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Over the last 14 years, waterbirds in Myanmar's Irrawddy River declined by 60% to 90% depending on the species. Scientists working for Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and Manfred Hermsen Foundation have repeated an ornithology survey of the Myitkyina to Mandalay stretch of the Irrawaddy River last carried out in 2003. They found that many waterbirds have declined sharply. More than 20,000 waterbirds (61 species) were recorded along the river, with small pratincole (Glareola lactea) and ruddy shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea) the most numerous recorded.

In the 1950s the commission on food coloring of the German Research Society (DFG), headed by the biochemist Adolf Butenandt and the pharmacologist Hermann Druckrey, represented a policy of preventive risk management in regard to food additives. It was thereby recapitulating a discourse on “food poisoning” and a critique on an inner nexus being constructed by our civilization between foreign substances and carcinogenesis. Such a connection had already been expressed in the early 1930s.

Though they’re tiny, bees play a big role in making our food. But these fuzzy fliers are in trouble—and a new map highlights just how precarious the pollinator’s situation has become in the United States. Recently presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting, the map highlights 139 counties across the country where wild bees are at risk. Many of these danger regions encompass major agricultural zones like California’s Central Valley and a wide swath of the Great Plains.

Many birders and bird-watchers in western and central Nebraska have noticed the unfortunate absence in recent years of a distinctive, entertaining and familiar bird species, the black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia). In the late 1990s, black-billed magpies were found over most of the state, except the extreme east and southeast. They occurred as far east as western Lancaster and Saunders counties during that time. In other areas, especially the west, magpies were fairly common and could be reliably seen with little effort. Since about 2000, black-billed magpies have declined sharply.

The spangled drongo was the rarest of the 93 species of birds spotted during the Great Backward Bird Count survey held in University of Hyderabad recently. Held jointly by international bird watchers Cornell Ornithology lab and Audubon, the survey was conducted between February 18-20. More than 25 student volunteers from UoH participated in the survey which was split into morning and evening sessions. The team covered over three fourth of the 1700-plus acre campus. Previously 109 bird species were spotted in the survery conducted in the campus.

They might give you the shivers, but trapdoor spiders play an important part in Australia's ecosystem and their decline could be to our detriment, a biology professor has warned. "It's a little bit concerning and we don't quite know what is going on," Professor Andrew Austin, from the University of Adelaide's Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity, said. Professor Austin said follow-up surveys from data collected in the 1950s and 1970s showed a sharp decline in numbers throughout southern Australia.

The Western swamp carnivorous tortoise (Pseudemydura umbrina) is Australia’s most endangered reptile. Thought to be extinct for more than 100 years, the tortoise was rediscovered in 1953. Two small habitats in the Swan Valley are the only locations where they are now found naturally. One of the unique features of the tortoise is that it aestivates (the opposite of hibernates) during the hot summer months when the swamps it lives in are dry, and food sources such as tadpoles are not available.

The unique Arid Bronze azure butterfly (Ogyris Subterrestris Petrina) is found only in one location, near Mukinbudin. Unusually, for butterflies, their young are carnivorous. The female butterflies lay their eggs just outside the nest of the bearded sugar ant. When the eggs hatch, the tiny caterpillars crawl into the nest where they are fed by the ants, or feed on the ants’ eggs and larvae. They spend their lives underground, protected by the ants, until emerging as the next generation of butterflies.

The numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus) first became known to Europeans in 1831. “Saw a beautiful animal but, as it escaped into the hollow of a tree, could not ascertain whether it was a species of squirrel, weasel or wild cat ...” George Fletcher Moore, early settler in Western Australia, on first seeing a numbat. Eating almost exclusively termites (adult numbats need up to 20,000 termites each day), the mammal emblem of Western Australia was once common across southern parts of Australia.

Unfortunately the common nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) isn’t all that common anymore. From May until September, Canada hosts an estimated 900,000 of them, coming here to nest before their long trip to South America where they wait out the winter. But we used to harbour considerably more back in the day. From 1973 through 2012 it’s been estimated their population plummeted some 76 per cent, and by no means has that trend slowed down. Those 900,000, estimated as such in 2013, are merely the survivors of a nation-wide decline.