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Farewell to mongabay's photoblog  (09/12/2010) Dani tribesman in Papua. August 2010. Effective today, mongabay will be discontinuing the inspire photoblog. Launched as an experiment in February, inspire.mongabay.com failed to garner interest from the mongabay community, drawing less than 30,000 visitors in six months. However, this end also marks a new beginning: next month, mongabay will relaunch its blog after a two-year hiatus. The blog will include elements of inspire, including regular photo posting. For those who did enjoy inspire, thank you for your support and I hope you like the more expansive blog launching in October. Continue reading: Farewell to mongabay's photoblog 3D forest mapping with lasers reveals substantial climate impact of selective logging in the Amazon  (09/07/2010) A new high-resolution airborne and satellite mapping approach provides detailed information on carbon stocks in Amazonia. This image shows an area of road building and development adjacent to primary forest in red tones, and secondary forest regrowth in green tones. Image from the Carnegie Airborne Observatory, Carnegie Institution for Science. Scientists using a combination of satellite imagery, airborne-laser technology, and ground-based plot surveys to create three-dimensional high resolution carbon maps of the Amazon rainforest have documented a surge in emissions from deforestation and selective logging following the paving of the Trans-Oceanic Highway in Peru. Continue reading: 3D forest mapping with lasers reveals substantial climate impact of selective logging in the Amazon Collared Puffbird in the place with the world's highest biodiversity  (09/07/2010) Collared Puffbird (Bucco capensis) Continue reading: Collared Puffbird in the place with the world's highest biodiversity Peeking macaque  (08/31/2010) Fruit stuffed in its mouth, this long-tailed macaque peeks at the photographer from a rooftop in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Continue reading: Peeking macaque Gecko meet insect  (08/30/2010) The giant leaf tailed gecko of Madagascar, Uroplatus fimbriatus, hangs out above a flying insect. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Continue reading: Gecko meet insect Colombian cowboys on the move  (08/29/2010) Cowboys in Colombia herd cattle across a river in the Choco-Darien forests. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2010. Continue reading: Colombian cowboys on the move Micro frog discovered in Borneo  (08/26/2010) A new species of miniature frog was discovered in Borneo. Microhyla nepenthicola, shown here on the tip of a pencil, is about the size of a pea. Continue reading: Micro frog discovered in Borneo Frog shadow in New Guinea  (08/26/2010) Frog near Manokwari in West Papua, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler in August 2010 Continue reading: Frog shadow in New Guinea Hanging out  (08/19/2010) Bats hang out in a limestone cave in Malaysia's Taman Negara National Park. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2006. Continue reading: Hanging out Loggers' church  (08/18/2010) A Christian church in a logging camp in Guyana. Photo by: Jeremy Hance, 2008. Continue reading: Loggers' church Red, magenta, orange, and yellow mystery insect from New Guinea  (08/16/2010) Katydid nymph in West Papua, on the island of New Guinea. Photo by Rhett A. Butler, August 2010. Continue reading: Red, magenta, orange, and yellow mystery insect from New Guinea Triple waterfalls  (08/15/2010) The Tad Lo waterfalls in Laos. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2009. Continue reading: Triple waterfalls Hunting endangers even the most untouched regions of the Amazon  (08/12/2010) Hunters orphaned this baby giant anteater. Photo courtesy by Paul Rosolie. There are places in the Amazon that remain almost untouched by any kind of development. Animals here, according to modern day explorer and guide Paul Rosolie, survive in their natural abundance. They also act differently: jaguars will sun themselves in plain site and peccaries will make as much noise as they please, showing little fear of human. Yet, even these last truly wild places are coming under increasing pressure by hunters seeking to fill a growing market for bushmeat, impacting wild populations and shifting animals' behavior. Continue reading: Hunting endangers even the most untouched regions of the Amazon Wooden effigies of the dead  (08/11/2010) Wooden effigies of the dead line cliff walls at Lemo on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Continue reading: Wooden effigies of the dead Eaten to endangerment: the giant forest snail  (08/10/2010) The giant tropical land snail Archachatina bicarinata. Photo courtesy of Martin Dallimer. The newest subject of our Forgotten Species series, Archachatina bicarinata is endemic to the islands of Sao Tome and Principe off the west coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea. The species has likely undergone a significant decline due to overharvesting for food says researchers Martin Dallimer. Regulations on the snail trade need to be put in place if this species is not to vanish. Continue reading: Eaten to endangerment: the giant forest snail The tiger longwing  (08/09/2010) A beautiful tiger longwing butterfly (Heliconius hecale) in Tayrona National Park in Colombia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2010. First described in 1776, the species is found from Central America down through much of the Amazon rainforest. Continue reading: The tiger longwing Jaguar skull  (08/08/2010) The skull of America’s biggest cat in Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development in Guyana. