Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,584 · Stories: 19,526

• European Bee-eater Merops apiaster

  

  A colorful bird with a chestnut head, yellow throat, and blue-green belly. It catches insects in flight.

• Ancash Tapaculo Scytalopus affinis

  

  It is endemic to Peru and recorded on the western Andean slope at 3,000–4,600 m. It feeds at or near the ground, but is difficult to distinguish from similar tapaculos; range and voice are useful identification clues.

• Short-tailed Porcupine Coendou rufescens

  

  The short-tailed porcupine lives in Andean forests and has a relatively short tail. Colombian observations document it searching Cecropia trees and eating their fruit during the day.

• European Mole Talpa europaea

  

  This stocky mole digs tunnels underground and searches for earthworms and other food in the soil.

• Grey-headed Fruit Dove Ptilinopus hyogastrus

  

  The Grey-headed Fruit Dove combines green plumage with gray, claret, and yellow areas. It occurs in small groups in forest canopy and edges in the northern Moluccas.

• Malayan pangolin Manis javanica

  

  A mammal with scales covering its upperparts and a long tongue for eating ants and termites. On Borneo it is recorded in forests and cultivated areas, including gardens.

• Black-headed gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus

  A gull that gathers around watersides and visits Japan mainly in winter.

• White-tailed Blue Flycatcher Elminia albicauda

  The White-tailed Blue Flycatcher is an African flycatcher that may fan its long tail. It joins mixed-species feeding flocks in forests and miombo.

• Musky Rat Kangaroo Hypsiprymnodon moschatus

  The musky rat kangaroo is a small marsupial of northeastern Australian rainforests. It eats mainly insects and searches by turning over debris while sitting on its haunches.

• Narwhal Monodon monoceros

  A whale without a dorsal fin that lives in Arctic seas. Males commonly develop a long tusk from a tooth.

• Chestnut Forest Crake Rallicula rubra

  This rail searches the forest floor for invertebrates in the highlands of New Guinea.

• Butler's Dunnart Sminthopsis butleri

  This small carnivorous marsupial has a reported head-and-body length of 88 mm and a tail about 90 mm long. The report gives an average mass of 15–30 g.

• Eurasian coot Fulica atra

  A swimming waterbird of lakes and ponds with a conspicuous white forehead.

• Lesser Melampitta Melampitta lugubris

  The Lesser Melampitta lives in New Guinea's montane forests. This account separates an early description of an adult male from one survey record in eastern Papua New Guinea.

• Bare-nosed wombat Vombatus ursinus

  A wombat of southeastern Australia, Tasmania and nearby islands. It digs burrows to rest in and feeds on grasses.

• Pygmy Sperm Whale Kogia breviceps

  A small toothed whale of temperate and tropical seas worldwide, with a darker back and paler underside.

• Black-nest Swiftlet Aerodramus maximus

  The Black-nest Swiftlet is a small swift that feeds on flying insects and roosts communally in caves.

• Greater Cane Rat Thryonomys swinderianus

  The greater cane rat is a stocky African rodent with a rounded nose and short ears. It lives near marshes and riverbanks, feeding mainly on grasses and cane.

• Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus

  A plover with a long crest and glossy green plumage. It breeds in lowland Britain and is also widespread in lowlands and coastal wetlands in winter.

• Hose's Broadbill Calyptomena hosii

  Hose's Broadbill is a bird of mountain forests on Borneo. The male is bright green with a blue area on the belly.

• Big hairy armadillo Chaetophractus villosus

  The big hairy armadillo lives in grasslands, forests and other habitats in South America. Flexible bony plates cover its back, with hair beneath the plates and along the sides of the body.

• False killer whale Pseudorca crassidens

  A dark, slender small whale that hunts fish and squid in warm seas.

• Brown Nunlet Nonnula brunnea

  This nunlet lives in forest in northeastern Peru. It has a reddish-brown body and red skin around the eye, and is described perching on branches.

• Dassie Rat Petromus typicus

  The dassie rat is a rodent that shelters among rock crevices. It has long whiskers and a yellowish nose, and comes out in the morning and late afternoon to seek flowers, seeds, and fruit.