As if deadly snakes, spiders and sharks were not enough, Australia now has a new creepy critter: a "lucifer" bee with devil-like horns.

The species -- dubbed Megachile (Hackeriapis) lucifer -- was found in the state of Western Australia, Curtin University announced on Tuesday.

Taiwan evacuated more than 3,000 people from vulnerable areas and closed schools and offices on Tuesday ahead of the arrival of tropical storm Fung-wong, which killed at least 18 people and displaced more than 1.4 million in the Philippines after making landfall there Sunday.

Fung-wong was classified as a typhoon but is losing intensity while approaching Taiwan and is expected to make landfall Wednesday afternoon or evening near the southwestern port city of Kaohsiung.

There are easier ways to cross an ocean, but few are as slick or stylish as the remora's whale-surfing joyride.

Scientists tracking humpbacks off the coast of Australia have captured rare footage that shows clutches of the freeloading fish peeling away from their host in what looks like a high-speed game of chicken, just moments before the whale breaches.

The world has changed dramatically in the decade since leaders celebrated a historic climate agreement in Paris a decade ago, but not quite in ways they expected or wanted.

Earth's warming climate has gotten nastier faster than society has been able to wean itself from burning the coal, oil and natural gas that emits carbon pollution that triggers global warming, several scientists and officials said.

A thick layer of smog enveloped India's capital Monday, filling the air with an acrid smell as pollution levels surged and worsening a public health crisis that has prompted its residents to take the streets to protest and demand government action.

By Monday morning, New Delhi's air quality index stood at 344, a level considered "severe" and dangerous to breathe, according to the World Health Organization's recommended exposure limits.

Typhoon Fung-wong blew out of the northwestern Philippines on Monday after setting off floods and landslides, knocking out power to entire provinces, killing at least four people and displacing more than 1.4 million others.

It was forecast to head northwest toward Taiwan.

U.N. climate negotiations were expected to begin Monday at a meeting on the edge of the Brazilian Amazon, with leaders pushing for urgency, cooperation and acceleration after more than 30 years fighting to curb global warming by drastically reducing the carbon pollution that causes it.

André Corrêa do Lago, president of this year's conference, known as COP30, emphasized that negotiators engage in "mutirão," a Brazilian word derived from an Indigenous word that refers to a group uniting to work on a shared task.

Typhoon Kalmaegi has killed at least 114 people in the Philippines with even more missing and then hit Vietnam Friday. A second typhoon, Fong-Wong, is forecast to hit the Philippines around Sunday and strengthen to a major storm by that time.

Some facts about typhoons:

Brazil on Thursday unveiled long-awaited details of a plan to pay countries to preserve their tropical forests and announced it had already drawn $5.5 billion in pledges.

The fund is President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's flagship project as he welcomes world leaders to the edge of the Amazon for the United Nations annual climate summit — an effort to draw attention and money to the imperiled rainforest crucial to curbing global warming.

World leaders warned Thursday that time is running short for urgent and decisive action to prevent the worst effects of climate change, and blasted the United States for its retreat from those efforts, as they gathered at the edge of Brazil's Amazon rainforest for the annual United Nations climate summit.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres opened a gathering of heads of state in Belem, Brazil, with harsh words for world powers who he said "remain captive to the fossil fuel interests, rather than protecting the public interest."