New Future

One unusual characteristic of Latin American nations is their proclivity to adopt new constitutions that reflect periodic swings in political philosophies. These documents are notable for their length and the proliferation of sections addressing specific issues.

Studying insect-eating bats isn’t easy: they’re tiny, fly at night, and navigate using ultrasonic frequencies far above human hearing range.

Several cities across India saw temperatures top 40° Celsius, or 104° Fahrenheit, this past week, with some areas exceeding 46°C (114.8°F). Delhi experienced a heat wave for three consecutive days, recording its warmest April night in three years, with temperatures 5-6°C (9-10.8°F) above normal for the period.

In 1889, the British journalist Henry Morton Stanley stumbled out of the forests of Central Africa into the town of Katwe, a settlement on the shore of a sulfurous volcanic lake. The lake’s vast deposits of salt were famed across the region, drawing traders and making Katwe a desired prize.

SINGAPORE — A cloud of condensation rises as Shangari Sekar, the assistant laboratory manager for Mandai Wildlife Group, carefully lifts a ladle filled with vials from the center of a cryo tank.

Few people working in wildlife conservation in the 1980s could have imagined a future where breeding wolf packs roam the Netherlands and Denmark — but this is now part of Europe’s new reality. Over the last 30 to 40 years, European wildlife has undergone a dramatic transformation.

The large leaves of the aguaje, a tropical palm tree that grows in the peatlands and other seasonal wetland areas in tropical South America, form a rounded crown on its head from which its oval-shaped fruits hang heavily in bunches from December to June.

Most of what’s known about the deep-sea painted swellshark, was learned when researchers found specimens in the fish markets of Bali and Lombok, Indonesia back in the early 2000s. However, a recent survey in Timor-Leste used low-cost deep-sea cameras to observe the painted swellshark in the wild for the first time.

UGGUBSENI and ISBERYALA, Guna Yala, Panama — “Our ancestors fought for this land, ” says Jair Goporas, 21. He leans forwards into the dim glow of a bare bulb, his eyes shining from a face streaked with red and black paint. “Our ancestors told us: Don’t forget what happened here.

About 90 kilometers (56 miles) southeast of Cape Town lies the tranquilly-named town of Betty’s Bay in South Africa, home to less than 2,000 people. But it’s not the people that draw Nik Sekhran’s eye. “I enjoy watching the African oystercatchers, ” says Sekhran, chief conservation officer at World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

JAKARTA — With the Islamic month of Ramadan now over, a familiar sight has returned to the streets of daytime Jakarta: street vendors serving up chicken porridge, and everyone from office workers to delivery drivers perched on plastic stools around the steaming carts, digging into a bowl of the congee-like breakfast staple.

Unprecedented numbers of emaciated dugongs have washed up dead along Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast over the past three years, prompting marine scientists to urgently investigate what’s driving their decline.

Time is running out for the great Indian bustard. In the wild, fewer than 150 of these critically endangered ostrich-like birds survive, mostly in India’s Rajasthan state.

ROKAN HULU/PADANG/CENTRAL ACEH, Indonesia — In separate incidents in early March, officials across three Indonesian provinces rescued a critically endangered Sumatran tiger with its leg amputated, arrested six people for butchering another of the big cats, and detained five suspects in rural Aceh allegedly selling tiger body parts.