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. The jaguar (Panthera onca) is classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List. The species is suffering from habitat loss and persecution. Continue reading: Jaguar skull Compounding threats--not just palm oil--put orangutans at risk  (08/06/2010) A female Sumatran orangutan in Gunung Leuser National Park in Indonesia. Photo taken by Rhett A. Butler in May 2010. While palm oil gets most of the press coverage, orangutans face a variety of threats, including hunting by rural populations, says orangutan expert Erik Meijaard in an exclusive interview with mongabay.com. Continue reading: Compounding threats--not just palm oil--put orangutans at risk Toad in the hole  (08/05/2010) An unidentified ground toad peeking out in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2009. If you have any information on this orb spider species please contact me. Continue reading: Toad in the hole Stunning blue and turquoise beetle in New Guinea  (08/04/2010) The stunning blue and turquoise Eupholus bennetti weevil in West Papua (Indonesia) on the island of New Guinea. Continue reading: Stunning blue and turquoise beetle in New Guinea Cheetah and African wild dogs go extinct in Cameroon  (08/03/2010) A cheetah rests on a termite mound in Kenya. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A three year study has found that cheetahs and African wild dogs have vanished from Cameroon. In addition the nation's other big carnivores are in trouble in the central-west African nation. Numerous studies have shown that the loss of top predators results in changes across ecosystems, including population explosion of some herbivores, extinctions down the food chain, shifts in plant communities, and a general loss in overall biodiversity. Continue reading: Cheetah and African wild dogs go extinct in Cameroon Vezo children dancing on a sand dune in Madagascar  (08/02/2010) Two Vezo children dance on a sand dune in Tulear Arovana (Ankorohoke), Madagascar. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2009. The Vezo are a semi-nomadic people who live on the west coast of Madagascar. They rely wholly on fishing for their livelihood. Continue reading: Vezo children dancing on a sand dune in Madagascar The humble, sometimes helpful, sometimes deadly, fly  (08/01/2010) Unidentified red-eyed fly on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. If you have any information on this species please contact me. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Often despised at best as pesky and at worst as carriers of deadly diseases, flies are rarely favorites in the animal kingdom. Yet flies do play important roles in ecosystems: feeding on feces, dead animals, and other decaying matter flies act as natural decomposers. Some flies also act as pollinators. In addition, a number of other species depend on flies for as prey. Continue reading: The humble, sometimes helpful, sometimes deadly, fly Alpine forest to cool you off  (07/29/2010) Given that the last six months have been the warmest on record worldwide, here's an alpine forest in Brian's Head Utah to remember cold weather by. Consider it visual air-conditioning. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2008. Continue reading: Alpine forest to cool you off An acrobatic chacma baboon  (07/28/2010) We watched this wily gray-footed chacma baboon (Papio ursinus griseipes) for a good fifteen minutes as it posed for us in the Okavango Delta. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs, 2009. Continue reading: An acrobatic chacma baboon Unidentified orb spider hangs out in Colombia  (07/27/2010) An unidentified orb spider in Colombia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2010. If you have any information on this orb spider species please contact me. Continue reading: Unidentified orb spider hangs out in Colombia Weird world of corals: they can hear!  (07/26/2010) Coral in Belize. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. As coral reefs are imperiled worldwide by rising temperatures and ocean acidification, researchers are just beginning to uncover their secrets, including the fact that corals actually 'listen' for a good spot to settle. Continue reading: Weird world of corals: they can hear! Planned road to sever Serengeti  (07/25/2010) African buffalo at sunset in the Maasai Mara, the Kenyan side of the world famous Serengeti plains. