Meet the world’s animals.

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• Eurasian blackbird Turdus merula

  

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

• Hermit Thrush Catharus guttatus

  

  The Hermit Thrush is a forest bird with a brown back, spotted breast and reddish tail. It searches for insects on the ground and eats more fruit in winter.

• Plotocnide borealis

  

  This animal has a swimming medusa and a minute mud-dwelling polyp. DNA research connected forms that had been treated as separate species.

• Common minke whale Balaenoptera acutorostrata

  

  A whale with a pointed head and a curved dorsal fin set well back on its body.

• Japanese fire-bellied newt Cynops pyrrhogaster

  

  A newt of rice fields and ponds on Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, with a dark back and a red belly patterned in black.

• Rough-skinned Sea Anemone Actinostola callosa

  

  A seafloor anemone. A study off eastern Canada found a diverse range of small food items in its digestive cavity.

• Eurasian Hoopoe Upupa epops

  A bird with a raised crest, an orange-beige body, and bold black-and-white wings.

• Common earthworm Lumbricus terrestris

  An earthworm that makes deep burrows, feeding on leaf litter at the surface and sometimes pulling it underground. It connects life above and below the soil.

• Toko Narrow-disked Gecko Gekko gecko

  This large gecko is active at night. Its blue-gray body has red or orange spots.

• Gray whale Eschrichtius robustus

  A mottled gray whale of the North Pacific, with a low hump in place of a dorsal fin.

• Common Cuttlefish Sepia officinalis

  The common cuttlefish has a broad oval body with fins along its sides. It lives in shallow seas and offshore waters, with records from the North Sea region to southeastern Africa.

• Greater bilby Macrotis lagotis

  A nocturnal forager of dry country with long ears and a pointed snout.

• House sparrow Passer domesticus

  A small bird of towns and farms. Males and females differ in facial and chest markings; males have a black throat bib.

• Choirboys Pycnoclavella narcissus

  A colonial sea squirt described from Algoa Bay, South Africa, with swollen tips on branching stalks.

• Tri-spine horseshoe crab Tachypleus tridentatus

  A coastal animal of East and Southeast Asia with a hard shell and long tail. It lays eggs on sandy shores, and young animals grow on tidal flats.

• Cuvier's Beaked Whale Ziphius cavirostris

  A whale found in many of the world’s oceans that searches for prey in deep water.

• Manuel's Cellar Spider Pholcus manueli

  Recorded widely in Asia and the United States, females of this spider have slightly more closely spaced eye groups than males.

• Roman Snail Helix pomatia

  Helix pomatia has a large rounded shell, cream-colored with faint brown bands. Its native range is in central and southeastern Europe, and it lives in woods, hedgerows, and tall vegetation.

• Common Swift Apus apus

  A summer visitor to the UK, the Common Swift spends almost all its life on the wing, catching small insects and spiders in the air.

• Palm Tanager Thraupis palmarum

  This tanager ranges widely through Central and South America. In Bolivia it occurs in forest and palm groves as well as cultivated land and urban parks.

• Common frog Rana temporaria

  A long-legged frog of damp woods and meadows that lays its eggs in water.

• Long-tailed macaque Macaca fascicularis

  A long-tailed monkey that lives in forests and mangroves around Singapore and nearby parts of Southeast Asia.

• Elkhorn coral Acropora palmata

  These branching structures belong to an animal, not a plant. Elkhorn coral grows in shallow Caribbean waters; thickets shelter fish and other creatures.

• St. Johann's Tree Snake Lycodryas maculatus

  A tree snake from Anjouan and Mayotte in the Comoros archipelago, mainly active at night.