Flying squirrels are secretly fluorescent pink. The coloration, visible only under ultraviolet light, may be intended to confuse predators. 

Mutant blue-eyed coyotes spread throughout California.

A polar vortex brings extreme cold temperatures to Canada and the Upper Midwest, with lows colder than recent high temperatures on Mars. The temperature early Thursday in Cotton, Minnesota, is –56º. 

The extreme cold may kill off the emerald ash borer, an invasive insect that is decimating native ash trees.

South Australia experiences an extreme heat wave, with Adelaide reaching 116ºF. In Melbourne, play is suspended at the Australian Open. 

Taking advantage of the government shutdown, 50 to 60 elephant seals occupy popular Drake’s Beach and its parking lot at California’s Point Reyes National Seashore, leading park officials to close the beach to humans.

Autopsies of 50 stranded sea mammals in Britain find microplastics in every one.

Department of Transportation communications refer to Amtrak’s Gateway Program—a massive renovation of the Northeast Corridor opposed by President Trump—as “mushroom” in order to frustrate public record requests under the Freedom of Information Act.  

On his way out of office, former interior secretary Ryan Zinke restored federal grazing rights to arsonist ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, whose prison sentences led to the 2016 takeover of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. 

Damage from climate change will hit hardest on parts of the country that voted for Donald Trump.  

Faced with billions of dollars in liabilities for its role in recent wildfires, California utility Pacific Gas & Electric files for bankruptcy protection—but not before awarding a senior vice president a $75,000 raise.  

A rare red panda is safely recovered after escaping from the Belfast Zoo.

Drones bearing poison are killing invasive rats on North Seymour Island in the Galápagos. In Bangkok, water-spraying drones are being employed to fight air pollution. 

The Energy Information Administration projects that US coal production will fall faster than it would have under Obama’s Clean Power Plan. 

While overwintering monarch butterfly populations in California are at dangerous lows, colonies in Mexico have staged an impressive recovery, increasing by 144 percent over last winter. 

So many Indigenous people were killed during the European colonization of the Americas that the continents’ vegetative balance was altered. New, fast-growing forests in depopulated areas may have sequestered enough carbon dioxide to bring on the Little Ice Age.