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A planned road in Tanzania threatens to cut through Serengeti National Park, the southern end of one of Africa's greatest spectacles. While the government says the road will not impact wildlife, world-renowned conservationist Richard Leakey argues that the road will eventually 'kill the migration' of wildebeest and other animals that powers the savanna's ecosystem every year. The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) has proposed two alternate road routes to save the Serengeti. Continue reading: Planned road to sever Serengeti Ladder to the rainforest canopy: a strangler fig in Indonesia  (07/23/2010) Strangler fig in Tangkoko Sulawesi. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2010. Strangler figs starts life as a tiny seed in the canopy. The roots grow down to the forest floor where they take root and begin to take nutrients from the soil. Gradually the roots wrap around the host tree, widen, and slowly form a lattice-work that surround the host's trunk. The fig's crown grows foliage which soon overshadows the tree. Eventually, the host tree dies leaving the fig with a hollow trunk-which is easily climbed thanks to the many openings in the trunk. Figs are often the only tree species remaining after forest clearing since their knotted and twisted wood is shunned by loggers. Continue reading: Ladder to the rainforest canopy: a strangler fig in Indonesia Unidentified hornbill in Sumatra  (07/22/2010) An unidentified hornbill poses in Sumatra. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2010. Continue reading: Unidentified hornbill in Sumatra Indonesian farmer  (07/21/2010) An Indonesian farmer near Gunung Kawi in Bali. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2010. Continue reading: Indonesian farmer Infant crested black macaque  (07/20/2010) An infant crested black macaque (Macaca nigra). Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2010. Endemic to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, the crested black macaque is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List. The primate is threatened by habitat loss and hunting for bushmeat. Continue reading: Infant crested black macaque The surprisingly crafty margay  (07/19/2010) The small wild cat, the margay in Belize. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Researchers have stumbled on a surprising talent of this small predatory cat: while studying the pied tamarin (a small Neotropical monkey), researchers observed a margay mimicking the cries of tamarin babies in order to bring its prey closer. While the ploy worked—the tamarins were very curious—the margay was unsuccessful in its hunt. Continue reading: The surprisingly crafty margay The shy forest buffalo  (07/14/2010) The elusive forest buffalo in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. While most people are familiar with the African buffalo or cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer), its forest-dwelling subspecies (Syncerus caffer nanus) is both lesser known and less-studied by scientists. The IUCN Red List estimates that 60,000 of this subspecies survive, but its population is in decline. Habitat loss and poaching are the major threats. Continue reading: The shy forest buffalo The cryptic courser  (07/13/2010) One of the few photos of Jerdon's courser, and probably the world's best. Photo by: Simon Cook/Birdlife International. Jerdon's courser, listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List, is one of India's rarest and most enigmatic birds. Surviving in a small habitat of scrub-jungle, the bird was thought extinct for 80 years. Given its nocturnal habits and its adept camouflage, such a long disappearance is not surprising. Researchers are working on studying the bird to save it before it vanishes again. Although more funds and support are likely needed to ensure its survival. Continue reading: The cryptic courser The last ocean  (07/12/2010) A killer whale surfaces in the Ross Sea. Photo courtesy of: David Ainley. The Ross Sea is considered by marine biologists to be the last great marine waters untouched by humans. In other words, its ecological integrity remains intact: this is a place where penguins, a unique species of killer whale, seals, and fish as big as a man, all thrive in a complex and whole food chain. However, its pristine nature is under threat. Given that so many of the world's fisheries have either collapsed or are under great stress from overfishing, we have now turned our sights on rich Antarctic waters. The Antarctic toothfish, a major slow-growing predator in the Ross Sea, has become a recent target of New Zealand fisheries. Conservationists fear that this species—like the cod, the bluefin tuna, and the orange roughy among others—will be overfished and that our last untouched ocean will soon become as ecologically broken as the rest. Continue reading: The last ocean The dragonflies of Borneo  (07/11/2010) PASIR PANJANG, Borneo – A forest is nothing if not a treasure trove. At no time is this as evident as in the early morning, when the green tapestry sparkles not only with crystal dew, but also with the delicate shimmers of dragonfly wings. These creatures range in color, size and form from the thread-thin pond damsels, to the meaty striped hunters