Ex situ conservation efforts are the last resort for many critically endangered species, and captive breeding centers are thought to provide a safe environment for producing individuals for eventual re-introduction to the wild. The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is one of the world's most endangered animals and is a widely recognized symbol for conservation. Here, we report that captive pandas in China experience environmental and dietary exposures to high concentrations of persistent organic pollutants (polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans, and biphenyls) and heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, and lead). In the short term, those animals exhibiting elevated levels of such toxins should be relocated to breeding centers in less contaminated areas. Ensuring the long-term survival of both captive and wild pandas depends in part on reducing atmospheric emissions of toxic pollutants throughout China.

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Two new pygmy grasshopper species are described from PR China and are assigned to Formosatettix Tinkham, 1937, a large Asian tetrigin genus composed of species with reduced tegmina and hind wings: F. leigongshanensis Zha & Ding, sp. nov. from Guizhou and F. wulongensis Zha & Ding, sp. nov. from Chongqing. We provide descriptions of morphology and habit, supplemented with photographs. Flying organs of the genus Formosatettix are discussed and the genus is compared with other Asian genera with reduced flying organs, such as Formosatettixoides Zheng, 1994 and Alulatettix Liang, 1993 in Tetriginae, Deltonotus Hancock, 1904, Epitettix Hancock, 1907 and Pseudepitettix Zheng, 1995 in Cladonotinae, and Macromotettixoides Zheng, Wei & Jiang, 2005 and Pseudomacromotettix Zheng, Li & Lin, 2012 in Metrodorinae.