Plus, are jaguars returning to the U.S.?
 | PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF FERRAZ ET AL.
| | More than seven decades ago, two researchers made extraordinary fossil finds from 260 million years ago in a three-acre patch of southern Brazil. But as the years passed, others could not retrace their location, and the cache that traced a prehistoric wetland was “lost.”
Until now.
Helped by a local resident, government officials, and universities, researchers have found the site, uncovering a fossil bonanza that includes at least six or seven plant species (pictured above), one species of mollusk, and two of fish. Some species might be new. “It’s beyond what I’ve ever seen,” paleontologist Felipe Pinheiro says. “There’s so much there, it would be impossible to collect them all.”
Read the full story here.
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| Pictured above, the site in 1951 (left) when the discovery of the fossilferous outcrop was announced, and the rediscovery of the site (right). Read more.
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY GANESH MARIN MENDEZ | | | Roaming the border: Biologist and Nat Geo Explorer Ganesh Marin was excited to see a jaguar appear on the camera trap he set up on a preserve in northern Sonora, Mexico. And then there was another. Scientists tell Nat Geo that the presence of a second big cat (pictured above) on the doorstep of the U.S. is a spark of hope. Highways and border walls have created impenetrable barriers for wildlife, but the discovery raises hope the endangered animals could recolonize their former territories in Arizona and New Mexico. Read the full story and see video footage of the second jaguar here. | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY MARCO ZORZANELLO | | | |
| Rhinos on the rebound: After decades of precipitous decline due to poaching and logging, the rhino population in Kenya is rising. The Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, for example, has grown its black rhino population from 20 to 160 in three decades. The conservancy also cares for 39 southern white rhinos (above, Zacharia Mutai comforts an orphaned one) and the last two northern white rhinos in the world. According to the Kenya Wildlife Service, there were only 1,605 rhinos in Kenya in 2020; no rhinos were lost to poaching that year. Read what Nat Geo Explorer Ami Vitale, who took the photograph above, learned while documenting white rhinos.
Related: Sumatran rhino struggles to survive
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 | | COMPOSITE PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHEN WILKES | | The power of Yellowstone: There’s a “supervolcano” just below Yellowstone National Park. If it were to blow, large parts of North America would be wiped out. But scientists have proposed that the power locked beneath the surface could be harnessed to provide us with clean energy. On the latest episode of Overheard, Nat Geo’s Maya Wei-Haas talks about what a supervolcanic eruption could mean, and what it would take to tap into the power (pictured above, Nat Geo Explorer Stephen Wilkes’ composite image of Old Faithful. The geyser is the byproduct of the supervolcano beneath the surface at Yellowstone.).
Related: Yellowstone is ‘where we began to negotiate a peace treaty with the wild’
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 | | Investing in mothers is one of the most cost-effective interventions to uplift health and economies around the world. Investing in mothers is investing in our future. | | | | Austin Meyer | Documentary filmmaker, Nat Geo Explorer
See With Grace, his documentary about the state of maternal health care in rural Zambia
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY ALICIA VERA, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC | | Better than seawalls? The mighty mangrove isn’t very tall but its stilt-like roots destroy waves, trap sediment, and guard against hurricane-force winds. Mangrove forests not only salvage shorelines, but they store huge amounts of carbon. Now, environmentalists in Florida are restoring them in places as populated as Miami Beach, hoping they can protect cities against storm tides, Nat Geo reports. (Pictured above, mangrove trees in West Palm Beach, planted two years ago by The Nature Conservancy.)
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| Today’s newsletter was edited and curated by David Beard, Heather Kim, and Monica Williams. Write to us at david.beard@natgeo.com. Have a good week ahead! | | | |
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