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Dreamboat

Royal Caribbean's new "green" mega-liner still burns the world's dirtiest fuel. Can the cruise industry clean up its act? Table of Contents | Digital Edition
Guardian Environmental Network

Species Watch

Kim Tingley, Species WatchIn our ongoing series, environmental writer Kim Tingley looks at endangered, threatened, and otherwise noteworthy species around the world -- and at efforts to preserve biodiversity.

A Fishy Case of Mistaken Identity
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
April 16, 2012: The scalloped hammerhead has a doppelganger. So what was once a single threatened species is now two -- and both are worse off than we thought. (0) Comments
An Old Grass and the Sea
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
March 22, 2012: A hearty slow-growing seagrass that blankets the floor of the Mediterranean was able to withstand the last ice age. But can it survive climate change? (0) Comments
Reefs Rife with Disease
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
February 2, 2012: Human waste is running offshore in the Caribbean and infecting elkhorn coral -- critical habitat for other sea creatures -- with one bad bug. (3) Comments
Gender Bending in the Rockies
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
January 17, 2012: Too many brothers mean big trouble for female marmots. They don’t tease her or pull hair, but they could ruin her future family life. (0) Comments
Little Body, Big Sound
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
January 3, 2012: It’s only 2 millimeters long, but this insect’s mating call can compete with the roar of a lawnmower. Engineers are seeking its sonorous secret. (0) Comments
Slow and Steady Wins ... a Second Chance
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
December 21, 2011: On an island in the Indian Ocean, exotic tortoises fill in for long-gone natives and give dwindling ebony trees a chance to make a comeback. (0) Comments
Hawaii's Marine Homebodies
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
September 1, 2011: A special group of false killer whales has got our backs. Why we should have theirs. (0) Comments
Thin-Skinned
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
August 9, 2011: They’re ugly. They ooze slime. Their digestive systems are partially on the outside. They creep along the seafloor and eat sunken whale corpses. And hagfish could represent the transitional form to vertebrate species like our own. (2) Comments
The Secret Minds of Bees
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
July 29, 2011: As honeybees continue to desert their hives and die in large numbers, new research suggests that the insects may respond to stress in ways that seem an awful lot like humans do. (12) Comments
Worms Do It
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
July 5, 2011: This conveniently transparent flatworm species engages in some particularly kinky reproductive practices (by human standards, at least). (0) Comments
The (Simian) Social Network
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
June 21, 2011: It isn’t just humans who respond to photos of our pals. But in the case of macaques, to friend or not to friend could mean the difference between life and death. (1) Comments
The Cats Came Back
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
June 9, 2011: The Florida panther has leapt back from the brink, but not everyone is so thrilled about it. (3) Comments
The Plight of the Iguana
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
May 5, 2011: The scientists who discovered the rare pink lizard on a Galapagos volcano named it, then forgot about it. Now nearly extinct, its preservation could play an important role for its entire ecosystem. (0) Comments
The ZZ Top of Crayfish
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
April 27, 2011: Scientists thought they knew from bearded crustaceans. Then they overturned a rock in Tennessee. (0) Comments
Dogwoods Feeling the Burn
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
April 11, 2011: Threatened by an invasive fungus, the flowering dogwood -- one of the highlights of spring -- finds an unlikely ally: fire. (0) Comments
Hot or Not? Sexy Fish Don't Always Get the Girl
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
March 30, 2011: The flashiest guy always gets lucky, right? Not so for one South American fish, where even the ugly guys have ways to survive the dating pool. (0) Comments
Going Stag
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
March 15, 2011: Britain’s threatened stag beetle is the size of a human fist. Should be easy to track, right? Not if it spends much of its life underground and only comes out at night. How some scientists solved that problem with clever monitoring techniques and audio technology. (0) Comments
The Secret Life of Reptiles
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
March 7, 2011: When it comes to desert night lizards, a long-ignored resident of the Mojave Desert, it turns out that cold-blooded doesn’t mean antisocial at all. (2) Comments
An Elephant's DNA Never Forgets
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
February 14, 2011: They look fairly similar, but recent research reveals that two groups of African elephants are actually as different as lions and tigers. That could affect efforts to preserve them. (0) Comments
Rare Bird
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
December 28, 2010: Crows on a remote Pacific island could be the best non-human toolmakers the world has to offer. What can they teach us about how intelligence evolves? (0) Comments
Forever Young?
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
December 14, 2010: A tiny jellyfish with mysterious origins has spread across the globe, apparently sustained by an impressive trait: immortality. (0) Comments
Invasive Deer Spread Ire
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
December 1, 2010: Can the United Kingdom rid itself of an invasive pig-shaped deer called the Reeves' muntjac? (2) Comments
White Lions Again on the Prowl
By Kim Tingley | Species Watch
October 12, 2010: White lions disappeared from the wild, but recent efforts at reintroduction are proving fruitful in their native South Africa. (0) Comments