We're often told to think big, dream big, see the big picture, but small should not be underestimated. Small things can have a big impact, and it turns out this is especially true for mongooses. Once given the scientific name Herpestes auropunctatus, the small Indian mongoose has been moved to the genus Urva. This is …
People find great satisfaction in labels: being able to refer to something as something, a type of something and a member of the set of somethings. Thus we find ourselves with the number google, the colour peacock, and identity crises over being a Millennial or a Zoomer. But when it comes to organisms, the need …
Hear ‘cheetah’ and picture paws pummelling upon the grasslands of Africa. But this cat is not as inherently African as many imagine. One subspecies exists in central Iran, the relic of a population which once spanned from Egypt to India. For over a decade, experts have explored bringing the cheetah back to India. But as the native Asiatic cheetah teeters over the precipice to extinction, animals would have to be sourced from Africa. Does the return of cheetahs to India threaten the subspecies that's actually native there?
We may awe at the elephant, fear the leopard, be transfixed by the butterfly and celebrate the kingfisher, but none of these species define their habitats as strongly as the trees they live amongst. Wherever present, the density, height, soil impact and species composition of a tree community allow the denizens of that habitat to …
Continue reading Double-Edged Sward: The Tulip Tree Forests of Puerto Rico
Cattle egrets (Bubulcus ibis) are small, stocky, white herons which have set themselves aside from other egrets, or really any other birds, by independently taking over most of the world in a matter of decades. This rapid expansion is natural. Sort of. They at least haven’t been introduced by people, taking the initiative to spread …
Continue reading Following the Herd: How Cattle Egrets are Taking Over the World
Novel Ecology 