Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,636 · Stories: 19,540

• Blue-banded Toucanet Aulacorhynchus coeruleicinctis

  

  This green toucanet has a blue breast band and a chestnut-red rump. It forages for fruit and other food in humid mountain forest on the eastern Andes.

• Cocos Cuckoo Coccyzus ferrugineus

  

  This cuckoo occurs only on Cocos Island off western Costa Rica, where it uses humid forests and shrubland.

• Stripe-backed Bittern Botaurus involucris

  

  The Stripe-backed Bittern is a heron relative whose streaked back helps it blend into wetland vegetation. It moves alone and slowly through dense reeds in lowland freshwater wetlands, feeding on small invertebrates.

• Stripe-throated Yuhina Yuhina gularis

  

  The historical account places the nominate subspecies Y. gularis gularis from Nepal to eastern Assam. It describes a brown crest and a throat marked with black streaks.

• Masked Antpitta Hylopezus auricularis

  

  This small antpitta lives in lowland forest in northern Bolivia. Its gray head contrasts with a white underside marked by dark streaks, and it uses forest understories tangled with old vines.

• Donaldson-Smith's Sparrow-Weaver Plocepasser donaldsoni

  

  This localized weaver occurs in southern Ethiopia, northern Kenya, and at Afmadow in southern Somalia. It uses dry bushland, open woodland, and grassland.

• Fiji Shrikebill Clytorhynchus vitiensis

  The Fiji Shrikebill lives in Fiji's forests. White edges on both mandibles are diagnostic, while underpart color varies among island forms from ochre to pale gray. Field notes place it in dark forest understory, gleaning insects from vines and branches.

• Black-backed Dwarf-Kingfisher Ceyx erithaca

  The Black-backed Dwarf-Kingfisher is a small kingfisher found from India to Southeast Asia. Northern populations move south for winter.

• Flame Bowerbird Sericulus ardens

  The Flame Bowerbird lives in forests of southern New Guinea. Males are brightly coloured and build a narrow avenue of sticks as a courtship display site.

• Grey Wren-Warbler Calamonastes simplex

  This small bird has sooty grey plumage and a dark tail. It searches for small invertebrates near the ground in dry woodland and acacia savanna scrub.

• Sword-billed Hummingbird Ensifera ensifera

  The Sword-billed Hummingbird has a bill 8.1–12 cm long, nearly as long as its body. A study examined its Andean range and overlap with long-flowered plants.

• Sooty Albatross Phoebetria fusca

  The Sooty Albatross is a large seabird with dusky plumage that ranges over the South Atlantic and southern Indian Ocean.

• Olive-headed Greenbul Arizelocichla striifacies

  Arizelocichla striifacies is a bulbul of eastern African mountain forests, with an olive head and white cheek streaks. The IOC treatment includes birds formerly called A. olivaceiceps within this species.

• Black-headed Gonolek Laniarius erythrogaster

  The Black-headed Gonolek has a black head and back and an orange-red throat, breast and belly. It lives in pairs or family groups, and a male's whistled call may be followed by a female's harsher call.

• Sooty Grassquit Asemospiza fuliginosa

  This small grassquit occurs in humid woodland and forest edges. It is recorded from several South American countries; in Bolivia, only one vagrant specimen from Amazonian forest in northern Santa Cruz is reported.

• Le Conte's Sparrow Ammospiza leconteii

  This small sparrow breeds in damp northern meadows and shallow marsh edges, then winters in the southeastern United States. It often stays hidden in dense low growth.

• Kentucky Warbler Geothlypis formosa

  The Kentucky Warbler has yellow underparts and a yellow spectacle around the eye. It forages near the forest floor in eastern North America during breeding and moves to Central America for winter.

• Fire-breasted Flowerpecker Dicaeum ignipectus

  The Fire-breasted Flowerpecker is a small bird whose male has a scarlet chest patch and a fine black stripe down the belly. In Taiwan it is one of the birds described as dispersing mistletoe seeds.

• Emin's Shrike Lanius gubernator

  A small African shrike of savanna and shrubland that catches ground-dwelling invertebrates by day.

• Western Olivaceous Warbler Iduna opaca

  The Western Olivaceous Warbler is migratory. It breeds in North Africa and southern Iberia and winters in western sub-Saharan Africa. It also uses dry scrub, orchards, and thickets along rivers.

• Yellow-billed Nunbird Monasa flavirostris

  The Yellow-billed Nunbird lives in upper Amazonian forests east of the Andes. Its yellow bill and white shoulder marks stand out, and it catches insects in short flights from branches.

• Ahanta Francolin Pternistis ahantensis

  The Ahanta Francolin is a ground-dwelling bird of forest edges, regrowth, and streamside thickets in West Africa. Its chestnut plumage is patterned.

• Rainbow Pitta Pitta iris

  This resident pitta lives in the seasonal forests of northern Australia and searches the leaf litter for food that changes with the season. The sexes look very similar.

• Long-legged Pipit Anthus pallidiventris

  The Long-legged Pipit walks on open ground in dry grassland and farmland, searching for small invertebrates.