bioGraphic

Lessons in Longevity Pronghorn have survived even as the mammals they evolved alongside have perished. Can they weather the uncertain future of the Anthropocene?

Pronghorn can run 11 kilometers in 10 minutes, achieving bursts of 97 km/hour. But after a fast-moving Wyoming wildfire, at least 70 pronghorn died, overtaken by the flames.

A Wyoming writer whose roots are intertwined with pronghorn asks: Can our fastest land mammal outrun a warming climate?

A Mysterious Salmon-Killing Affliction is a Mystery No More - bioGraphic In California, scientists tracked the source of a severe vitamin deficiency that’s killing endangered fish.

A Mysterious Salmon-Killing Affliction is a Mystery No More

In California, scientists tracked the source of a severe vitamin deficiency that’s killing endangered fish.

www.biographic.com/a-mysterious...

A Mysterious Salmon-Killing Affliction is a Mystery No More - bioGraphic In California, scientists tracked the source of a severe vitamin deficiency that’s killing endangered fish.

A Mysterious Salmon-Killing Affliction is a Mystery No More

In California, scientists tracked the source of a severe vitamin deficiency that’s killing endangered fish.

www.biographic.com/a-mysterious...

A screenshot of text from a newsletter that reads: "When I struggle to find value in my own work during such times, I think of a line my friend Sierra Crane Murdoch once wrote: “Violence toward land begets violence toward people, and vice versa.” Similarly, care for the land begets care for its people. The well-being of all beings is connected. We can care about plants and animals and ecosystems while also caring about human lives, not only because we have complex brains capable of holding multiple truths at once but because we’re all intertwined. Government violence connects to oil connects to climate change connects to biodiversity. People connect to oxygen connect to trees connect to fungi connect to insects connect to birds."

If you write primarily about nature and environmental issues, it can be hard to see the value of your work during times like these. I wrote about this a bit in my introduction to @biographic.bsky.social's weekly newsletter.

The Rwandan City Where Wetlands Are Winning To save its citizens from floods, Kigali is betting big on wetland restoration.

Facing intensified flooding, Kigali, Rwanda, began working nearly a decade ago to restore its natural defenses. In three years, the city converted a degraded swamp into a functioning wetland, and is now restoring an integrated wetland system that will eventually span more than 18,000 acres.

The Eyes Have It - bioGraphic The mysterious northern pygmy squid develops into a brilliant predator.

Our Spotlights start with a photo that makes readers ask: what the heck is THAT? Then we set a journalist loose to discover the answer. In this case, @sarahmgilman.bsky.social dives into the world of the northern pygmy squid, the world’s smallest known cephalopod.

Learn more:

The Curse of Dead Corals - bioGraphic When heat waves bleach reefs, do dead coral skeletons help or hinder recovery?

The Curse of Dead Corals

When heat waves bleach reefs, do dead coral skeletons help or hinder recovery?

by @andrewchapman.bsky.social

www.biographic.com/the-curse-of...

If you donated to bioGraphic this year, you'd not only have cool stickers for your water bottle -- you'd also be getting our forthcoming Insiders newsletter, in which you'd learn that there's a type of fish called the stout infantfish. #themoreyouknow

‘Immigrant whales’ bring feeding culture to Canadian humpbacks 'Cultural knowledge’ crucial for survival of whales, underscoring need to integrate animal culture into marine management

We've observed, on occasion, solo bubble-net feeding here in the Salish Sea, but we'd LOVE to see cooperative groups like they get in Alaska and now, apparently, northern BC. Hopefully this trend will continue to spread to southern BC and Washington!

oceanographicmagazine.com/news/immigra...

Three stickers on a hot pink background. They are a minipizza batfish, a variable harlequin frog, and an Indian pangolin

My @biographic.bsky.social stickers arrived!

by @annieroth.bsky.social

How to Kill a Million Sea Stars - bioGraphic Synthetic pheromones offer a promising new means of controlling troublesome crown-of-thorns starfish.

How to Kill a Million Sea Stars

Synthetic pheromones offer a promising new means of controlling troublesome crown-of-thorns starfish.

www.biographic.com/how-to-kill-...

Originally published by our friends @undark.org

Is it Too Soon to Whoop for Whooping Cranes? Conservationists managed to save North America’s whooping cranes from extinction once, but the birds now face mounting threats in their winter habitat along the coast of Texas.

The whooping crane’s comeback is often hailed as one of the greatest wildlife conservation success stories in North America—but the forces that nearly wiped the species out are surging again in new and more complex forms.

www.biographic.com/is-it-too-so...

Go North, Young Turtle As eastern Pacific green sea turtles were being slaughtered in much of their range, an intrepid group of turtles pushed north into uncharted waters.

