Meet the ‘Cheetah-cub’, a fast, four-legged robot complete with limbs that mimic the stealthy gait of real felines.

From a newborn cub at a US zoo to a lucky sighting in Bhutan, two rare & threatened leopards have been making headlines ... and not of the gloomy, eco-grief variety.

A clearly hungry cub burrows its way a little too vigorously into the posterior end of a buffalo carcass … and finds that getting out is not quite as easy as getting in...

It's been a week of highs and lows: from the grim aftermath of a turtle conservationist's murder to some light-hearted dolphin surfing snaps, ghostly caterpillar shrouds and new protections for chimps, it's all in our roundup of nature news.

With space only getting more and more crowded on the endangered species list, it’s not often you hear of animals that bounce back and get “delisted”. But what happens to those lucky few? Is there life after delisting? Writer and photographer Kathryn Cooper investigates …

In this bonus episode, Elizke and Desmond are thrilled to welcome four new fluffy faces to the Camp Cheetah family. Shadow's newborn cubs provide hope for the future of the project, as these endangered cats will be prepped to eventually roam free in the surrounding reserve. But raising cheetah cubs is no easy feat, and everyone from surrogate cheetah mom Yakira to the family dogs gets involved.

There’s some major underwater traffic along South Africa’s eastern coast: dozens of massive whale sharks – the world’s biggest fish – have been spotted powering their way along it each day. The Earth Touch crew dives in to investigate.

It might look like an ordinary beetle to you or me, but expert insect hunter Peter Webb knows he's in the presence of an ant-exploiting, explosively armed superbug.

She might love your head rubs, but Baby the alligator is still a bad pet. Just get a cat, we say!

Heading out into the sprawling wilderness of Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park as part of a landmark biodiversity survey, entomologist and photographer Piotr Naskrecki discovers that the ‘Abominable Frogman’ who strikes fear into tiny amphibian hearts is actually a conservation superhero…

Armed with razor-like predatory legs, powerful compound eyes and a knack for camouflage, the giant green mantid is built for the kill. Our crew uses their iPhone 4S to capture this stealthy hunter in action.

With 86% of all plants and animals on land and 91% of those in our oceans still to be named and catalogued, so much of the natural world is still waiting to be discovered. Nature enthusiast Peter Webb made his own small contribution to the catalogue of life when he discovered a little bug that got South African entomologists very excited...

To celebrate World Oceans Day on Saturday 8 June, we decided to showcase our oceans in all their splendour (and complete with Hollywood soundtrack!). A special thanks must also go to our friends at ZSL, WildAid and the South African Association of Marine Biological Research (SAAMBR) for their support on this and all the work they do to conserve the oceans of the world and the species that inhabit them. Thanks guys!

Would you take a dip with a tiger shark? The Earth Touch crew dive into the waters of South Africa's Aliwal Shoal to get up close with these fear-evoking predators.

Photographing birds is certainly no easy feat. Kirsten Horne gets to grips with flitting wings and flicking tails as she attempts to capture that perfect avian shot.

This week in the world of nature: Bloody mammoths, re-wilding to save the world's ecosystems, genetically engineered mosquitoes, diving for dugongs and a chat with a leading sustainability visionary.

They've been around for millions of years and are equipped for the kill. Don’t be fooled by the apparently silky exterior of the velvet worm, these decadent fellows are expert hunters.

Don't let the plush, downy appearance of the velvet worm fool you, these curious creatures hunt their insect prey by spraying them with an adhesive mucous before sucking out their insides! Equipped with an olloclip macro attachment, our iPhone camera gets up close and personal with the writhing plushness that is the velvet worm.

From the plight of poor sustenance fishermen to the damage caused by commercial fleets, underwater cameraman Mark Thorpe tackles an issue that's drowning in controversy: shark finning.

A plunge into the murky depths of a Seychelles reef after dark reveals a surreal wonderland of nocturnal ocean life. From soft corals and a mucous-enveloped parrrotfish, to an unusual shrimp and an unidentifiable scorpionfish, the Earth Touch crew films some of the unique species that dwell in this gloomy planktonic soup.

Tarantulas have successfully crawled their way into popular culture as the ultimate "scary spider". In South Africa, this group of frightening arachnids are loosely referred to as baboon spiders. Expert Peter Webb takes a closer look at this feared family.

Turtle numbers across the globe are declining as a result of habitat destruction, the exotic food industry and the international and often illegal pet trade. In an effort to curb the dwindling numbers, the American Tortoise Rescue (ATR) started World Turtle Day observed annually on May 23.

For many folks, 'swimming with dolphins' is at the top of the bucket list. For the Earth Touch crew, it's just another day in the water! Watch as they spend some time with a pod of bottlenose dolphins in crystal-clear waters off the coast of South Africa.

Great news for the Wolkberg Zulu butterfly! The Lepidopterists’ Society of Africa has found a second colony of this extremely rare species.

Ever cringed after dropping your beloved iPhone in a puddle? Our film crew takes it to a whole new level when they dive into the watery depths at South Africa’s Sodwana Bay to test out the iPhone’s filming capabilities below the surface. Get the lowdown on the Patima iPhone 4S underwater housing, discover some tips and tricks for setting up your phone, find out how to tackle challenging lighting conditions, and get the dos and don'ts of filming ocean life on an iPhone.

