Nature

Tokyo says goodbye to Molly

Monday, 2 May 2011

Molly, the world's oldest captive orang-utan, died yesterday at the age of 59 at Tokyo's Tama Zoological Park. She arrived at Ueno Zoological Gardens, also in Japan's capital, from Indonesia in 1955 aged three. In the past decade, she had become well known in the country as an artist after developing a talent for drawing with crayons.

UK gets its walking boots on and heads for the hills

Sunday, 1 May 2011

Nina Lakhani: IoS survey finds that more and more of us are legging it. Children are even walking to school.

Devon under siege from rise of the toxic caterpillar

Saturday, 30 April 2011

For most of the country the past few weeks of glorious sunshine have allowed us to shed our winter coats and savour an unseasonably early spring. Not so for the residents of Woodville Road, Exeter, where warm temperatures have led to an invasion of toxic caterpillars.

Ancient symbol of love heads for unhappy ending

Saturday, 30 April 2011

Michael McCarthy: The turtle dove has vanished from half its nesting sites in the past 20 years.

Nature Studies by Michael McCarthy: Glory in the splendour that is the month of May

Friday, 29 April 2011

Writing about the natural world is of necessity seasonal. Social Studies, say, or Economic Studies need make no reference to the time of year, but when your theme is Nature you can scarcely avoid it. And having now written 51 weekly examples of Nature Studies, beginning in late April last year with reflections on the blackthorn, and moving on through harebells in high summer, sweet chestnuts in autumn and alpine birds in mid-winter, I find myself back where I began, blossom-surrounded and birdsong-showered – knocking on the door of May.

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250 die in one day as twisters rampage from Texas to Virginia

Friday, 29 April 2011

David Usborne: Search-and-rescue teams were last night hunting for survivors beneath fallen masonry and tangled joists, power lines and fallen trees in towns and hamlets across seven states in the south-eastern US.

Armadillos linked to Louisiana leprosy

Friday, 29 April 2011

With some genetic sleuthing, scientists have identified a likely culprit in the spread of leprosy in the southern United States: the armadillo.

Rhinos are on the rise after surviving war and poachers

Wednesday, 27 April 2011

Andrew Buncombe: Nepal's population of endangered rhinos appears to be growing after years of decline caused by a debilitating civil war and widespread poaching, new figures show.

Hayfever: Early warning for the sneeze season

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Michael McCarthy: The Met Office is helping hayfever sufferers with a new daily pollen forecast on its website.

Hotter than LA, drier than Madrid - Britain

Sunday, 24 April 2011

It's great, but it's not spring as we know it. David Randall on the upsides and downsides of an extraordinary season.