A newly discovered 6ft lizard that is up to 40 million years old has been named after The Door’s frontman Jim Morrison – adding a whole new meaning to the words ‘musical scale’.

An Essex landfill site which once took 15 per cent of all London's rubbish has been ingeniously transformed into a nature reserve. The tip, full to a depth of 30 metres with the capital's garbage, was first covered with earth and then turned into grassland. Here, and in adjacent wetland and wooded areas, hundreds of rare species now thrive.

Sparks fly as The Voice reaches the "battle round" stage as two of the acts struggle with a clash of personalities.

We left the ancient rainforest of north Queensland's coast behind us, a ribbon of white sand all that separates those mountain-jungles from the turquoise depths of the Coral Sea. Our 10-seater Cessna spluttered over saltwater crocs basking on the Cairns mudflats, and, as the pilot headed north towards the tip of the Great Barrier Reef, we danced about in the hot currents.

When our greatest naturalist squared up to a new species

It's seen as a sign of respect awarded by scientists around the world searching for new species of plant and animal life. Now Barack Obama has the honour of having not one, but three species named after him.

Anthropomorphism fell out of favour a long time ago in natural history films, all that Disney personification being felt to get in the way of a dispassionate scientific presentation of the facts. But you wouldn't have known it from the opening lines of Rob Sullivan's Natural World Special: Living with Baboons. "As with all families, sometimes they fall out," said David Attenborough with avuncular condescension, as two hamadryas baboons tore chunks out of each other. Shortly before, he'd described the troop veterans as "wise old grandparents who've seen it all before".

The French are known to like their beef, and they also like their wine. In the southern village of Lunel-Viel, in the Hérault department in southern France, some farmers have taken the next step and are feeding wine to their beef cattle on the principle that if French beef tastes good now, it can only improve with a bottle of Saint-Geniès des Mourgues.

Protected birds earn reprieve after sudden U-turn

Vital medical research is being "choked off" because airlines and ferry companies are refusing to bring animals into the country for testing in the face of pressure from animals' rights activists, a former science minister has warned.

Our writer finds in the story of the police horse lent to Rebekah Brooks a Swiftian satire that highlights animal nobility and human awfulness

Ministers will today dash hopes of an immediate ban on the use of wild animals in circuses.

The Great Divide is one of several recent books on the deep ecological roots of human history, a trend begun by Jared Diamond with Guns, Germs and Steel (1997). Peter Watson takes some leads from Diamond but goes much further in his attempt to rescue the pre-Columbian world of the Americas from the contempt and even hatred expressed by many at the time of the 2009 Aztec exhibition at the British Museum. One article called the artefacts on display "As evil as Nazi lampshades made from human skin".

Every week we invite competing travel companies to give us their best deal for a specific holiday. Today: a 10-day trip to the Indonesian island of Bali in August. Prices are per person based on two sharing. All prices include flights departing from Heathrow and transfers.