That reminds me of an article I read in @biographic.bsky.social recently about sea turtles in southern California swimming through inky green trash soup clotted with algae & hanging out in power plant effluent. It was a surprisingly hopeful story somehow, haha. 🐍

www.biographic.com/go-north-you...

Fascinating #UrbanEcology work, similar effects seen in racoons. Distinct species are found north of the "divide." It comes down to many factors but animals in neglected areas eat more trash since they have less parkland, compared to cousins in bougie south county #Stl 🧪 🐿️ 🦝 @urbanevol.bsky.social

When Squirrels Meet the Delmar Divide - bioGraphic Segregation in St. Louis, Missouri, is shaping the genetics of the city’s eastern gray squirrels.

When Squirrels Meet the Delmar Divide

Segregation in St. Louis, Missouri, is shaping the genetics of the city’s eastern gray squirrels.

by @alicesunreports.bsky.social

www.biographic.com/when-squirre...

The number of squirrels is affected by the number of cars. And “the number of cars is wrapped up with income," Carlen says. "And income in St. Louis is highly tied to race. This is all linked together,” she adds.

“There is no justice for wildlife without justice for people.”

Why Are Loons Still Dying from Lead Poisoning? In the United States, efforts to save a beloved species face pushback from a surprising foe: gun rights advocates.

The solution to protecting loons from lead poisoning is straightforward, writes @cestmoilanglois.bsky.social.

Yet efforts to educate anglers about the dangers of lead tackle and convince them to switch gear have hardly moved the needle. Why? In two words: gun rights.

From @biographic.bsky.social

Photo by Roman Willi, text by @sarahmgilman.bsky.social

The Reptile Who Plays Possum - bioGraphic Grass snakes fake death to avoid predation.

Possums aren't the only animals who play dead. Creatures across the animal kingdom--including the grass snake pictured below--fake death as a last-ditch defense against predation. The behavior is known as thanatosis, which shares its root with Thanatos, the ancient Greek personification of death.

When Squirrels Meet the Delmar Divide - bioGraphic Segregation in St. Louis, Missouri, is shaping the genetics of the city’s eastern gray squirrels.

When Squirrels Meet the Delmar Divide

Segregation in St. Louis, Missouri, is shaping the genetics of the city’s eastern gray squirrels.

by @alicesunreports.bsky.social

www.biographic.com/when-squirre...

Cyclosa Menge, 1866 (Araneidae) Orb‐Weavers Build Stabilimenta That Resemble Larger Spiders The orb-weaving spider Cyclosa longicauda from Peru constructs unique stabilimenta from detritus and silk that visually resemble a larger spider. This previously undescribed behavior likely functions...

Here's a moment of wonder for you: spiders that craft spider decoys! Two species of orb-weavers in Peru and the Philippines cobble together web structures out of plant bits and prey corpses that look like bigger spiders, possibly to distract spider-eating predators 🧪

Une nouvelle étude suggére un comportement d’automédication chez les éléphants. 🐘

New technologies offer hope in fight to save the world’s imperiled rosewoods News about the poaching and smuggling of threatened species often centers on products like tiger bone, rhino horn or pangolin scales. But much of the world’s illegally sourced wildlife products are ac...

The most valuable illegally traded wildlife product is not tiger bone. Nor is it rhino horn, or pangolin scales. It's actually rosewood. For @mongabay.com I looked into new technologies - from AI to DNA metabarcoding - that could help end the rosewood heist:

news.mongabay.com/2025/12/new-...

by @katarinazimmer.bsky.social

Pachyderm Pharmacies - bioGraphic Scientists find that elephants who raid farms might be looking for medicinal plants, sparking a cross-species exchange of pharmaceutical knowledge.

Farmers in Gabon notice that elephants sometimes eat the leaves and stems of banana and papaya plants while leaving the nutritious fruit behind. Why?

New evidence shows the elephants may be taking advantage of plants' medicinal properties to treat parasites. Read more:

SO pleased to see my @biographic.bsky.social piece on phytomining reprinted in @thetyee.ca!

We know what’s killing loons and how to stop it. So why are they still dying? Lead kills the beloved birds, and the fix could be easy. But the gun lobby won’t let that happen.

Lead kills the beloved birds, and the fix could be easy. But the gun lobby won’t let that happen.

From our friends at @biographic.bsky.social:

Why Are Loons Still Dying from Lead Poisoning? In the United States, efforts to save a beloved species face pushback from a surprising foe: gun rights advocates.

In an era when many species are declining because of multi-pronged, seemingly intractable problems, the solution to protecting common loons is relatively straightforward. So why are these beloved birds still dying?