Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,038 · Stories: 19,488

• Straw-tailed Whydah Vidua fischeri

  

  The male Straw-tailed Whydah grows a very long tail in breeding plumage and shows bold black-and-pale markings. It feeds on seeds on the ground in dry savanna.

• Flores Monarch Symposiachrus sacerdotum

  

  Flores Monarch is a small bird restricted to Flores Island. It has slate-gray upperparts, clean white underparts, and a black mask across the face. It is found alone or in pairs in the understory of forested hills and often joins mixed-species flocks.

• Australian Pelican Pelecanus conspicillatus

  

  The Australian Pelican has a long bill with a large pouch beneath it. Fish are its main food, and groups sometimes herd fish into shallow water.

• Black-billed Kingfisher Pelargopsis melanorhyncha

  

  The Black-billed Kingfisher has a cream-colored head and underparts, dark greenish-brown wings, and a large bill. It hunts for crabs along rivers and coasts.

• Black-eared Catbird Ailuroedus melanotis

  

  The Black-eared Catbird is a bowerbird with a green body, dark head markings, and cream-colored spots. It eats both animal and plant foods.

• Red-capped Forest-warbler Artisornis metopias

  

  This small bird occurs in montane areas of Tanzania and Mozambique. Its head and neck are rufous, and it feeds mostly on insects.

• Purple-chested Hummingbird Polyerata rosenbergi

  This hummingbird lives in humid Pacific lowland forests of northwestern Ecuador and western Colombia. Males have a blue-purple patch on the chest.

• Grey-headed Albatross Thalassarche chrysostoma

  The Grey-headed Albatross has a bluish-gray head and neck and a white body. It breeds on subantarctic islands and forages in surrounding waters.

• White-throated Greenbul Phyllastrephus albigularis

  A 1994 field-identification paper reports occurrence west to Sierra Leone in Upper Guinea, with an apparently isolated population in southern Senegal. It is encountered more often in gallery forest.

• Fiery-breasted Bushshrike Malaconotus cruentus

  This forest bird has a grey and green back with vivid orange on the throat and breast.

• Rufous-sided Warbling Finch Poospizopsis hypocondria

  This small bird lives on dry, high Andean slopes and in scrub. It has brownish-gray upperparts, a white eyebrow and throat, and rufous sides.

• Schwartz's Antthrush Chamaeza turdina

  Willis's paper treats the Colombian and Venezuelan population as Chamaeza turdina. Its appearance is described for that population, while a separate species account records ground-foraging for invertebrates in forest.

• Saltmarsh Sparrow Ammospiza caudacuta

  The Saltmarsh Sparrow lives in coastal salt marshes in the United States. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service page uses the older name Ammodramus caudacutus; this entry retains the pool's scientific name, Ammospiza caudacuta.

• Grey-and-gold Warbler Myiothlypis fraseri

  A wood-warbler of humid forest in western Ecuador and northwestern Peru. It searches for food in shrubs and dense lower vegetation.

• Scarlet-breasted Flowerpecker Prionochilus thoracicus

  The male has a black head with a small red crown patch and a yellowish-green back. In peat-swamp and heath forests, at edges, and in coastal vegetation, it eats fruit, insects, and spiders.

• Southern Fiscal Lanius collaris

  This shrike lives in open country in southern Africa. It watches from branches or fences and catches insects and small mammals.

• Henderson Reed Warbler Acrocephalus taiti

  The Henderson Reed Warbler is found only on Henderson Island. A field study recorded it foraging in varied places and noted individual variation in patches of white plumage.

• White-eared Puffbird Nystalus chacuru

  The White-eared Puffbird occurs in forest and woodland clearings and dry savanna in South America. It has a brown back and crown, a black-and-white-speckled breast, a black-edged white ear patch, and a red hooked bill with a black tip. It eats insects and other invertebrates.

• Pallas's Sandgrouse Syrrhaptes paradoxus

  Pallas's Sandgrouse lives in dry grasslands of Central Asia. Males and females have different plumage, and flocks fly to water and feed on seeds.

• Reeves's Pheasant Syrmaticus reevesii

  A pheasant endemic to China, living in evergreen forest and open woodland. It scratches leaf litter for seeds, berries, leaves, and invertebrates.

• Sennar Penduline Tit Anthoscopus punctifrons

  The Sennar Penduline Tit is a tiny bird with an olive-grey back and a black-speckled forehead. It forages in small parties in acacia canopies across semi-desert parts of the Sahel.

• Philippine Pitta Erythropitta erythrogaster

  This pitta searches for food near the ground in forests and scrub. Typical adults show a blue breast band and red belly; the species occurs across the Philippines and on Indonesia's Talaud Islands.

• Short-billed Pipit Anthus furcatus

  The Short-billed Pipit searches short grass and dry grassland. It has a mottled brown back and dark breast streaks, and has been recorded in several parts of Argentina.

• Northern Gannet Morus bassanus

  A large seabird that glides over the sea and catches fish.