More than half of Britain’s 59 native species are in long-term decline, UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme finds
Last summer was the fifth worst in nearly half a century for butterflies in Britain, according to the biggest scientific survey of insect populations in the world.
For the first time since scientific recording began in 1976, more than half of Britain’s 59 native species are in long-term decline.
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New Zealand’s docile, solitary and elusive ‘god of ugly things’ does wonders for the forest-floor ecosystem
Are you sick of throwing yourself on the altar of unrealistic beauty standards? Do you long to celebrate the delightfully monstrous, to give the spiny stuff of shadows their day in the sun? Then consider the mighty wētāpunga – an endemic New Zealand insect so revered for its unconventional beauty its name means “god of ugly things”.
This forest behemoth is thought to be the heaviest adult insect in the world, with a female weighing as much as a mouse or a sparrow. Its body can grow up to 10cm long (nearly 4in) and its leg span can be as wide as 20cm. Once found across parts of the North Island, the vulnerable wētāpunga – the largest of 70 wētā species – now resides entirely on a smattering of predator-free islands near Auckland.
Between 24 March and 2 April, we will be profiling a shortlist of 10 of the invertebrates chosen by readers and selected by our wildlife writers from more than 2,500 nominations. The voting for our 2025 invertebrate of the year will run from midday on Wednesday 2 April until midday on Friday 4 April, and the winner will be announced on Monday 7 April.
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Government wants to spur economic growth and drive housebuilding but charities say nature should be priority
Wildlife groups have expressed alarm after ministers promised a radically “streamlined” approach to UK environmental regulation intended to drive economic growth and speed up new housing, as well as major projects such as airports.
While officials said the plans should boost nature conservation overall, the removal of what one called “bat by bat” decisions, a reference to the £100m bat shelter constructed for part of HS2, could water down individual protections.
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Scientists say they are ingesting more microplastics in Mediterranean as the plankton they feed on struggle to survive in warming waters
As the Latin name suggests, Sardina pilchardus can be called a sardine or a pilchard when it is tinned or offered on a fishmonger’s slab. One common definition is that if it is longer than 15cm it is called a pilchard and if smaller, a sardine.
However, when pilchards fell out of favour with consumers, 15cm pilchards were rebranded as Cornish sardines and sales picked up again. To add to the confusion, other small silver fish are often passed off as sardines.
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Inkpen, Berkshire: All is accented by a bleached-out leaching of colour – before the green fuse of spring ignites and rushes through everything
Just before the land turns green in the chalky downlands, it goes as pale as it gets. As the earth warms and dries, the seed-drilled arable fields look as if they are spread with fresh breadcrumbs. The ruts harden and the rain-dark mud down the centre and the sides of the lanes greys and lightens to a crumbly, scuffable chalk dust that drifts in eddies and whitens everything further.
The pasture has a thatch of winter-weathered grass, and its split-wood colour is taken up by the raffia ribbons of spent bryony laced through the hedges, and the needle-fine forest of cleaver stems reaching up from the bottom. All is accented by a bleached-out leaching of colour before the green fuse of spring ignites and rushes through everything. It’s time to harrow and roll.
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Full of clovers and dandelions, with a hard-wearing rye grass, the approach is environmentally friendly and usable
Is there a perfect formula for a hard-wearing flower lawn that is good for pollinators, dogs and people?
The immaculately mown green has fallen out of favour in recent years owing to its lack of support for biodiversity. But there have also been complaints about the tall wildflower meadows that grow during “no mow May” and are less usable for humans and pets.
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A 19th-century zoologist found the ‘little salt dweller’, which could be a portal to the past – if only we could locate it again
Last February, with colleagues Gert and Philipp and my daughter Francesca, I made the long journey to an unremarkable city called Río Cuarto, east of the Argentinian Andes. We went in search of a worm of unusual distinction.
Why a worm? As humans, we naturally love the animals that are most familiar. But from a zoologist’s point of view, the vertebrates, from mammals and birds to frogs and fish, can be seen as variations on a single theme. We all have a head at one end (with skull, eyes and jaws); in the middle, a couple of pairs of limbs (a goldfish’s fins, or your arms and legs); and, holding all this together, a backbone ending in a tail.