14000 people from 142 countries took part in a recent survey conducted by Arkive to uncover the world's favourite species. The results are in and you might be a little surprised by who took first place.

The cicadas are almost here! The 17-year wait for Brood II to emerge in #swarmageddon is nearly over. Soon areas from Georgia to Connecticut will be carpeted in these inimitable insects and the air will hum with their distinctive mating buzz. All signs point to this incredible natural phenomenon unleashing itself on the East Coast of the USA, very soon. Yes folks, the cicadas are coming – check out this video and see for yourself!

This week in nature: some grim karma for a poacher, sock-sniffing mosquitoes, forced abstinence for endangered fish, alien ant invaders and some very eloquent prairie dogs!

If you've never heard of a wildlife auction, think 'Storage Wars' crossed with an Attenborough special. Well, maybe not exactly ... but substitute the rows of storage containers with bomas (special wildlife enclosures) and the secondhand treasure with rhino and giraffe, and you’re pretty close.

Want to make a nature documentary with your cellphone? Our film crew did … and here’s how! From setting up, to equipment rundowns, a few cheats to get the lighting right and lots of other tips & tricks, it’s everything you need to know to make even the tiniest animal subjects come to life … with your iPhone!

This week on the roundup: fungal communication, saving turtles with LEDs, everything you need to know about entomophagy and why serving lion meat tacos is a stupid thing to do.

The crew is ending off its Palau adventure with a mission: to find and film the mysterious mandarin fish. But before they get what they’re after, another amazing encounter awaits … with a massive, 5-metre sea cucumber!

We've all seen (and perhaps made feeble attempts to fold) an origami paper crane or perhaps a jumping frog. But origami maned wolves? And aardvarks, pudús, tapirs and mandrills?! That sort of zoological origami virtuosity definitely deserves a post.

The sun will come out tomorrow, right? Well, not for the crew at the Concordia research station in Antarctica it won’t. This past Sunday they said farewell to the sun for nearly four long, cold months.

We have to admit: strange animal sightings seem to trigger a remarkable burst of creative speculation online. Take the animal carcass that washed up on a New Zealand beach late last month...

Ecologist Vanessa Stephen puts on her wellingtons and heads out to photograph the bizarre and fascinating creatures that have adapted to survive in the strange world of the mangroves.

Do ducks walk on water? They do if you’ve got a high-speed camera handy to capture their avian trailblazing in slow motion.

It seems like a freak occurrence: vultures swoop in & devour the dead body of a hiker in the French Pyrenees in less than an hour. But there's a back story here you should know.

It’s not for the claustrophobic … but if you’re brave enough to try it, cave diving can be an amazing experience! Earth Touch divers Barry and Grant explore two underwater caves that couldn’t be more different: one is brimming with colourful life, the other is a maze of murky gloom and towering rock formations.

Bees were the big newsmakers this week with the pesticide ban, but there were also insect-sized drones, lemurs in portrait, transgenic salmon and trees simply gasping for a drink. It's all in this week's roundup.

If you happen to be eating, you might want to come back later. Fascinating and disgusting in (almost) equal measure, here's a roach birth you won't easily forget.

Whether you call it Workers’ Day or Labour Day, May 1 is associated with labour and workers’ rights. And with hard work in the spotlight, we’ve been looking at a few particularly industrious animals that deserve a day's rest of their own.

Around 20% of the world’s invertebrates are now at risk of extinction, so we’re happy to back any effort that highlights the importance of protecting the spineless species that make up the majority of life on earth. That’s why we're sharing the work of macro photographer Robert Oelman, who’s been exploring remote rainforests in search of some of the world's most exotic insects...

Cheetahs on the brink, massive eggs on auction, decoding the language of elephants, the cultural life of whales and a bit of cheeky Mars graffiti from the Curiosity rover. That and more in this week's roundup.

Seagull: resourceful, inquisitive, intelligent ... and very underrated. Ecologist-with-a-camera Vanessa Stephen is taking a look at the crafty foraging strategies of this clever scavenger.

How do you improve a dive in some of the world’s most pristine waters, amidst elaborate coral formations inhabited by sharks and other amazing underwater species? Throw in a lucky sighting of the rare and mysterious nautilus, a living fossil whose ancestors go back millions of years!

It's a warm Saturday evening ... and both human and arachnid are preparing for mealtime. Photographer Brett Blignaut takes a break from his barbecue to capture a few snaps of a spider's supper.

A cheetah pursuing prey with the blazing pace of a bullet … what’s the best way to appreciate the anatomy of nature’s ultimate high-speed chase? In slow motion, of course.

Conservation charity Durrell has teamed up with the makers of Wallace and Gromit and the likes of Stephen Fry to produce an animated short that aims to save other species from the dodo's sad fate.

Like most dates in the eco-calendar, 22 April is likely to attract its share of the usual dismissive criticism. But if you can bear to shelve that cynical reticence for just a few minutes, here's some good evidence to back Earth Day's world-changing credentials.