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.

Bugs in nanosuits, bears in surgery, cracking the coelacanth code and tracking sharks with robots ... that and more in this week's roundup of nature news.

Welcome to Jellyfish Lake! Population: millions! It's about as unique as a dive location can get ... and our crew can safely swim amongst its cnidarian residents since their stings are harmless to humans. Time for a little dive in jellyfish soup!

From leopard cams and dogs that swim with dolphins to naked skydives for rhinos, car-riding cheetahs & a bunch of amazing underwater encounters, we've done some pretty cool stuff with the GoPro! So we've raided our archive & made a little video dedicated to our GoPro gems.

It's that time of the week when we could all use a little dose of Zen to help nudge us towards the weekend. Enter the Spinning Seal.

Some cobra-related news has Earth Touch staffer Kirsten Horne checking under the bed in fear ... turns out most Mozambique spitting cobra bites happen while the unsuspecting victim is sleeping!

Her camera skills need a little refining, but then Eden Jane McCloskey is only five ... and she's taking us on a video tour of springtime sights in her backyard!

This week on the roundup: whaling goes to court, beavers get dangerous, conservation drones await deployment and THAT eel story (yes, that one).

The Earth Touch crew is heading for manta central! Free-diving with these graceful giants (some with wingspans of more than 4 metres) in the tropical waters of Palau is just about as good as it gets!

A trusty camera, a few hours spent combing the undergrowth and voilà ... nature-lover Peter Webb gives us a glimpse into the wonderful world of the leafhopper.

How do animals eat their food? You may not need to ask that question ever again after watching YouTuber Mister Epic Mann's hilarious 'instructional' video.

If you ignore the missing scales and the transparent blood, the ocellated icefish (Chionodraco rastrospinosus) in this video is just like all the other fish in the sea.

Take a three-tonne African elephant and a scrawny New York subway rat and you have yourself two creatures that bear little resemblance to each other. One thing that connects them is some small and furry mammalian ancestor that lived on planet earth, say, 65 million years ago. And now here’s another: birth control.

Face-sized tarantulas, protective elephants on a rampage, toxic rhino horns, cleaning up our oceans and why nature is good for your brain - all in this week's roundup of nature news.

Animals are leading the way on this Palau adventure. The crew meanders around Palau’s forest-covered Rock Islands in the company of spinner dolphins before plunging underwater to trail the highly venomous sea krait.

If this hilarious parody forever ruins Awolnation's original 'Sail' for you ... well, blame it on the mucus trail, BA-BAY.

Male dominance? Not here. In elephant and hyena societies, it's the females that call the shots. And when it comes to sex, nobody's getting any unless the lady retracts her pseudo-penis! 

The cicadas are coming. And they have their own hashtag. In fact, all that stands between now and #swarmageddon is a little heat.

Aah, so many of our favourite things: cool animal behaviour, high-speed video and a frog fail on a rather grand scale...

The beautiful and detailed drawings created by German naturalist & illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian inspired Google's latest doodle ... and here's a little selection of them to feast your eyes on.

Locust swarms of biblical proportions, tracking whales by song, primate discoveries and environmental warnings – all in this week's roundup of nature news.

Arming ourselves against rhino poachers starts with knowing the facts. So every month, we'll be releasing an Earth Touch Rhino Tracker with the most recent poaching and arrest statistics and the latest rhino news.