of charismatic and large animals like lions and pandas often captures global attention, but a quieter and perhaps more damaging crisis is unfolding among those that are smaller. These bitty beings are disappearing at alarming rates, and their loss can have outsize consequences for biodiversity. But don’t count these small bodies out yet.
Nature & Wildlife
If I asked you to name a “Halloween animal,” the first answer you’d probably give me is bat.
Nature & Wildlife
With the end of October near and Halloween decorations almost everywhere you look, you might be wondering why certain animals are so often featured as we approach the spookiest holiday. Why do plastic owls decorate lawns, and fake bats hang from every nook and cranny?
Conservation
The grace of a running gazelle, the majesty of a migrating herd of wildebeests, the elegance of an outstretched wing in flight or the grand glissades of massive glaciers. These are nature’s lissome movements. There’s nothing else like them.
Nature & Wildlife
We human beings have certain basic needs. We must have air, food, water and shelter to survive, according to NASA. If any one of these basic needs is not met, then humans cannot persist. I think the same applies to more-than-human animals, as well.
Conservation
Our national parks aren’t only “America’s best idea,” as environmentalist and nature writer Wallace Stegner called them. These special places are the backbone of national conservation programs.
Videos
Halloween and owls have a long and storied history with each other. It’s thought that the connection may have been forged around ancient Halloween bonfires. As nocturnal hunters of bats, owls would often be seen in the light of the flames as they flew low, searching for food.
News & More
On Monday, August 21, 2017—for the first time in nearly a century—a total solar eclipse will cross the United States from coast to coast. A solar eclipse happens when a new moon moves between the Earth and the sun, blocking all or some of the sun’s rays.
Videos
Bats and Halloween have been connected for a long time. That could be due to the work of author Bram Stoker, who in his 1897 novel Dracula wrote about a human vampire who could transform into a bat; or it may have come about naturally because bats are generally nocturnal, and three species—out of…
News & More
American attitudes toward wild animals are growing more positive, according to a new study published just last month in the international journal Biological Conservation. Between 1978 and 2014, our thinking about eight historically stigmatized species—including bats, coyotes, vultures, sharks and wolves—were found to be significantly more favorable. On the surface, that sounds like good news.
Videos
Bram Stoker is probably to thank for our fascination with bats at this time every year. In 1897 when he penned Dracula, the story of a human vampire who could transform into a bat, he cemented our associating bats with all things scary from the late 19th century on.
