The lizard moved in frightened rhythms across the sun-blasted stone. A few quick steps, a turn of its boxy head. Then the stillness, the absolute zero, of a creature that sensed it was being hunted. All around, jagged spires and flutes rose like the towers of some Gothic cathedral, silent and empty. From the canyons below, a parrot flew squawking, breaking the trance. The lizard launched. Hery Rakotondravony's arm fired out. Moments later the young herpetologist uncurled his fingers.
"I think this is a new species."
In the few days we'd spent in Madagascar's Tsingy de Bemaraha national park and reserve, it was the second or third time he'd said this. On an island famous for its biodiversity (90 percent of the species here are endemic, found nowhere else on Earth), the 600-square-mile protected area is an island unto itself, a kind of biofortress, rugged, largely unexplored, and made nearly impenetrable by the massive limestone formation—the tsingy—running through it.
A black-footed ferret has been cloned, a first for a U.S. endangered species
A black-footed ferret that died more than 30 years ago has been cloned using preserved cells, which could help inject diversity into the inbred, endangered population.
3-ton parts of Stonehenge may have been carried from earlier monuments
Years of archaeological research now suggest that Neolithic Britons lugged massive elements of the iconic monument from far-flung reaches of the island.
