A rat may not sound like an animal worth caring about. But, the San Quentin kangaroo rat (Dipodomys gravipes) is not your ordinary rodent. Kangaroo rats get around by jumping on their two hind legs like miniature, pouch-less kangaroos. One of the 22 species of kangaroo rat, the San Quentin kangaroo rat exists only in […]
Lost & Found
How to Get the First Photo of an Extinct Monkey
There had been no trace of Bouvier’s red colobus monkey (Piliocolobus bouvieri) since the 1970s. In 2008, after almost 40 years without a recorded sighting, scientists considered it extinct. Bouvier’s red colobus is so rare that if you google it, you won’t find a single picture of it on the internet. This monkey lives in […]
Playing Hide and Go Seek in Kalalau Valley
Hawai’i is easily one of the most isolated places on earth, home to over ten thousand species found nowhere else in the world; each arriving as a castaway through the agency of wind and sea thousands of years before human habitation. Without the threat of predation or competition, Hawaii’s native plants and animals developed remarkable […]
Hunting for a Harlequin – rediscovering the Jambato harlequin frog
The Jambato harlequin frog was not always a rarity. Many villagers from the mountains of northern Ecuador remember the days when the little frog was a common sight: dwelling in damp corners of their houses, being prodded by curious children, and not infrequently being ground up for medicine. Amphibian of the Andes The Jambato harlequin […]
The Cuban Solenodon: Is it a goat; is it a bird… no it’s a dinosaur rat!
If I told you that I knew an animal that smelled like a goat, chirped like a bird, kills with its saliva and runs on its tip-toes, you wouldn’t believe me- right? So there’s not a lot of point in my writing this, given that you believe my subject to be completely imaginary. Okay, now […]
Meet the Lost & Found team: Elliot Connor
Elliot Connor is a young conservationist living in Sydney, Australia. He is a passionate insect-lover, and his raised fig tree leaf beetles, spiny leaf stick insects, and assassin bugs in addition to his three pygmy bearded dragons at home. He runs a field naturalist group in the Sydney area, and has recently won a competition […]