Some primitive birds boasted four wings, before evolution led them to ditch their hind feathers in favor of webbed or scaly feet, scientists in China said on Thursday.

Scientists who take the annual measure of Mexican forestland famously occupied by migrating monarch butterflies said Wednesday that the butterfly population is the smallest they have seen in two decades.

First-stage rationing for low-pressure water supplies will begin in Taoyuan County and New Taipei's Linkou District tonight, the Northern Region Water Resources Office announced yesterday.

An organization urged a million people in Taiwan yesterday to switch off their lights for an hour on March 23 to support and observe the Earth Hour this year, during which 100,000 kWh of electricity can be saved.

The world's tropical forests are less likely to lose biomass, or plant material, this century due to the effects of global warming than previously thought, scientists said in a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday.

The Earth is on track to becoming the hottest it has been at any time in the past 11.3 millennia, a period spanning the history of human civilization, a study published Thursday has found.

Protection measures have failed to stop around 100 million sharks being fished every year and a third of all shark species are now threatened with extinction, conservationists say.

Levels of carbon dioxide rose hand-in-hand with warming at the end of the last Ice Age, according to a study Thursday that deals a blow to climate skeptics.

Coral reefs in shallow ocean waters are far more vulnerable to sea temperature rises blamed on global warming than previously thought, with some areas of the Great Barrier Reef likely to pass critical damage thresholds in roughly 30 years.

A campaign by global environmental movement Earth Hour to get promises of action from individuals and organizations has spread to at least 50 countries, its chief executive said Wednesday.