Populations of sardinella, an important protein-rich fish, are in rapid decline in the waters off Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. The decline appears to be related to industrial fishing for two species of sardinella used to make fishmeal, according to a report by investigative news organization OCCRP. In Guinea-Bissau, fish like the Madeiran sardinella (Sardinella maderensis) and round sardinella (Sardinella aurita) are among the primary ingredients in fishmeal, a processed fish product added to livestock feed for added protein and nutrients. But sardinella is also a crucial food for people in Guinea-Bissau and other West African nations. A fisheries assessment for the Guinea-Bissau government showed sardinella stocks have been decimated, according to the OCCRP report. This decline coincided with the arrival two Chinese fishmeal factories and a fleet of Turkish fishing boats off the coast of Guinea-Bissau. In an email to Mongabay, OCCRP report co-author Josef Skrdlik said the migration patterns of sardinella still aren’t fully understood, so there could be other explanations for the decline. “That said, the assessment, combined with the export data we’ve compiled, points to the Chinese-owned factory ships as the main culprits,” Skrdlik said. “The export data indicates that the production on the ships — supplied by a Turkish fleet for which sardinella was a key target — took place at a scale consistent with the decline in the sardinella stocks observed between 2013 and 2025,” he added. “In particular, fishmeal exports by a company linked to the floating factories corresponded to at least 350,000 tons…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Nigerian conservationist Rachel Ikemeh has been named the 2026 Rolex Award laureate, for her work with communities in the Niger Delta to protect the region’s ecology and the critically endangered Niger Delta red colobus monkey. The red colobus (Piliocolobus epieni), a monkey known as epieni by the region’s communities, is listed as one of the world’s 25 most endangered primates by the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. It was first described scientifically in 1993. At the time, there were about 10,000 epieni estimated to be living across its limited range in the Niger Delta. However, by 2013, their numbers had plunged to just hundreds rather than thousands of individuals, Ikemeh noted in a study. In 2021, Ikemeh and her colleagues helped establish a 1,010-hectare (2,496-acre) community-protected area for the epieni in Apoi, a town within the monkey’s range. By 2024, the monkey’s population had doubled within the community-protected forest, from 180-200 individuals in 2021, Ikemeh told Mongabay by email. She added the team has since helped create community conservation areas in the neighboring communities of Garnaut and Kokoloama. The award “feels less like a personal honour and more like validation for the community model itself,” Ikemeh said. She added she’s optimistic about the epieni’s future because she’s seen community perception around their conservation model shift over the years. “[T]he same community who once suspected we’d come to ‘collect their forest’ for the government now talk about epieni as a source of pride, something that put their village on the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Photos of a striking, iridescent wasp posted on social media by wasp enthusiasts in Japan have led to an unexpected discovery: The images are the first record of the species in Japan. The footage also helped scientists describe a male of the species for the first time. The images and a video of the wasps were posted by two citizen scientists on Twitter (now X) in 2018 and 2021. The video showed a female wasp depositing her eggs onto a hard egg case of a praying mantis. Taisuke Kawano, a wasp expert at the Kyushu University Museum, Japan, noticed the footage and contacted the wasp enthusiasts who then sent him a few specimens of the wasp. The citizen scientists are also co-authors of a study, published in June, that details the scientists’ findings. Kawano and his colleagues identified the wasp as Eupelmus curvator. It’s a parasitoid wasp that lays its eggs in the egg cases of mantises. The larvae of the wasps feed on the mantis eggs as they develop. The researchers said the photos posted on social media are the first known record of Eupelmus curvator in Japan. The species was previously known only from China. The researchers were also able to scientifically describe the E. curvator male for the first time. Only the female of the species was previously described. The wasp was, for the first time, recorded targeting the eggs of the narrow-winged mantis (Tenodera angustipennis). In one mantis egg case, the scientists found 77 wasps and…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The Andean leaf-eared mouse thrives at extreme elevations where most other mammals wouldn’t survive. At these altitudes, oxygen levels are low; temperatures are permanently below freezing; and humans can’t survive for long without oxygen masks and insulated clothing. Yet, the mighty mouse is right at home, and scientists have now figured out the biological adaptations that allow it to live there, according to a new study. The small, brown Andean leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis vaccarum) occupies a wide range of altitudes. Some populations live on the summits of volcanoes in the central Andes Mountains at elevations above 6,700 meters (22,000 feet); others live at sea level along the desert coast of northern Chile. To find out how the rodent lives in conditions uninhabitable to other vertebrates, the researchers collected 167 leaf-eared mice, from sea level to their highest elevation homes in the Andes. This allowed them to test the physiology of lowland Andean leaf-eared with their highland relatives. In the laboratory, the researchers exposed the mice to simulated conditions of elevations up to 7,000 m (22,966 ft). They found that the highland Andean leaf-eared mice from the volcano summits were able to use oxygen more efficiently in their skeletal muscle and generate more body heat than lowland individuals. The researchers also sequenced the genomes of the leaf-eared mice and found that the rodents have genetic adaptations for metabolizing toxins in plants. “The discovery that the mice have evolved the ability to metabolize dietary toxins was unexpected,” study co-author Jay Storz, an…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Sea salt sold in markets across Lombok Island, Indonesia, is contaminated with microplastics, according to a recent study. Microplastics are small plastic particles less than 5 millimeters in length that form when larger plastic waste breaks down. Microplastics have been found everywhere scientists have looked for them, including seafood and table salt, raising concerns for public health.  