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Locals are feeling the impact of the more than 17,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish in the city’s streets
“I’m afraid to open my front door, they’re everywhere,” said Mary Dore, eyeing the ground outside her house in Balsall Heath suspiciously. “They run out from under the cars when you get in, they’re going in the engines. They chewed through the cables in my son’s car, costing him god knows how much.
“There’s one street I can’t walk my dog because they come running out of the grass and the piles of rubbish. One time I screamed.”
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Northern Ontario is seeing a ‘shorter window’ for ice roads that deliver vital supplies to remote First Nations
At first there was no answer on the satellite phone. But on the third call, Donald Meeseetawageesic heard his sister’s voice. “We need somebody to come and tow us out,” he told her.
It was a warmer-than-normal night in early March and Meeseetawageesic, the elected band councillor for Eabametoong First Nation, was stranded in a 4x4 truck on the dark winter road leading to his community. The tyres were stuck in the deep snow and the temperature outside was below freezing. Help was about 60km (37 miles) away.
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These creatures evolved over millenia to create nature’s finest circular economy, but are now struggling to survive
There’s no preparing for a first encounter with a thriving coral reef: your attention ricochets between dramas of colour, form and movement. A blaze of fire coral, darting clown fish, crimson sponge, electric blue ray … a turtle! Your heart soars, your head spins. Nowhere else will you encounter such density and diversity of life.
Corals are the architects of all this splendour. Their immobile forms suggest plants, but they’re animals – solar-powered ones. Each is a colony of thousands, sometimes millions, of tiny coral polyps, each resembling a slimmed-down sea anemone, just millimetres tall.
Between 24 March and 2 April, we will be profiling a shortlist of 10 of the invertebrates chosen by readers and selected by our wildlife writers from more than 2,500 nominations. The voting for our 2025 invertebrate of the year will run from midday on Wednesday 2 April until midday on Friday 4 April, and the winner will be announced on Monday 7 April.
Continue reading...A Macclesfield woman fears she will have to leave Australia due to her medical condition.
A fifth happy with NHS in Britain, finds long-running poll, with waits and staffing of major concern.
Exclusive data shows how neglect of this common mental health condition costs the UK nearly £10bn a year.
Community pharmacies have delayed protest action after the government agreed a new funding package.
The BBC was given exclusive access to the controversial facility in the east end of Glasgow.
The government hopes the move will end the "unfair postcode lottery" some women face.
Dani Czernuszka-Watt was told the clinic she went to had never treated a person in a wheelchair before.
Research suggests the synthetic hair used for braiding could be bad for you - but will that stop women using it?
Tony Summers' son Paul was diagnosed with HIV and Hepatitis C and died in 2008 aged 44.
Deborah Burns says she is unable to return to work at the hospital after the death of her son, William Hewes.
Last year was the hottest on record — sparking major climate disasters across the globe that left a trail of destruction, including lost lives, destroyed infrastructure and decimated crops.
Data is key to solving some of the world’s toughest problems, but it’s often scattered and disorganized. An AI-powered tool from Conservation International can help.
For one of the world’s most important crops, a project supported by Conservation International is grounds for optimism.
Roughly two-thirds of the world’s oceans lie beyond national boundaries in an area known as the “high seas” — yet only about 1 percent of that largely unexplored expanse has been protected. Now, nearly 200 countries have agreed on the first-ever United Nations treaty to protect the high seas.
In case you missed it: A new study suggests that the consequences of crossing critical climate thresholds could be more severe than previously thought — including the collapse of polar ice sheets and death of coral reefs.
The recent IPCC climate report was bleak, but there are silver linings. Our expert weighs in.
Protecting nature starts with science. Here’s a roundup of recent research published by Conservation International experts.
Nature’s stashes of climate-warming carbon is packed into a small percentage of Earth’s lands, finds a new study that pinpoints the ecosystems humanity must protect to avert a climate disaster.
Here are three recent conservation success stories you should know about.
A new study is the first to quantify people’s dependence on nature, and underscores the extent of the threat that climate change and the destruction of nature pose to human life.