Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,636 · Stories: 19,540

• Raccoon Procyon lotor

  

  Native to North and Central America, it has a black mask around the eyes and rings along its tail.

• Spot-breasted Oriole Icterus pectoralis

  The Spot-breasted Oriole ranges from southern Mexico to Costa Rica. It is marked by black breast spots and builds a long hanging nest from grasses or fine roots.

• Reticulated giraffe Giraffa reticulata

  The reticulated giraffe has a network of white lines and occurs mainly in northern and northeastern Kenya.

• White wagtail Motacilla alba

  A bird that walks in search of insects along watersides and farmland in Japan. Birds commonly seen there have white faces with a dark line through the eye.

• Red-legged Seriema Cariama cristata

  This large ground-dwelling bird has a red bill and legs and a prominent crest. In Argentina it runs through woodland and savanna and gives loud calls answered by other birds.

• Cape Dune Blesmol Bathyergus suillus

  The Cape dune blesmol is a stocky rodent that digs tunnels below sandy ground with its strong forefeet. It lives alone along the southwest coast of South Africa.

• Dromedary camel Camelus dromedarius

  A dromedary is a one-humped domestic camel. People have long kept it for transport in dry regions of North Africa and the Middle East.

• Indian Spotted Creeper Salpornis spilonota

  This small bird searches tree trunks for insects. It has spotted and barred plumage and uses a slender curved bill to pick prey from bark.

• Lesser Bamboo Rat Cannomys badius

  The Lesser Bamboo Rat is a rodent of bamboo forests, thickets, and hilly ground. It leaves its burrow in the evening to feed on plants and has short, powerful legs with digging claws.

• Black-headed gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus

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

• Philippine Frogmouth Batrachostomus septimus

  The Philippine Frogmouth is a nocturnal bird found only in the Philippine archipelago. It catches large insects and lives in forests and at forest edges.

• Spix's Howler Alouatta discolor

  Spix's howler occurs south of the Amazon River in Brazil. In a studied small group, fruit made up much of the diet, and use of seasonally flooded forest changed with the season.

• Nutria Myocastor coypus

  A large, rat-like animal from South America that lives by water. It was brought to Japan for fur and has established in several prefectures.

• Crested serpent eagle Spilornis cheela

  An eagle with a feather crest, found in Japan on Ishigaki and Iriomote islands.

• Ethiopian Dwarf Mongoose Helogale hirtula

  A small mongoose of the Horn of Africa that is active in groups by day. At night it shelters in termite mounds, dens, or rock crevices.

• Eurasian spoonbill Platalea leucorodia

  A white waterbird with long legs and a spoon-shaped bill.

• Short-billed Miner Geositta antarctica

  A ground-dwelling bird that breeds in far southern Patagonia, including Tierra del Fuego. Field observations describe feeding in wet grassland and nesting in burrows within open steppe.

• Hova rice tenrec Oryzorictes hova

  The Hova rice tenrec occurs in Madagascar. In the 1996 Marojejy survey, adults were collected in lowland forest and montane mossy forest.

• Sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus

  A whale with a large head and narrow lower jaw that dives into deep water to find food.

• Olivaceous Greenlet Hylophilus olivaceus

  The Olivaceous Greenlet is locally recorded in montane forest on the eastern Andes. Its head and upperparts are olive, with olive-yellow underparts. It forages in the canopy and subcanopy at forest edges, in second growth, and in broken forest.

• African forest elephant Loxodonta cyclotis

  The African forest elephant lives in dense tropical forests of western and central Africa.

• Eurasian blackbird Turdus merula

  A thrush commonly seen in British gardens and parks. It searches ground litter for worms, insects and fruit.

• Long-tailed Potoo Nyctibius aethereus

  This nocturnal bird has a long tail and mottled plumage. It stays still on a branch by day and catches flying insects at night.

• East African Spring Hare Pedetes surdaster

  The East African springhare's fur fluoresces orange to red under ultraviolet light. The examined specimens included animals from Kenya and Tanzania, but the ecological role of the glow remains unknown.