Nature News

Ask The Naturalist: Why Are There Humpback Whales In the San Francisco Bay Right Now?

Good news: there are likely more whales in the Bay because there are more whales overall.

Identify Anything, Anywhere, Instantly (Well, Almost) With the Newest iNaturalist Release

iNaturalist adds an option to use artificial intelligence to provide instant nature identifications.

Ask The Naturalist
Ask The Naturalist: How Do I Know If a Lizard Is Male Or Female?

While there are few hard and fast rules in the natural world, here are a some things to look for when trying to determine the sex of a lizard.

Ask the Naturalist
Can You Take the Temperature By Cricket?

Is it true that some crickets can tell us the temperature? If so, how does it work and what are the Bay Area species to listen for?

Signs of the Season
Meet the Bay Area’s Migrating Dragonflies

Most of the things flying over your head aren’t birds. Meet some of the large insects that propel themselves around the world and stop in Northern California.

The “Ivory-Billed Woodpecker of Rare Wildflowers” is Now An Unlikely Symbol of Success in an Era of Extinction

The Mount Diablo Buckwheat disappeared in the 1930s. It was thought to be extinct. A single population was rediscovered in 2005. And then last year botanists found a new population numbering in the millions. How has this rarest of rare plants survived?