Scientists have rediscovered a long-lost species of mammal described as having the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater and the feet of a mole, in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains more than 60 years after it was last recorded.

Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, named after British naturalist David Attenborough, was photographed for the first time since 1961 by a trail camera on the last day of a four-week expedition led by Oxford University scientists in June and July.

Having descended from the mountains at the end of the trip, biologist James Kempton found the images of the small creature walking through the forest undergrowth on the last memory card retrieved from more than 80 remote cameras.

A collection of pressed flowers taken from the hillsides of Bologna 500 years ago is unlocking knowledge about how the climate ccrisis and human migration is changing landscapes in northern Italy.

Picked between 1551 and 1586 by the Renaissance naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, the 5,000 delicately cut and dried plants form one of the richest collections of its time.

Aldrovandi’s original purpose was to identify plant species and understand which could be used for pharmaceutical purposes. Nearly half a millennia later, his carefully pressed specimens are helping botanists document the enormous changes that have taken place in the surrounding landscapes, according to new research published by the Royal Society.

Earth's boreal forests circle our planet's far northern reaches, just south of the Arctic's treeless tundra. If the planet wears an Arctic ice cap, then the boreal forests are a loose-knit headband wrapped around its ears, covering large portions of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia.

The boreal region's soils have long buffered the planet against warming by storing huge quantities of carbon and keeping it out of the atmosphere. Its remoteness has historically protected its forests and wetlands from extensive human impact.

These two traits rank boreal forests among the most important ecosystems on Earth. In addition, numerous species of mammals, fish, plants, insects and birds make these forests home.