Nature reports

Why do some small, soft herbs evolve into giant woody trees when they arrive on islands, while others hardly form new species? Two PhD students combined genetic information about thousands of plant species with a clever..

Research in Leiden shows that flowering birch trees can substantially increase the amount of airborne pollen in their immediate surroundings, even though this pollen can also travel over long distances. Much less birch pollen was..

A new species of antlion from South India has been named after Mónica Guimarães Cruz, collection manager at Naturalis. The type specimen is, in fact, part of the Naturalis insect collection, which she manages. This gesture is not..

There's black gold to be found on Dutch beaches: ancient fossils. But determining what you have found is no easy task. Researchers from Naturalis and other institutions have trained artificial intelligence to recognize fossils...

Scientists have discovered a new widow spider species in the Andes in South America. Latrodectus lucacha is a variant of the infamous black widow. The researchers described the habitat of the 'medically relevant' species by..

A new analysis of hundreds of thousands of surveyed plots of land reveals that plant diversity is declining in many areas, particularly forests. Grasslands, on the other hand, are recovering. The study also shows that protecting..

Dutch and Antillean researchers are joining forces to improve our understanding of nature on Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. A new project combines centuries old natural history collections with high tech image recognition and DNA..

A large share of the Dutch government’s financial schemes unintentionally contributes to biodiversity loss. This is the conclusion of a broad analysis of subsidies and tax incentives across five ministries. The study was carried..

In 2025, volunteers from Naturalis Biodiversity Center and members of the Dutch Entomological Society discovered a species of praying mantis on Aruba. It turned out to be a previously undescribed species. The praying mantis was..

Coral reefs are selectively fished empty with no evidence left behind. Recent research on the international trade shows which popular aquarium species are in danger, that cultivation is increasing, and that the majority of..