Much of the plastic waste generated on land ends up in the ocean where it can break down into microplastics. Because sea salt is created by evaporating salt water, it is particularly vulnerable to microplastic contamination when the source water contains suspended microplastics. Scientists estimate that there are millions of tons of plastic pollution in the ocean, by far the largest form of marine pollution.  The research team lead by Anna Ida Sunaryo Purwiyanto collected 20 salt samples from vendors at 10 markets across Lombok Island. They extracted potential microplastic particles from the samples and identified the particles using a stereo microscope. Every salt sample contained microplastics, “indicating widespread contamination across the surveyed markets,” the study notes. The researchers found some variation in microplastic contamination levels in different markets and in crystal versus fine sea salt. However, the results consistently showed that the source material for the salt, the ocean surrounding Lombok Island, is contaminated with microplastics. The researchers note that crystal sea salt had higher levels of microplastics than fine salt, likely because fine salt is washed and filtered, which removes some microplastic particles. They conclude that additional washing and filtering of salt…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The government of French Polynesia announced it is expanding the extent of ocean where extractive industries like seabed mining and industrial fishing will not be allowed. With this move, 30% of French Polynesia’s waters will now be fully protected. Last year on June 8, French Polynesia, a French overseas territory, established the Tainui Atea marine protected area. It spans nearly 5 million square kilometers (2 million square miles) of its exclusive economic zone, the area of ocean that French Polynesia has exclusive rights to conserve and manage. Some 900,000 km2 of this (about 350,000 mi2), located near the Society Islands and the Gambier Islands, are fully protected waters where no extractive fishing or mining is allowed. On June 7, 2026, French Polynesia President Moetai Brotherson announced that French Polynesia would expand its fully protected waters by another 520,000 km2 (200,000 mi2) near the Austral, Marquesas and Western Society islands. This brings about 1.4 million km2 (540,500 mi2) or 30% of French Polynesia’s waters under full protection from extractive industries. “French Polynesia has maintained a moratorium on seabed mining in its waters since 2022, reaffirmed by the Presidency in 2025, and banning it was part of the 2025 protection commitments,” Donatien Tanret, principal officer of the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy, which helped develop the conservation plan, told Mongabay by email. The protected area has artisanal fishing zones where local people are allowed to continue fishing and sustain their local communities, but industrial fishing in prohibited, Tanret said. In 2025, artisanal fishing…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The Bornean ferret badger is a small carnivore with the slinky body of a ferret and a face mask like a badger. A new study confirms that it lives only in the mountains of Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo.  Ferret badgers are nocturnal carnivores, widespread across Southeast Asia, but the Bornean ferret badger (Melogale everetti) lives only in a narrow mountain range on the island of Borneo. A group of researchers from the Bornean Carnivore Programme, part of the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), Sabah Forestry Department, and Sabah Parks set out to understand the Bornean ferret-badger’s distribution within Sabah. Between 2021 and 2024, the research team set up 188 camera-trap stations across Sabah’s western highlands and recorded the badgers more than 400 times, discovering a new population in the process. The new population in the Nuluhon-Trusmadi Forest Reserve of Malaysian Borneo, expanded the known range of the species, but photo-traps and habitat modeling showed that Bornean ferret badgers are only found within the greater Sabah’s Kinabalu-Crocker-Trusmadi mountain landscape.  “I grew up in Tambunan and had never seen or even heard of the Bornean ferret badger,” said Mohammad Aliyuddin bin Jaini, field manager of the Bornean Carnivore Programme in a press release. “I decided to place some camera traps around my family’s farm simply to see what wildlife might be there, and I was amazed when a Bornean ferret badger appeared in the photographs. To discover that an Endangered species found only in…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A field experiment in Kenya shows that dung beetles disappear when the African elephants they depend on for their fecal food and shelter also vanish locally. This is the first time that coextinction, the disappearance of one species leading directly to the extinction of another species, has been demonstrated in a large-scale field experiment, according to a recent study. In 2008, the researchers built a set of 10,000-square-meter (2.4 acres) exclosures in Mpala, Kenya. The exclosures were a fenced area of natural savanna habitat that kept out certain animals. Some exclosures kept out elephants, simulating what would happen if elephants went extinct from the landscape. The research focused on the connection between elephants and dung beetles, which bury and consume the feces of larger animals. Dung beetles provide an essential ecosystem service of ensuring feces doesn’t pile up to contaminate the land and water, which reduces the density of biting flies. The beetles also help with nutrient cycling, which keeps the soil and ecosystems thriving.  