Woe betide the rhinoceros radiologist. “Radiologists are very comfortable with dogs, cats, horses, cows,” said Dr. Michael Adkesson, the president and chief executive of Brookfield Zoo Chicago. But ask them to peer inside a critically endangered, 2,300-pound black rhino and they might quickly find themselves in uncharted territory. In 2018, …
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Panda exchanges, like the one that sent two bears to Washington’s National Zoo this week, are governed by closely held contracts. In most countries, they are never released. Lawyers for the Smithsonian, which operates the National Zoo, cited a confidentiality clause and refused to release a 2020 contract. The U.S. …
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They’re the original odd couple: One is massive, spherical and unmoving. The other is tiny, has a tail and never stops swimming. Yet the union of egg and sperm is critical for every sexually reproducing animal on Earth. Exactly how that union occurs has long been a mystery to scientists. …
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Wildlife populations around the world continue dropping precipitously, according to an important but limited and often misinterpreted assessment that’s issued every two years. The declines reported by the Living Planet Index, a collaboration between two large conservation organizations, have been so steep as to feel disorienting. This year is no …
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