GORILLAS, chimpanzees and humans had a common ancestor about eight million years ago.

Up to 150,000 Adélie penguins have ‘gone missing’ from a colony in Antarctica since a huge iceberg disrupted their access to the sea, writes Richard Collins. 

Emperor Haile Selassie, ‘the conquering lion of the tribe of Judah’ and a direct descendant of Solomon, was an animal lover. Lions were taken from the wild in Ethiopia for his private menagerie.

Each evening, two avian armies descend on the village of Kilbeggan to confront each other, writes Richard Collins 

THE sudden rise in certain birth abnormalities in warm countries may be caused by Zika virus infection, writes Richard Collins

The first King Kong film was released in 1933. A reworked version of Beauty and the Beast, it became a special effects and animation classic. Nature columnist Richard Collins reminds us, however, that the King Kong of the big screen is very much rooted in a species of giant ape that may have walked the earth as recently as 100,000 years ago.   

KILLER WHALES, or ‘orcas’, visit our shores from time to time but only one pod seems to be resident in Irish waters. 

The violent events of Verdun, the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising, will be remembered in 2016, writes Richard Collins