Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,825 · Stories: 19,540

• European Bee-eater Merops apiaster

  

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

• 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.

• Choirboys Pycnoclavella narcissus

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

• Long-tailed macaque Macaca fascicularis

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

• 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.

• 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.

• Common Raven Corvus corax

  A large black raven that lives widely across the Northern Hemisphere.

• Corn Snake Pantherophis guttatus

  This snake sometimes moves around alligator nests.

• 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.

• Brown bear Ursus arctos

  A bear of forests, mountains and other habitats in Eurasia and North America. It eats plants and animals, changing its diet with the seasons.

• Stripe-headed Tanager Spindalis zena

  The Stripe-headed Tanager occurs on Caribbean islands and nearby regions, and males and females differ in plumage.

• Common Midwife Toad Alytes obstetricans

  This frog carries eggs wrapped around the male’s hind legs.

• Wild turkey Meleagris gallopavo

  A large bird native to North America. Wild males have dark iridescent plumage; females are smaller and duller.

• 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.

• 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.

• African wild ass Equus africanus

  A wild ass of Northeast Africa. This entry treats it as a wild species, separate from the domestic donkey.

• Okapi Okapia johnstoni

  The okapi is a giraffe relative living in tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• 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.

• Black-headed gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus

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

• Troglohyphantes pedemontanus

  A small spider of caves in north-western Italy, known from three caves in Piemonte.

• Yellow-bellied Slider Trachemys scripta

  This turtle sometimes basks and moves around alligator nests.

• Eurasian beaver Castor fiber

  A large rodent that swims in rivers and lakes and feeds on waterside plants.

• Rufous-crowned Bee-eater Merops americanus

  This bee-eater occurs in the Philippines. Adults have a rufous crown and upper back and an almost entirely green underside. The species profile identifies it as a diurnal, sedentary invertivore of woodland and semi-open habitats.

• 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.