The researchers set out to see if removing elephant dung would affect the dung beetle community, and if it could lead to coextinction of some dung beetle species. The scientists, led by researcher Finote Gijsman, measured the dung preferences of 179 Kenyan dung beetle species and found that dung beetles love elephant dung. The team used modeling to predict that when elephants became locally extinct within the enclosures, 28% of dung beetle species would go extinct along with them. Their prediction was very close: 23%…This article was originally published on Mongabay

While on a deep-sea expedition in the Galapagos in 2015, scientists found a golf-ball sized, short-armed blue octopus. In a recent study, they confirmed that it’s new to science. The newly described octopus, named Microeledone galapagensis, was first sighted with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) near an underwater mountain, roughly 1,773 meters (5,800 feet) below the Pacific Ocean surface close to Darwin Island.   Expedition researchers from the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos National Park Directorate collected it with their ROV. They saw two more octopus individuals on video. The body of the collected specimen was preserved and sent to octopus expert Janet Voight at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.  Voight and colleagues at the museum scanned the octopus using computed tomography (CT) to create a 3D model of the individual. The researchers then used the CT model to examine its internal organs and mouth parts.    “When you describe a new species of octopus, you have to look at all the parts, including the mouth, the beak, and the teeth. And to see those things, you have to cut the specimen open. We only had the one specimen, so I didn’t want to take it apart,” Voight said in a press release.   A comparison of the blue octopus’ parts with those from other octopus species revealed that it was a new-to-science species. Unlike many octopuses, Microeledone galapagensis is small, squat, and has short, stubby arms with few arm suckers. “One of the interesting questions about…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Starting in 2018, gray whales began regularly stopping in California’s San Francisco Bay, where they are vulnerable to ship strikes in one of the busiest ports in the United States. In response, researchers have deployed a monitoring network of thermal cameras and AI software to alert ships when whales are present in the bay to help them avoid whale collisions.  Gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) have one of the longest migrations of any mammal species, roughly 19,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) from their feeding grounds in Alaska to their breeding grounds in Mexico, and back again. Climate change is making their feeding grounds in Alaska less productive, leaving the whales hungry as they head south to breed. Scientists believe that’s why gray whales have started stopping in San Francisco Bay to eat along their migration route. But the new pit stop brings whales into busy shipping zones, where more than 20 were killed by ship collisions in 2025, according to a news release. Whale biologists at the Benioff Ocean Science Lab, WhaleSpotter, and the Marine Mammal Center have developed thermal cameras that can detect the heat signature of whale spouts and bodies when the whales surface.  “Next a trained human confirms the detection and will help classify the species when possible,” Rachel Rhodes, a project scientist with the Benioff Ocean Science Lab told Mongabay in an email. Then the information is, “posted publicly on [the] Whale Safe website, which is accessed by mariners in the Bay Area including Vessel Traffic Service and…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Small-scale gold mining is a major cause of deforestation in the Amazon, and researchers found that in Guyana it destroys dung beetle communities and prevents their recovery for decades. Gold mining causes 90% of the deforestation in the Guiana Shield, which contains a quarter of the Amazon rainforest as well as large gold deposits, according to a recent study. Most of the gold mining in this region, including in Guyana, is artisanal, driven by small-scale mining rather than large industrial mines. To understand the long-term “ecological legacy” of such mining, a team of researchers measured dung beetle communities at 16 abandoned small-scale gold mine sites in northwest Guyana. They choose dung beetles, because the insects are easily sampled and play key roles in rainforest functions like nutrient cycling, seed dispersal and pollination. For control, the team monitored dung beetle communities at five nearby intact forests. At every mining site, the researchers sampled dung beetles at three locations: the center of the mine where vegetation was regrowing, at the edge where the mine met the forest, and about 100 meters (328 feet) away into the forest. They trapped dung beetles using human feces as bait.  Study lead author Sean Glynn from the University of Kent, U.K., told Mongabay by email that because they were camping remotely, they didn’t have reliable access to feces from other animals to use as bait, “however, human seems to always be the best.”  The team also recorded air temperature and vegetation structure at each of the…This article was originally published on Mongabay