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Science / Wildlife

Among the best hunters in Africa, wild dogs have a higher kill rate than lions and can take down antelope that weigh as much as 500 pounds. They are notorious for a grisly efficiency that has made some people fear and hate them, if not shoot them on sight.

Curse of the Devil’s Dogs

Viewed as pests, Africa’s wild dogs have nearly been wiped out. But thanks to new conservation efforts, the canines appear ready to make a comeback

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Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Ape tools, flying dinosaurs and emperor penguins

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Seal Hunt Goes on Despite Melting Ice

Cowbirds (a male, above) "are more highly evolved than we previously thought," says Jeff Hoover.

Wiseguys with Wings

“Mafia” cowbirds muscle warblers into raising their young

Pallid sturgeons, which can reach six feet long and live 60 years, flourished for eons in murky American waters.

Curtains for the Pallid Sturgeon

Can biologists breed the “Dinosaurs of the Missouri” fast enough to stave off their extinction?

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Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Gray seals, alligators and the world’s largest flower

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Squirrelologist

For The Birds

In the past decade or so, over 95 percent of India's vultures have died.

Soaring Hopes

The first two Asian vultures breed in captivity

"No one ever found any dead vultures," says McGrath. "There were simply less and less of them."

Fantastically Repulsive

In this interview, Susan McGrath, author of “The Vanishing,” describes getting up close and personal with vultures

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Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Flying mammals, Galápagos iguanas and sidewalk songbirds

For hundreds of years the Parsi people of Mumbai have left their dead on the Towers of Silence, to be consumed by vultures. Now the sacred practice is in peril.

The Vanishing

Little noticed by the outside world, perhaps the most dramatic decline of a wild animal in history has been taking place in India and Pakistan

Jokim Githuka, 3, displays a portrait of his dead father, Robert Njoya, in a Kenyan maize field. Other sons stand by his grave with Njoya's widow, Serah. The trial of his undisputed killer, Thomas Cholmondely, has electrified this former British colony.

Death in Happy Valley

A son of the colonial aristocracy goes on trial for killing a poacher in Kenya, where an exploding human population is heightening tensions

Black and white-furred gray wolves

In Danger of Endangerment

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Warm Temperatures Get Zoo Animals Steamy

The South American monkey frog and some other tree frogs can endure sunlight and dry air for long periods.

Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Tree frogs, conservation maps and the northern swordtail fish

Small but cherished, the Grand Teton herd faces a growing number of man-made obstacles—including more than 100 fences (this one near Pinedale, WY) thrown up along the migration route that it has followed for millennia.

End of the Road?

Development threatens to block the migration of pronghorn antelopes. Without new protections, conservationists say, the animals are running out of time

Zion's dwindling cougar population traces its roots to the late 1920s, when the park's management made efforts to increase visitation.

It All Falls Down

A plummeting cougar population alters the ecosystem at Zion National Park

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Mirror Image

The first evidence that elephants can recognize themselves

Peter Beard at Hog Ranch in 2014 feeding giraffes

Beard’s Eye View

When elephants began dying, Peter Beard suspected that poachers were not entirely to blame

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