that really are little dragons. When these animals surround one in such abundance, it’s hard not to observe their behavior, which is much more interesting than a pin-head brain might suggest; they perform complex synchronized mating dances over the water, and race each other from stem to stem. The red-winged ones do an odd, four-step, mechanical wing-twitch as soon as they land on a branch, and the blue ones never sit on anything but logs. There is a herd (what would you call a group of dragonflies?) that circles in front of the Care Center building every afternoon, with gorgeous golden black wings, but their hang-out is unknown to me, and so I’ve never managed a photo. The locals speak of a monster dragonfly (Capung in Indonesian, Sensibur in the local Dayak dialect) which only comes out at some elusive hour of the afternoon which I have yet to discover. This is just one of the jewels that can be marveled at in a scrap of tropical rainforest. I say scrap because that is essentially what the 80 hectare piece of secondary swamp forest around OFI`s (Orangutan Foundation International) Orangutan Care Center and Quarantine, is. But a scrap that, apart from glittering with dragonflies, blooms with color, sings with the eerie, repetitive calls of tropical birds and overwhelms the nose with scents that range from heavenly to putrid. The fact is, the rich biodiversity that has drawn naturalists and biologists to the tropics for centuries still persists in the face of the diverse forces that threaten to wipe them out, and every surviving piece of jungle is a testament to that richness. Orangutan Foundation International, based in southern Central Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), where your devoted author is currently volunteering, strongly believes in protecting tropical rainforests, whether there are orangutans living in them or nor. The greatest threat to the local forests is palm oil plantation development, and the associated clear-cutting. We are currently in the middle of an ambitious project to buy and protect almost all remaining forest in the vicinity of the Care Centre, and create a private, strictly protected 6,000 hectare heath-swamp forest reserve. Continue reading: The dragonflies of Borneo Manado Tua volcano off northern Sulawesi  (07/09/2010) Manado Tua volcano off northern Sulawesi. Photo taken from Bunaken Island in May 2010 by Rhett A. Butler. Continue reading: Manado Tua volcano off northern Sulawesi Boy heading out to go spearfishing  (07/08/2010) A boy in Laos heads out with goggles and spear to go spearfishing. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2009. Continue reading: Boy heading out to go spearfishing Just how smart is this bee?  (07/07/2010) A bumble bee ponders in Kenya. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Research over the last few years has overturned the idea that insects are instinctual automatons. Instead researchers are uncovering just how intelligent insects are, especially social ones such as this bee. Not convinced? It turns how bees can count, wasps remember faces, and some bumblebees even communicate through a complex 'waggle dance' that uses symbolic language to tell their compatriots where to find nectar. In a recent interview with Dr. Lars Chittka, mongabay.com found out about the many exciting discoveries of insect intelligence: the bumblebee in your backyard will never look the same again. Continue reading: Just how smart is this bee? A last look and then goodbye: an island lizard goes extinct  (07/06/2010) A last look at the now extinct Selmunett lizard (Podarcis filfolensis ssp. Kieselbachi). Photo by: Arnold Sciberras. Arnold Sciberras, a Maltese herpetologist, says the Selmunett lizard is gone. Native to the small island of Selmunett, the species was lost largely due to the introduction of rats on the island. The subspecies was one of four subspecies of the Maltese wall lizard. Continue reading: A last look and then goodbye: an island lizard goes extinct Critically Endangered: the hermit ibis  (07/05/2010) This hermit ibis in the Bronx Zoo is considered Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2008. 'Critically Endangered' is the highest rating given to a species by the IUCN Red List until the species vanishes into extinction. Native to North Africa, the hermit ibis (Geronticus eremite), also known as the Northern bald ibis, is threatened by a variety of impacts including illegal developments, agriculture, hunting, firewood collection, and overgrazing. Most of the population remains in Morocco. Currently 3,566 species are listed as Critically Endangered. However, the IUCN Red List has only evaluated a small portion of the world's known species (around 2 percent). Continue reading: Critically Endangered: the hermit ibis Practicing for the World Cup  (07/01/2010) Footballers in Botswana. