Plastic accumulating in our oceans and on our beaches has become a global crisis. Billions of pounds of plastic can be found in swirling convergences that make up about 40 percent of the world's ocean ...

Stream channelization, dam construction, and impoundments change the water flow, temperature, and quality to which the Topeka shiner is specifically adapted. Dams also prevent shiners from migrating ...

Gentle and playful marine mammals, Florida manatees have come to represent the amazing biodiversity of Florida. With their large size, slow-moving nature, and fondness of seagrass, it's easy to see ...

The American pika — a small, herbivorous, conspicuously cute mammal related to rabbits and hares — is adapted to the cold climate in high-elevation boulder fields and alpine meadows in the mountains ...

Did your childhood include swallowtail and monarch butterflies fluttering through your neighborhood? Caterpillars chewing backyard leaves? Warm summer nights with fireflies blinking in the bushes? The ...

After Hurricane Andrew ripped through South Florida in 1992, the already-scarce Miami blue butterfly almost went extinct: No one recorded a single sighting for years. Finally, in 1999, a cheer went up ...

For every county in the United States, the map below shows information on all the animals and plants protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act as threatened or endangered. To see the number of ...

Bluefin tuna are an ocean-going fish that grow up to 10 feet long and can weigh as much as 1,200 pounds. Unlike almost all fish, bluefin tuna are warm-blooded and able to regulate their body ...

The variability among living organisms on the earth, including the variability within and between species and within and between ecosystems. Biological diversity, often shortened to biodiversity, is ...

DESCRIPTION: Sea otters use their rear flippers to move and their flat, muscular tails to steer. They have an exceptional sense of smell, hearing, and eyesight above water and below. Lacking blubber, ...

Having collected the most recent census data from state and federal bald-eagle managers in each of the lower 48 states and the District of Columbia, the Center for Biological Diversity has determined ...

The United States has an amazing and diverse array of native bees. Across the country live about 4,000 native bee species — most of which are solitary and nest in the ground — coming in nearly every ...