We can’t travel far at the moment, but there were no such restrictions on a young albatross that was tracked on a 36,000km round trip from its sub-Antarctic island home to South Australia

Don’t worry, be happy! That’s the message from this little guy, one of the finalists in this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. What’s your favourite shot?

Fishing fleets will hunt for hundreds of shipwrecks off the Victorian coast in a new push to preserve Australia’s maritime history

A long-nosed fur seal that was tagged in Tasmania as a pup has turned up in Victoria after 25 years, much later than he was expected to survive in the wild

The 2021 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year Scott Portelli formed a bond with this leafy seadragon after being stuck in South Australia during lockdown. Check out some of the competition’s top nature snaps

Mother Nature keeps delivering gifts through lockdowns and restrictions, lifting spirits coast to coast with these whale wanderers

After successfully completing its first 90-day program, China’s red planet rover Zhurong is fully charged and ready to keep rolling

Letting your imagination run wild is one of the best things about being a kid – and a great way to start your entry for the 2021 Kids News Short Story Competition

Chinese giant panda Kai Kai has become a mum in Singapore after a seven year effort, giving birth to the country’s first ever cub

After an epic journey followed by millions of fans around the world, China’s weary herd of wandering elephants is homeward bound ahead of World Elephant Day

A new study has lifted the bin lid on how much food we’re throwing away, as researchers call on Australians to stop the waste and stop destroying the planet

A worrying new study has found that the vast majority of turtles found off the east and west coasts of Australia have swallowed plastics – with juveniles most at risk

The popular Little Shop collectables have been permanently scrapped as Coles moves to reduce plastic waste and become more sustainable

The time has come to go easy on ourselves and each other – and there is still plenty of fun to set you free even while you are holed up at home

The Great Barrier Reef has gone through an important period of recovery, spared the impact of heatwaves and tropical cyclones over the past year

Big Ronny the scrub python is in lockdown in Sydney, but the whopper reptile will ‘shake it off’ by shedding his skin just in time for World Snake Day

Professor Michael Mahony loves talking to frogs – and loves it even more when they talk back. But he fears his amphibian friends are at increasing risk of falling silent

Australian children could soon be playing with Lego made from recycled plastic bottles as the toy giant looks to make its famous bricks better for the environment

Not even astronauts can avoid the housework forever, as NASA announces plans for a dirty laundry overhaul aboard the International Space Station

At the age of 13, Roshani the red panda is considered geriatric and just like humans she needs some special care as she gets older. Watch her recent health check-up at Melbourne Zoo

Teen swimmer Col Pearse was training in a dam on his family’s farm last year and has now been tapped for the Tokyo Paralympics team

Year 7 students in SA have begun testing robotic rubbish collectors in the school pool, with their sights set on one day cleaning up waste-filled water worldwide

Despite headlines of an ‘arachnid apocalypse’ and startling images of cobwebs blanketing country Victoria, locals and experts alike are mesmerised by the spiders’ ingenious survival technique

Australia is set to get a new national park after the NSW government’s purchase of two sheep stations totalling 60,000ha near Broken Hill in western NSW

One French artisan believes snail slime has anti-ageing properties that make it perfect for his boutique beauty soap

Eight years after the first of its fossilised remains were found in Mexico, palaeontologists confirm a new species of crested dinosaur

Death Valley is no longer the hottest place on Earth, according to scientists who have found two even hotter places. We look at how Australia’s hottest places compare

Australia Post’s new collectable coins feature some of Australia’s best loved landmarks. Find out which ones made the Great Aussie Coin Hunt along with some cool facts about the icons

An iceberg 170km long, 25km wide and the largest of its kind in the world has broken off Antarctica. It formed as scientists reported the previous largest iceberg had broken up and melted

We all know bees make honey, but their importance in Australia extends far beyond producing a beloved breakfast spread

Zookeeper and bushfire survivor Chad Staples says showcasing native creatures in the Great Aussie Coin Hunt is “so important” for conservation awareness

Cicadas are about to emerge from the soil in a hatch so big, noisy and incredible the whole world has been eagerly waiting for it to happen. Kids News researches whether this is as scary as it seems

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has broken its own record as the fastest man-made object in history as its speed brings it closer and closer to the Sun.

Nepalese Sherpa Kami Rita has set a new record for the most Everest ascents, reaching the summit of the world’s highest peak for the 25th time

Two years after its first flight, the gigantic Stratolaunch aircraft took to the skies for a second time above the Mojave Desert in the US.

Five years ago, scientists faced the prospect of the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot “going extinct right in front of us”, but now those same scientists are grinning from ear to ear

Scientists have found a spooky-looking, bloodsucking, critically endangered native fish in record numbers in the Murray River system, which is great news for the environment and lamprey fish

Phillip Island’s little penguins are small but mighty adaptable, according to a new scientific study using custom-made ‘fitbits’.

Young writers have used the power of simple words and real experiences to win over renowned author and Kids News Poetry Competition judge Jackie French. See the winners and runners-up

A photo titled The Landscape of Fear and showing a volcano erupting within an incredible electrical storm has won first prize in a global photography contest. See some of our favourite photos

The recent floods in NSW have brought more than just record rainfall – and bloodthirsty leeches are loving it

The future looks bright for the southern purple spotted gudgeon fish, a tiny native species twice declared regionally extinct and this time found in a lake just two days before it was to be drained

Australian poet Dorothea MacKellar surely nailed it when she wrote her classic poem My Country in 1904. Mark Knight reflects on how it sums up this land of amazing contrasts

Thousands of curious onlookers are flocking to an erupting volcano in Iceland for a rare up-close look at its flowing red lava

A new photography competition named for famous Australian photographer, adventurer and explorer Frank Hurley has attracted more than 1200 entries from 26 countries

Experts are one step closer to saving the critically endangered spotted handfish, a cartoon-like creature that only lives in Tasmania’s Derwent Estuary and looks like it walks on its hands

A multi-millionaire explorer has become the first person to travel to Earth’s four furthest extremes after diving almost 11,000m to the bottom of the Mariana Trench

A deadly facial cancer has wiped out thousands of Tasmanian devils in the wild but a new study shows the future is looking brighter for the much-loved marsupial

Two orphaned eastern pygmy possums barely the size of a fingertip are thriving thanks to a human helping hand. The five-week-old babies are being cared for at the Australian Reptile Park

Single-use plastic packaging, straws, plates, bowls, cutlery and cups will disappear under new plans to reduce waste that’s hurting our environment

Five males, a mother with two babies and two other female critically endangered orang-utans have been released into the wild in the Indonesian part of Borneo island

On March 1, South Australia will become the first state to ban single-use plastic, less than a week after the opening of a shop in Adelaide in which everything is made out of single-use plastic

Wildlife warrior Robert Irwin talks to Kids News about how kids can be community leaders in protecting the environment and wildlife and how every little thing we do helps

Memories of the Black Summer fires come back every time James smells smoke. Read the moving poem he has entered in the Kids News Bushfire Poetry Competition

Best-selling author Trent Dalton wants kids to help him tell the story of the Black Summer bushfires — and maybe have their poem published in a special book

A curious emperor penguin nicknamed Smudge has made friends with an Australian Antarctic expeditioner undertaking the annual penguin census at the Auster and Taylor rookeries

Rare footage has been captured of a male seahorse giving birth to dozens of offspring — yes, that’s right, a male having babies!

Zoos were closed for much of 2020 but the animals’ carers continued their important conservation work around Australia. Here are some of the year’s memorable moments