The resilient mountain lion goes by many names: puma, cougar, panther, catamount and even “ghost cat.” Over the past century in California, it has survived habitat loss and government-sponsored ...

Known for their 6-foot-long necks, distinctive patterning and long eyelashes, giraffes have always captured the human imagination. These amazing African animals have the highest blood pressure among ...

Plastic bags start out as fossil fuels and end up as deadly waste in landfills and the ocean. Birds often mistake shredded plastic bags for food, filling their stomachs with toxic debris. For hungry ...

Appearances can be deceiving. At first glance, you'd never think the rolling white sand dunes of southeastern New Mexico and west Texas held the largest stand of oak in the country. The region's ...

Rats and mice have been living with humans for centuries — and humans have been working for just as long to keep them at bay. These animals sometimes contribute to public health risks and problems in ...

Synthetic phosphate fertilizer poses a serious threat to our environment. Phosphate rock mining, along with the inorganic fertilizers and animal feed supplements and pesticides for which phosphate is ...

For every county in the United States, the map below shows information on all the animals and plants protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act as threatened or endangered. To see the number of ...

For the past century a federal program called Wildlife Services, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has been slaughtering wildlife deemed “undesirable” by agribusiness. They’re usually ...

“Pond turtle” is something of a misnomer, because this reptile more frequently lives in rivers and spends a lot of time in terrestrial habitats. As the West Coast's only native freshwater turtle, the ...

The tiny delta smelt is one of the best indicators of environmental conditions in the San Francisco Bay-Delta, an ecologically important estuary that is a major hub for California's water system — and ...

The Miami tiger beetle — a diminutive, iridescent native of Florida — was first discovered and described in the 1930s. But after its discovery, it wasn't seen again for six decades, when it was found ...

After Hurricane Andrew ripped through South Florida in 1992, the already-scarce Miami blue butterfly almost went extinct: No one recorded a single sighting for years. Finally, in 1999, a cheer went up ...