I spent my very first weekend as Prague Zoo’s director in the office. During that weekend I also wrote down ten points where I tried to define what our future approach to nature conservation projects for endangered species would be. These were and still are one of my priorities. Based on this document, we then started to...

Prior to my last trip to Cameroon, one of the things I noted was that we should find out more about African palm weevils and their production. I wrote about them here a while ago: almost as thick as a finger and sometimes two index finger phalanges long, the larvae of Rhynchophorus phoenicis are a popular delicacy in some...

During our trip to the Eastern Rhodopes, we received news that the restaurant we intended to visit was very well stocked. Although none of the pastoralists or any of the surrounding villages had any fallen livestock to give, the abundance of offal from the nearest abattoir was more than enough to replace them. I should point out...

For the first time in more than a year and a half, we visited Cameroon during the holidays. It was undoubtedly a rewarding trip, not least because at the end of it I signed a memorandum with the Cameroonian Minister of Forests and Fauna, Mr. Jules Ndoret Ndongo. This is a very significant step in the continued development of the...

It is not just one of the rarest and most beautiful terrapins in the world. On top of that, it's a terrapin with a story that has the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster: a shocking revelation, a desperate search, a spy hiding her true identity, intricate talks with superstitious villagers, tragedy, and a hint of a happy ending....

In Greek mythology the Echidna was half-woman and half-serpent. This is an excellent choice. Echidnas are very old and at first glance look like a sort of overgrown hedgehog or a small porcupine, however, although they are mammals, they still exhibit a number of reptilian traits, such as the presence of a cloaca, egg-laying and...

When I was preparing for my first ever visit to Prague Zoo’s breeding and acclimatisation station in Dolní Dobřejov, just before St. Nicholas Day 2010, snow was lying fresh on the ground. Everyone started trying to talk me out of the trip. It was as if I was going way up beyond the Arctic Circle, not just eighty kilometres...

There are about seven thousand languages in the world. However, some estimates suggest that 50–90 % of them could be extinct by the end of the century. So, it is fair make a comparison between endangered languages and endangered species. Moreover, one of the potentially endangered languages is in direct contact with endangered...

An analysis of 27,621 bird photos on Instagram has shown that the most aesthetically appealing feathered bird is – the tawny frogmouth.