Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,825 · Stories: 19,540

• Black Spotted Cuscus Spilocuscus rufoniger

  

  The black-spotted cuscus is an arboreal marsupial with black-and-red fur and different back patterns in males and females. It occurs in forests of northern New Guinea.

• Purple Indigobird Vidua purpurascens

  The Purple Indigobird's breeding male is purplish, and the species lays its eggs in the nest of Jameson's Firefinch. It searches the ground for grass seeds.

• Asian small-clawed otter Aonyx cinereus

  A small otter of South and Southeast Asian wetlands. It probes mud and beneath rocks with its forepaws to find crabs and shellfish.

• Cape Penduline Tit Anthoscopus minutus

  This small bird lives in dry scrub and other habitats in southern Africa. Its black-and-white forehead pattern and pale-yellow belly help identify it.

• Diademed sifaka Propithecus diadema

  A lemur with a fluffy white crown around its face, a black head fading to a white tail, and orange arms and legs. It lives in eastern rainforests of central Madagascar.

• California Gnatcatcher Polioptila californica

  This small gray bird often moves its long, narrow black tail. It lives in scrubby dry habitats from southern California to Baja California, Mexico.

• Red-nosed Armored Tree-rat Makalata didelphoides

  A South American tree-dwelling rodent with a conspicuous red muzzle and spiny hairs on its back. It feeds in trees on plant material and fruit, and is recorded active from dusk into the night.

• Black-headed Heron Ardea melanocephala

  The Black-headed Heron is a large heron with a black head and gray-and-white body. The sexes look alike, though some birds have little or no white on the front of the neck.

• Frosted Sac-winged Bat Saccopteryx canescens

  Saccopteryx canescens has pale-brown to grayish fur and faint lines on its back. In Bolivia, records are limited to Santa Cruz, and the bat feeds on insects.

• Chestnut-crowned Sparrow-Weaver Plocepasser superciliosus

  This weaver occurs in tropical Africa. Adult males have a chestnut crown and broad white eyebrow, and the assessment lists dry savanna and other habitats as suitable.

• Ursine Red Howler Alouatta arctoidea

  The ursine red howler has reddish-brown fur and a long, grasping tail. It spends its days in trees and feeds mainly on leaves, with fruits and flowers also in its diet.

• Lesser Goldfinch Spinus psaltria

  The Lesser Goldfinch is a small finch with yellow, green, and black plumage. Flocks gather in trees and yards for seeds, and the species ranges from the western United States to the Peruvian Andes.

• Appalachian Cottontail Sylvilagus obscurus

  This small cottontail lives in forests and brushy cover at higher elevations in the Appalachian Mountains.

• Rufous Treecreeper Climacteris rufus

  The Rufous Treecreeper ranges through eucalypt forest and shrubland from southwestern Australia to the Eyre Peninsula. It climbs trunks with large feet; a southern jarrah forest study found it foraging and nesting in large eucalypts.

• Lowland Ring-tailed Possum Pseudochirulus canescens

  The Lowland Ring-tailed Possum occurs on New Guinea and nearby islands.

• Scarlet-crowned Barbet Capito aurovirens

  This barbet is about 18.5 cm long. Males have a red crown and females a pale one; both have an olive body with an orange throat and breast.

• Bearded Seal Erignathus barbatus

  The bearded seal lives in shallow Arctic and subarctic seas where seasonal sea ice forms.

• Orange-tufted Spiderhunter Arachnothera flammifera

  This Philippine spiderhunter lives in lowland forest and mangroves, feeding on nectar.

• Little Ground Squirrel Spermophilus pygmaeus

  The little ground squirrel is a small ground squirrel of flat steppes and semi-deserts, ranging from the lower Dnieper to Betpak-Dala in Kazakhstan.

• Damara Hornbill Tockus damarensis

  This hornbill ranges from central and northeastern Namibia into southwestern Angola. It has black-and-white plumage and a long, slender red bill.

• Ladak Pika Ochotona (Conothoa) ladacensis

  The Ladak Pika is a large pika living in groups in open high-elevation habitats of Ladakh. A study in Changthang observed it gathering plants and storing them in haypiles.

• Banded Stilt Cladorhynchus leucocephalus

  An Australian stilt that gathers at salt lakes filled by rain. In breeding plumage, a chestnut band stands out across the breast.

• Antipodean fur seal Arctocephalus forsteri

  A fur seal breeding around New Zealand and nearby islands. It eats squid and small fish at sea.

• Appert's Greenbul Xanthomixis apperti

  This small bird is restricted to forests in southwestern Madagascar. Species accounts describe it searching for arthropods on the ground and low branches, sometimes in small family groups.