While there's no replacement for experiencing nature in real life, our Armchair Naturalist corner is a place for kids to read the facts, news and stories about the fascinating world of wildlife and nature so they will grow more deeply in love with the natural world.
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Smithsonian | January 28, 2020 Though once abundant in India, the cheetah had been declared extinct in the country by the mid-20th century due to threats including habitat destruction and overhunting. But now the country’s supreme court has ruled that cheetahs can be reintroduced to the country on an experimental basis, approving a plan that...
MNN | January 3, 2020 A new form of celestial lights has just been discovered by amateur stargazers. The lights, which some are calling them “sky dunes,” have been described behaving like sand dunes in the way the shimmering neon braids ripple and flow across the sky. All auroras (including the southern variety) are formed...
MNN | January 30, 2020 During a short break from working the fires, members of the 16th Regiment Emergency Support Force of the 9th Brigade of the Australian Army used their time off last week to visit Cleland Wildlife Park to help feed koalas displaced by the fires in South Australia. The men and women from the...
The Guardian | January 30, 2020 A pair of beavers were released on National Trust land in the UK at the Holnicote estate in Somerset as a natural land management strategy aimed to ease flooding and increase biodiversity. Over time the beavers will thin out the trees in their 2.7-hectare home, bringing in more light...
Hakai | January 29, 2020 A new study of seals living in the eastern Canadian Arctic suggests they may be exposed to less plastic pollution than animals in other bodies of water. A graduate student at Carleton University in Ottawa and her team dissected the stomachs of 142 seals, including 135 ringed seals, six bearded seals,...
The Guardian | January 20, 2020 Photographer and naturalist Julian Hodgson was searching for barkflies in Monks Wood national nature reserve in the UK when he came upon an unusual phenomenon. The pale giant oak aphid, Stomaphis wojciechowskii, which has lived undiscovered for thousands of years on English oak trees, was being “farmed” by a community...
Times of India| January 17, 2019 This absolutely beautiful picture of a tigress with her five cubs taken at the Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in India is a victory for conservation efforts. With the average tiger litter only has three cubs, this tigress was photographed with her five little offspring! Thankfully...
Focusing on Wildlife | January 12, 2020 Sloths have become a popular animal to love and meme. But there is a difference between caring for and conserving an animal and exploiting it. With their new popularity, many new tourist attractions have sprung up, selling tickets to “sloth yoga” classes or encouraging visitors to touch the...
MNN | January 8, 2020 In a new and fascinating study, researchers from the University of Georgia set up over 100 cameras throughout the area surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. The researchers captured around 267,000 images of 20 species including wild boar, Japanese hares, macaques, pheasant, foxes and raccoon dogs, animals...
Mongabay | January 20, 2020 A 10-second video captured on an Icelandic island shows an Atlantic puffin picking up a stick and scratching itself. The discovery, along with a similar observation from 2014 in Wales, is the first evidence of tool use in seabirds and suggests that seabirds like puffins may be more intelligent or possess...