Mark Garrison

2 days ago | biographic.com | Mark Garrison

For a whale shark, giving birth in the wide-open ocean is a daunting task. Smells carry easily, predators abound, and despite the fact that adults can grow as long and heavy as a school bus, baby whale sharks are born about the size of a domestic cat. The ocean offers few suitable hidey-holes for depositing these vulnerable offspring.

1 week ago | biographic.com | Mark Garrison

Every year, the illegal wildlife trade ensnares millions of wild birds in a vast global industry worth up to US $23 billion. Poaching for the black market affects a huge diversity of life, including nearly half of all bird species. Songbirds and parrots are particularly popular targets, with thousands illegally caught and traded every year. Proving that a bird sold as a pet was born in captivity, rather than poached from the wild, is difficult.

2 weeks ago | biographic.com | Mark Garrison

This story was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The lynxes of the Białowieża Forest once freely prowled through 1,420 square kilometers (548 square miles) of ancient woodland. Then, in 2022, the habitat was abruptly sliced in two. Poland built a 186-kilometer (115-mile) wall across its border with Belarus to stop refugees and migrants from entering the EU.

2 weeks ago | biographic.com | Mark Garrison

Steps from a public bathroom, across a narrow street from a home goods store in Tokyo, Japan, a tangle of delicate reddish stems fringed with rubbery emerald leaves pokes from a crack in the pavement. Smaller than a discarded Big Mac box, the plant sprawls close to the ground, appearing entirely unremarkable. Put more plainly: Common purslane looks like a weed.

3 weeks ago | biographic.com | Mark Garrison

The superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae) is as transcendently impressive as its name suggests. The male sings and dances and is runway-gorgeous with an ornate tail that resembles a gown’s lacy train. While these physical attributes have long captivated observers, lyrebirds also happen to be superb ecosystem engineers—and, new research reveals, skilled farmers. As engineers, superb lyrebirds depend on their formidable claws.