Mongabay series: Almost Famous Animals

KATHMANDU — On the slopes of the Himalayas in Nepal, a primeval scene plays out routinely, far from human eyes: a snow leopard lies in wait for its prey, its…

DHAKA — Experts point to habitat loss from a wide range of factors as the main reason the long-tailed macaque, one of the most widely distributed monkey species in the…

KATHMANDU — Until recently, Nepali movies tended to have lead characters who were extraordinary people who stood out from regular folks and were largely detached from their day-to-day lives. But…

KATHMANDU, Nepal — In June 2021, officials at Nepal’s Chitwan National Park said that an animal had been missing for five months. The missing animal was no ordinary one; it…

Big cat conflict is a threat to charismatic species like tigers and leopards. Small cat conflict, though often less severe, can also harm the livelihoods of communities and farmers and…

Drones flying above the treetops of a limestone forest on the border of Vietnam and China are helping conservationists develop plans to recover one of the world’s rarest primates: the…

In January 2003, when Wildlife Conservation Society researchers working in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands heard from local hunters that there was a monkey called the kipunji living on the slopes of…

For 38 years, Colombian-based NGO Fundación Proyecto Tití has successfully run a reforestation program to protect the critically endangered cotton-top tamarin and its tropical dry forest habitat in northwestern Colombia.…

Interbreeding with domestic cats, and also with other wildcat species, is altering the behaviors and genetic profiles of some small wildcats, creating conservation dilemmas about how best to define and protect these species.

Every night, somewhere unseen across the vast, semidesert and dry savanna habitat of Southern Africa, the continent’s deadliest cat emerges to hunt. Black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) are ideally suited for…

More than 30 species of small cats roam Earth today. They control small mammal populations to keep ecosystems in balance while helping farmers reduce rodent numbers. Over a dozen small cat species are hugely at risk.

DHAKA – In the hopes of becoming overnight millionaires, five wildlife traffickers tried to sell a tokay gecko (Gekko gecko), locally known as takkhak, in Bangladesh’s border district of Panchagarh.…

DHAKA — On Oct. 8 this year, police in Bangladesh recovered an endangered western hoolock gibbon from a passenger bus in the Chunati area of the Chattogram-Cox’s Bazar highway. They…

KATHMANDU — Conservationists in Nepal have introduced a new standard for efforts to protect the red panda, in the hope of translating successful initiatives in the country’s east to threatened…

You probably haven’t heard of Vieira’s titi, a monkey found only in the Brazilian Amazon. Until recently, even researchers knew so little about it that they couldn’t determine its conservation…

KATHMANDU — Since time immemorial it has inspired the legend of the Yeti. Said to be massive, ferocious and voracious — especially for horse flesh — it’s a creature you…

In northern Indonesia dwells a shy and overlooked species: the Talaud bear cuscus. Critically endangered and found on only a few small islands, the marsupial faces a decline due to…

In January 2022, I saw my first wild wolf. Even growing up in Idaho, a wolf sighting is rare, and I had never seen one. But from afar, I watched…

The first time you see a proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), you might be hit with a mix of fascination, joy and perhaps some confusion: muscular limbs attached to a pot-bellied…

Vultures were a common sight across the Indian subcontinent until the late 1980s. But the excessive use of some veterinary drugs for cattle, which are toxic to the scavengers, and…

Leatherback sea turtles run a gantlet of fishing lines and other human impacts during their annual migratory loop from Caribbean nesting grounds to the eastern coast of North America and…

Each morning as the sun rises into the sky, ranger Donovan Wright stands on the outskirts of Blean Woods in the United Kingdom. The ancient woodland in southern England covers…

Next spring, California condors will soar in northern California for the first time in a century. Four young condors will be released in Redwood National and State Parks, reintroducing this…

They were once considered the most threatened bird in the world: with just four remaining individuals on the island in 1974, the Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus) seemed doomed to extinction.…

Within months of newly discovered species of snakes, geckos and turtles being described (along with their locations) by scientists, traders find and harvest the animals for sale on the Internet.

This article is a one year follow up to the award-winning series, The Great Insect Dying published in June, 2019 on Mongabay. The original series documents insect losses in Europe, the U.S. and the tropics — here’s what we know today.

Maned wolves, pumas, giant anteaters, tapirs and other Neotropical mammals are threatened with local extinctions unless more conserved areas are established in Brazil’s savanna biome, say scientists.

Last recorded in 1968, Megaelosia bocainensis, a frog known for its rounded snout and granular skin, was thought extinct until researchers tracked down its environmental DNA in Brazil’s São Paulo state.

In his 2006 book, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, science writer David Quammen says, “Some people admire soldiers, or surgeons, or firemen, or astrophysicists, or medical missionaries, or cowboys. I admire…

A lapsed moratorium protecting the Amazon river dolphin is up for renewal, but the Bolsonaro administration has delayed acting, even as scientists warn it could mean the freshwater mammal’s extinction.