SAN FRANCISCO, CA (January 12, 2026) — On Sunday, January 18, the California Academy of Sciences will celebrate the life and legacy of Claude, San Francisco’s dearly departed albino alligator, with a ...

We loved every inch of him. From snout to tail, no part of Claude escaped scrutiny from his adoring fans. Every move (or nap, as was more often the case) was cause for celebration. Even after 17 years ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (December 2, 2025) — It is with a heavy heart that we share the news that Claude, our beloved albino alligator, has passed away at the age of 30. Claude was an iconic California ...

“The Permian-Triassic extinction serves as a model for studying biodiversity loss on our planet today,” says Academy Curator of Geology Peter Roopnarine, PhD. “In this study, we determined that ...

Says lead author Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada: “The question of how many species exist has intrigued scientists for centuries and the answer, ...

It is with a heavy heart that we share the news that Claude, our beloved albino alligator, has passed away at the age of 30. We thank our community and animal care team for loving Claude so fiercely ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (June 26, 2025) — Researchers at the California Academy of Sciences and partners rediscovered a presumed-extinct black stony coral species in the Galápagos—its first sighting in 24 ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (May 5, 2025) — The 10th annual City Nature Challenge global bioblitz has concluded, yielding more than 3.3 million wildlife observations for another record-breaking year. Over the ...

McGuire and his Berkeley colleague, Robert Dudley, published a paper last week on the extreme evolution of hummingbirds. It’s an amazing tale that takes the small birds from one continent to another ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (February 25, 2025) — A new study of coyote movement patterns published today in Ecology Letters challenges previous research that suggests ecological landscape features—like the ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (February 18, 2025) — Academy researchers and partners made the first discovery of both a new genus and species of plant in a U.S. national park in nearly 50 years. The ...

This new grant expands upon existing Moore Foundation funding that helped Academy researchers initiate a massive digitization project focused on California plant specimens. Academy scientists will now ...