There are photos of Emperor Tamarin, White-faced Saki Monkey, Tapir, Sun Bear, Hagfish, Star-nosed Mole, Proboscis Monkey, Pink Fairy Armadillo, Axolotl (again), Aye-aye, Alpaca, Tarsier, Dumbo Octopus (again), Frill-necked Lizard, Komondor Dog, Angora Rabbit, Narwhal, Sucker-footed Bat, Pygmy Marmoset, Red Panda, Blobfish, Shoebill, Sloth, Yeti Crab, Uakari, Mata Mata ..

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Endangered Species Pictures.

27 Aquatic Lifeforms.

Are bees dying because factory farms are "overworking" them? California bee farmers who let their hives take it easy find their colonies are thriving.

Honey is just one product of those highly productive bees; the pollen and wax they produce are valuable, too. Exploiting them -- making use of everything possible -- is another lesson from boutique farmers.

Commercial beekeeping has come to resemble other kinds of factory farming. Beehives are crammed close together in rows just a few feet apart; in the wild, a square mile supports at the most three or four hives. A wild colony's diet is diverse, comprising pollen and nectar from myriad plants. To compensate for the lack of forage around bee lots, bees are typically fed high-fructose corn syrup, the same stuff that's contributing to a human health crisis. And just like other agricultural livestock, bees become stressed when you crowd them together. They're more susceptible to diseases and parasites, less able to function naturally.

In nature, most flowers don't get pollinated. But you don't get a billion-pound harvest by letting nature take its course. The agribusiness way is to rent hives for the two-week almond pollination season. This year, growers paid $150 per hive, placing three to five hives per acre.

The natural lifecycle of a bee colony follows the seasons, with a hibernationlike rest period during the winter. Unfortunately for the bees, the lucrative almond pollination season comes at the worst possible time, around Feb. 10, a miserably rainy time of year. A colony may rear ten to 12 generations of bees in a year. The "winter bees" must survive the cold months and live long enough to raise the vigorous new brood that will bring back the spring pollen and begin the cycle again.

Malnutrition could be another piece of the syndrome known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Wild bees live on water, nectar, and pollen. Nectar provides the carbohydrates they use for energy and to make honey, while pollen is a rich mix of protein, fats, minerals, vitamins, and micronutrients. Bad weather may have destroyed some nutrients vital to the bees as well, making the pollen useless to their bodies.

Qualls thinks inbred queens are another possible factor in collapsing colonies. Maybe that's what happened to Peter Scholz. In every winter, the colony he has in his backyard dwindled away -- or, you could say, collapsed. Scholz gave up, but left the hive in place. Two springs ago, a feral swarm moved in. This colony is thriving, and he expects to get 50 pounds of honey this year. "It makes sense in a Darwinian way that the hives that flourish locally and swarm are the ones you want to adopt," he says.

Swarming is the natural process by which a colony reproduces itself. Capturing swarms is a popular pastime for backyard beekeepers -- and it may provide insurance against whatever disasters are befalling commercial operators.

Related: Vanishing honeybees mystify scientists.

There are many ice caves throughout the world, but the Eisriesenwelt Ice Caves in Austria are some of the largest known to man. They are located within the Tennengebirge Mountains near Salzburg and stretch for a remarkable 40 kilometers. Only a portion of the labyrinth is open to tourists but it's enough to get a taste of what the remaining network is like: a truly mesmerizing palate of Mother Nature's handicraft.

In winter, when the air inside the mountain is warmer than outside, cold air streams into the mountain and reduces the temperature of the lower areas of the caves to below freezing point. In spring the meltwater seeps through the cracks in the rock and when it reaches the colder lower areas of the caves it freezes and turns slowly into the wonderful ice formations visible inside the caves.

A freshwater dolphin found only in China is now "likely to be extinct", a team of scientists has concluded. The researchers failed to spot any Yangtze river dolphins, also known as baijis, during an extensive six-week survey of the mammals' habitat.

"The Yangtze river dolphin was a remarkable mammal that separated from all other species over 20 million years ago," Dr Turvey explained. "This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life and emphasises that we have yet to take full responsibility in our role as guardians of the planet."

Unlike most historical-era extinctions of large bodied animals, the baiji was the victim not of active persecution but incidental mortality resulting from massive-scale human environmental impacts - primarily uncontrolled and unselective fishing," the researchers concluded.

The damage to the baiji's habitat is also affecting the Yangtze finless porpoise, whose numbers have fallen to below 400, the expedition found.

Related: Colorful And Beautiful Butterflies.

A male-killing bacteria has led to skewed sex ratios in populations of Hypolimnas bolina butterflies in the South Pacific, but researchers have found that male butterflies on some islands have bounced back thanks to the rise of a suppressor gene.

Within 10 generations that spanned less than a year, the proportion of males of the Hypolimnas bolina butterfly on the South Pacific island of Savaii jumped from a meager 1 percent of the population to about 39 percent. The researchers considered this a stunning comeback and credited it to the rise of a suppressor gene that holds in check the Wolbachia bacteria, which is passed down from the mother and selectively kills males before they have a chance to hatch.

This study shows that when a population experiences very intense selective pressures, such as an extremely skewed sex ratio, evolution can happen very fast.

It is not yet clear whether the suppressor gene emerged from a chance mutation from within the local population, or if it was introduced by migratory Southeast Asian butterflies in which the mutation had already been established.

The suppressor gene allows infected females to produce males, these males will mate with many, many females, and the suppressor gene will therefore be in more and more individuals over generations.

"We usually think of natural selection as acting slowly, over hundreds or thousands of years," said Hurst. "But the example in this study happened in a blink of the eye, in terms of evolutionary time, and is a remarkable thing to get to observe."

"In essence, organisms must evolve or change to stay in the same place, whether it's a predator-prey relationship, or a parasite-host interaction," said Charlat. "In the case of H. bolina, we're witnessing an evolutionary arms race between the parasite and the host. This strengthens the view that parasites can be major drivers in evolution."

In an experiment taking place along the Deerfield River in western Massachusetts, two otherwise unrelated groups of researchers are working together: computer engineers who are testing a new wireless communication network (TurtleNet), and biologists who are tracking snapping turtles — a species they worry may be headed for decline as land development shrinks their habitat.

The idea behind the technology is to create a network of constantly moving devices that record and store information, transmit data from one device to another, then relay all the saved information to a central location while running on self-charging batteries.

The solar-powered computers are light enough so they don't weigh the turtles down, and they don't interrupt their mating habits, Jones said.

Stuck to the shells of about 15 turtles found in spots near the Deerfield swamp, the gadgets will take periodic readings of the reptiles' location and body temperature.

When one computer-carrying snapper gets within a tenth-of-a-mile of another, the machines swap information.

The series of short-distance transmissions allows for long battery life in each computer, and the solar panels attached to the units are expected to constantly keep the batteries charged. Without a relay system, a longer transmission would require a larger battery that would drain too quickly or be too big for a turtle to carry.

The turtle-to-turtle relay ends when one of the snappers passes near a single base station that receives all the accumulated information.