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs, 2009. Continue reading: Practicing for the World Cup "I want to work with orangutans till the day I die"  (06/30/2010) Pak Sia giving afternoon milk to some of his charges. Photo by Janie Dubman. At nineteen years old, young Sia defied his father’s wishes and began a job which he had wanted since elementary school. . When Sia was 10 years old, Dr. Birute Mary Galdikas was already hiring Dayaks (natives of Borneo) for her Orangutan Research and Conservation Project in his home village of Pasir Panjang. Dr. Galdikas was Louis Leakey’s third primatologist protégée, following the footsteps of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey in studying wild great apes. The project’s original research site was (and still is) in Camp Leakey, at the heart of Tanjung Putting National Park, southern Central Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). Sia started work in 1989, when the ORCP has already established three rehabilitation centres in the national park where orangutans, orphaned by illegal loggers and miners, were being nurtured and trained for return to the wild. It was at one of these Sia started his orangutan career as carer and rehabilitation assistant. That year, there were six young orangutans at Tanjung Harapan Station. Today, forty-year-old Sia is responsible for over 300 orangutans as Feeding Coordinator of OFI’s Orangutan Care Centre and Quarantine in Pasir Panjang. His tasks of finding fruit and vegetables to feed the apes, balancing the food budget and overseeing the three times a day feeding are no small peanuts. When asked about the challenges of his job, he frowned for a while, clearly trying to find an answer for me, since his initial response of “Oh, I love everything about my job” didn’t satisfy me. Finally he nodded. “It’s very sad for me when we can’t give food to the orangutans on time. They get hungry like us and it isn’t their fault they are in cages, it’s people’s fault, so we are the ones that must feed and help them”. In his twenty years with OFI Sia has helped orangutans in tanjung harapan as carer, in Camp Leakey as a forest research assistant, in Jakarta as a primate keeper in a zoo, and in the Care centre as all of the above and more. In fact, the father of three (soon to be four) children once proved his dedication when he informed his former wife that if she didn’t like his work with the orangutans (which she resented), she would be the one doing the leaving. Indonesians are a very clean people. It is not uncommon to wash four times on a hot day. I asked him to recount his first day at work for me and he animatedly described how he bathed once in the morning, and then became progressively covered in the urine and feces of his clinging charges. Smirking I remarked that he must have had some second thoughts by nightfall. He said that he didn’t take a day off for the next three months because he couldn’t bear to hear the babies crying when he tried to leave. Sitting on a fruit crate across from the Dayak with the deceptively fierce face, I wrap up with asking him what he intends to do next in his life. He replied simply “Nothing. I want to work with orangutans till the day I die”. Continue reading: "I want to work with orangutans till the day I die" Caiman close-up  (06/29/2010) A baby caiman at Caño Negro National Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2009. Continue reading: Caiman close-up Is this a forest?  (06/28/2010) Is this oil palm plantation a forest? According to the UN definition of forest it could be. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2009. Continue reading: Is this a forest? Find the frog!  (06/24/2010) A well-camouflaged frog hangs out in the rainforests of Suriname. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2008. Continue reading: Find the frog! Daybreak on the Mekong  (06/23/2010) Men fishing on the Mekong River at daybreak in Laos. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2009. Continue reading: Daybreak on the Mekong Baby sloth with its stuffed animal  (06/22/2010) An orphaned baby three-toed sloth lies on top of a stuffed panda. The sloth was being kept in a Trio indigenous community in Suriname. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler, 2008. Continue reading: Baby sloth with its stuffed animal Alaska's Tongass forest threatened  (06/21/2010) Outlying islands in Southeast Alaska. Photo by: Tyler Poelstra. A quiet war is going on in Southeast Alaska. A bill in congress is promising to deliver 80,000 acres of prime temperate rainforest to Sealaska, a logging company owned by indigenous communities with a reputation for clear-cutting. However, local communities in Southeast Alaska say that the logging would devastate their economies—based largely on tourism and subsistence hunting and fishing in the forest—as well as threaten an ecologically unique area and two endangered animals. Locals have expressed deep frustration at being left out of the discussion by their representatives and contend that the lands chosen for logging have been picked arbitrarily with no regard for community or environmental concerns. Continue reading: Alaska's Tongass forest threatened Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 News index | RSS | News Feed | Twitter | Home Organic Apparel from Patagonia | Insect-repelling clothing News index | RSS | News Feed | Twitter | Home |
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