Two hardship cases in the animal kingdom — manatees and monarch butterflies — are on the rebound. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that monarch butterfly populations were up an estimated 255 percent in a reserve Mexico created for their protection. That followed a release of a count that showed Florida's endangered West Indian manatee population rocketed upward for a second year straight. Last year, the butterflies were observed on just 2.8 acres of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. They're now inhabiting the 10 acres.

Lizard around for at least million years

A monitor lizard trekking around Mussau in northeastern Papua New Guinea reigns as the remote island's top predator and scavenger. And although it's been around for an estimated million years or more, scientists just recently discovered it. Researchers described Varanus semotus in the journal ZooKeys. The lizards, which can grow over three feet long, have black bodies with yellow and orange markings and pale yellow tongues. The paper describes the lizard as "a biogeographical oddity" that has been isolated from closely related species for an estimated one to two million years, according to genetic studies conducted by two study co-authors.

App allows you to ask Darwin questions

People have wanted to ask questions of Charles Darwin ever since "On the Origin of Species" was published in 1859. Now, 157 years later, you have a chance to speak with the famous 19th century biologist, with one caveat: It's a theatrical version. John Pollock, a Duquesne University biology professor, created the Charles Darwin Synthetic Interview exhibit and then transformed it into an app. The full app by the same name costs $9.99 for the full 4½ hours of content, with a free version available in which Darwin answers 24 of the most popular questions asked at the science center. The most popular was, "Where were you born?" The answer is Shrewsbury, England.

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