It might seem like your new puppy is too scatterbrained to play fetch, but their instinct for the game might lie deep in their canine past. A new study published today in iScience found that wolf pups will pick up and retrieve balls thrown by humans with whom they are unfamiliar — indicating a willingness to play with people, a trait that could be older than domestic dogs themselves.

A six-year-old girl was attacked by a 160-pound mountain lion as she was walking through a park and was rescued just in time when an adult that was nearby punched the cat in the ribs. The incident occurred on Sunday morning just before 10 a.m. in the Rancho San Antonio County Park and Open Space Preserve in Santa Clara County, California...

They were once military bases at the centre of a 50-year war between the world's two superpowers. They will soon become a haven for rare birds and other animals. The German government has announced plans to convert 62 disused military bases just west of the Iron Curtain into nature reserves for eagles, woodpeckers, bats, and beetles.

Acidity is making shells of crab larvae more vulnerable to predators and limiting effectiveness in supporting muscle growth

DURHAM, N.C. -- Few singers reach their sunset years with the same voice they had in younger days. Singing sparrows are no different. Duke University-led research reveals that elderly swamp sparrows don’t sound quite like they used to -- nor do they strike the same fear in other males who may be listening in.

The Chinese wildlife trade is mired in long-held beliefs about the benefits of eating exotic and often endangered animals for good health. But the reality stands in stark contrast. The markets in China where live wild animals, including endangered species like pangolins, are bought and sold have often acted as petri dishes for the germination and spread of deadly diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the deadly bird flu, with each outbreak claiming hundreds of human victims.

Like a page out of a child’s storybook, a coyote and a badger trot side by side, seemingly the best of friends. The remote camera video clip was captured recently under a busy highway in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains. It’s gone viral on Twitter, showing just how much people love to cheer on unusual animal bonds. (Read how coyotes have spread to 49 states—and show no signs of stopping.)

Animals wreak havoc in drought-afflicted areas, causing damage to infrastructure

The crab-eating fox and the coyote may soon swap territories, initiating the first American cross-continental exchange in more than three million years

The two young women who arrived at Heathrow in February 2014 en route to Düsseldorf were carrying nondescript luggage. Customs officers were suspicious nevertheless and looked inside – to find 13 iguanas stuffed into socks inside the cases. Astonishingly, 12 of the highly endangered San Salvador rock iguanas had survived their transatlantic journey.

Experts say the building of the 30 foot high border wall has depleted groundwater levels in Arizona, putting several endangered and threatened species at further risk of being wiped out.

A US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) radio tower near the Texas-Mexico border has become home to some 300 vultures, which have coated the structure’s entire surface, both inside and out, as well as the ground below, in “droppings mixed with urine,” according to a request for information the agency issued to vendors this week.

India's wild tiger population is finally on the rise. According to a tiger census released by the Indian government, India's tiger population has increased 33% since 2014. There are now around 3,000 Bengal tigers in the wild in India thanks to conservation efforts, stricter wildlife policies, and better safety monitoring.

Firefighters were lowered by helicopter into a secret gorge to save the last remaining stand of Wollemi pine from the ferocious Gospers Mountain fire.

In the early 1980s, infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar created a family zoo full of exotic animals in Colombia, including rhinos, giraffes, zebras and hippos. When Escobar's empire crashed in the '90s, the animals were relocated to zoos -- except for the four hippos, now considered an invasive species whose waste is wreaking havoc on the Colombian aquatic ecosystem, according to a new study published in the journal Ecology.

In Texas alone you'd have to kill almost two million pigs per year to contain “the worst invasive species we’ll ever see.”

Ecologists long suspected the rugged mountains of Sailyugemsky National Park -- tucked into the Central Asian notch where Kazakhstan, Russia, China, and Mongolia meet -- were prime habitat for the beautiful, endangered snow leopard. But little was known about the numbers or habits of the elusive creatures. In 2010, American researcher Rodney Jackson of the Snow Leopard Conservancy donated 20 motion-activated camera traps to his Russian colleagues in hopes of learning more.

Recovering the endangered critters will test society’s willingness to let nature reclaim a landscape.

As the mountain lions of Southern California approach what some experts call an “extinction vortex,” environmentalists are demanding protective status.

Indonesia has promised to stop clearing jungle for plantations. So why are endangered apes still on the front lines of the conservation battle?