False stereotypes mean endangered animals are being protected in the wrong places

Giant panda reclining in cloudy hills eating bamboo, European bison picking their way through gloomy and lichen-draped forests and Cape mountain zebra roaming arid mountains. Ideas of how and where these species live are fixed in the public imagination, in conservation practice and even in some species’ names – but they may simply be stereotypes.

Species stereotypes can develop when research is carried out on a small, biased sample that isn’t representative of a species’ entire natural range.