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If frogs can glow in the dark and cockroaches can change history, why couldn’t dog-birds exist? Chris Goldberg / flickr, CC BY-SA

Global series: Wild world

Wild world rounds up The Conversation Global’s best articles on animals, from glow-in-the-dark frogs to the wood beetles that do humanity’s dirty work.


Saving Mexico’s sea turtles will be good for tourism too

Sea turtles have been around for 150 million years, but today’s pace of climate change represents an existential challenge. Regis Duvignau/Reuters

Climate change and tourism development in Mexico are altering the country’s shoreline, endangering the habitat of sea turtles. But tourists prefer pristine, natural beaches, too.

The ancient genetic link between chimpanzees and bonobos

Bonobos are separated from chimpanzees by the River Congo, but they share more genes than we thought. Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters

The two species mated 500,000 years ago, leaving a genetic mark to this day. This knowledge could help save them from extinction.

Revealed: vampire bats have learned to drink human blood

Doesn’t look like much of a threat, does he? Gerry Carter/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA, CC BY-SA

New data shows that the hairy-legged vampire bat of Pernambuco, Brazil, has developed an appetite for human blood over that of other possible prey.

Wood beetles are nature’s recyclers – with help from fungi

Larvae of longhorn beetle feeding on pine stump. Michał Filipiak, Author provided, Author provided

It’s only thanks to decomposition brought about by hardworking beetles and friendly fungi that we’re not all buried under dead organic matter.

How the pet trade is killing off many animal species

Beawiharta Beawiharta/Reuters

If the numerous species traded for pets, exhibits and medicines are to have any future in the wild, it’s past time to protect them.

The world’s first glow-in-the-dark frog found in Argentina

Lean Daval Jr/Reuters, CC BY-SA

Scientists in Argentina have discovered a frog that glows in moonlight and at twilight. Previously, florescence had only been traced to a few species of insects and birds and had never been scientifically reported in any of the world’s 7,000-plus amphibian species.

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