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July 6, 2015 Yojimbot

New York City is host to a unique ecosystem of native and introduced species. While woodland species are confined to the city’s parks, there are a few exceptions that seem to thrive in our urban landscape. See who runs shit in the concrete jungle with this list of the most successful birds and their rankings, […]

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June 23, 2015 Prachi Gupta

A gnarly looking Portuguese man o’ war, a “potentially deadly” creature according to NBC, washed up on Harvey Cedars Beach in New Jersey and officials are expecting that more will follow in the weeks to come. The carnivorous sea creature stuns its prey with its 10 to 30-foot-long tentacles. According to Associate Professor of Biology […]

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April 2, 2015 Prachi Gupta

Ants that live in Manhattan have developed a taste for human food — more so than ants found in forests and parks, a new study has found. Researchers from NC State say that the Pavement ant, the most common ant in New York City, eats junk food that we toss out. Several of the 21 […]

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March 6, 2015 Bucky Turco

Last month, Caters News Agency published an account about a “drunk” gorilla who punched a photographer, accompanied by some remarkable photos. The story was picked up verbatim by several media outlets and went viral. Here’s how the news agency framed the encounter: “Completely drunk from eating bamboo stems, which ferment in gorillas’ stomachs causing them […]

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January 7, 2015 Rhett Jones

Though drones are often used as a tool for death and destruction, some wildlife preservationists are using them to save species and monitor the lives of animals without disturbing them in their natural habitat. Julie Linchant, a graduate student at the University of Liège in Belgium, is just one researcher who has discovered how useful […]

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December 11, 2014 Prachi Gupta

On land, New York’s ecology may not be that exciting, but the waters boast some impressive wildlife (and no, we’re not taking a sarcastic jab at the Gowanus Canal). The BBC reports that the numbers of the endangered humpback whale are increasing off the coast of New York City, with whale-watchers spotting the mammal 106 […]

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August 25, 2014 Sophie Weiner

Quoth the raven, “The fuck you lookin’ at?” The New York Times reports that ravens have been sighted in Chelsea and Greenwich Village over the last few months. The common raven is native to much of North America, but there had been only a few sightings of the bird in the city until the 1960’s. (Edgar Allen Poe’s famous […]

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July 28, 2014 Sophie Weiner

Six environmental groups have filed a petition asking for a state-wide ban on a class of rat poison that they say has been the cause of many wildlife deaths in New York City. According to post-mortem examinations by the State Department of Environmental Conservation, many animals — hawks, crows, deer, even cats and dogs — […]

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January 9, 2013 Bucky Turco

On Tuesday afternoon, Deadspin reported on a hawk that was perched outside their Manhattan office. It was spotted on the fire escape of Soho rodent farm and hip hotel the Bowery House, lazily stalking a veritable rat army below that was parading back and forth, practically begging to be eaten: There were rats running everywhere […]

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