Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,825 · Stories: 19,540

• Common Cusimanse Crossarchus obscurus

  

  The common cusimanse is a small mongoose relative of West African forests. It lives in groups and searches among leaf litter and rotting logs for small animals and fruit.

• Spotted Dikkop Burhinus capensis

  The Spotted Dikkop is a ground-dwelling bird with long legs and yellow eyes. It hunts insects by running, stopping, and jabbing at prey with its bill.

• Large Indian civet Viverra zibetha

  A nocturnal civet of Asian forests and scrub.

• White-backed Night Heron Calherodius leuconotus

  The White-backed Night Heron has a white eye-ring and pale back plumes. It searches for food along riverbanks and shallows at night.

• Canary Long-eared Bat Plecotus teneriffae

  A long-eared bat of Tenerife and other Canary Islands. It uses woodland and feeds on moths and longhorn beetles.

• Pied Puffbird Notharchus tectus

  White spots on the head and shoulders and banding on the breast and flanks distinguish this small puffbird. It is found at humid forest edges and in the canopy.

• Short-eared Bat Cyttarops alecto

  The short-eared bat has dark, fluffy fur. It lives in tropical lowland forest and catches insects on the wing at night.

• Purple Roller Coracias naevius

  The Purple Roller scans for prey from high perches in open African savannas.

• Tammar wallaby Notamacropus eugenii

  A grass-eating wallaby with large ears and a long tail.

• Narrow-tailed Starling Poeoptera lugubris

  Male Narrow-tailed Starlings are glossy blue-black, while females are grey with chestnut flight feathers. They feed mainly on fruit and flock in the canopy.

• Lesser Brocket Mazama nanus

  The lesser brocket is a small deer of dense subtropical vegetation in southeastern South America. Its coat is reddish brown, darker along the back; an Argentine account says it eats leaves, shoots, and fruit.

• Black Grasswren Amytornis housei

  This ground-dwelling bird lives in the Kimberley of northwestern Western Australia. Its black underparts, white streaks, and long tail are distinctive.

• Mongolian Five-toed Jerboa Allactaga (Orientallactaga) sibirica

  This jerboa is recorded in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and other parts of Asia. A specialist mammal account places it in dry steppe, semi-desert, and desert habitats. Coat colors and tail markings vary across its range, and genetic evidence may indicate that the broad current taxon includes more than one unnamed species.

• Ussher's Flycatcher Muscicapa ussheri

  This flycatcher lives in West African lowland forest. It hunts insects from high dead branches near forest edges and clearings.

• Wyoming Ground Squirrel Urocitellus elegans

  The Wyoming ground squirrel lives in grasslands and shrublands of the western United States. Its brown-gray fur is dappled, and it hibernates underground from late summer into spring at a Colorado study site.

• Chiguanco Thrush Turdus chiguanco

  This thrush has a gray-brown body, yellow bill, and yellow legs. The Peruvian account says it searches for food by hopping on the ground and eats fruit and insects.

• Great Woolly Horseshoe Bat Rhinolophus luctus

  Its long, woolly fur is dark gray-brown to black with pale tips. The Sunda Island populations treated as R. luctus in the 2019 account are recorded in tropical forest.

• Black-billed Wood Hoopoe Phoeniculus somaliensis

  This bird has glossy, blackish plumage and searches tree bark for arthropods. It occurs in eastern Africa in woodland, bushland and tree-lined places near water.

• Arctic hare Lepus arcticus

  An Arctic hare whose seasonal coat changes vary by region.

• Black-bellied Storm-Petrel Fregetta tropica

  The species breeds on subantarctic islands, and some birds move toward equatorial waters in winter.

• Greater Red Musk Shrew Crocidura flavescens

  The greater red musk shrew is a large shrew of southern Africa, where it uses moist grassland and woodland. It has also been recorded in gardens and near settlements.

• Chabert Vanga Leptopterus chabert

  This bird is endemic to Madagascar and is marked by a blue eye-ring, black upperparts, and a white underside. It searches for food in flocks in the canopy.

• Whitehead's Sundaic Maxomys Maxomys whiteheadi

  Whitehead's Sundaic Maxomys ranges from the Malay Peninsula through Sumatra to Borneo. It is mainly nocturnal and terrestrial, and has short spines mixed into the fur on its back.

• Indochinese Fulvetta Fulvetta danisi

  The Indochinese Fulvetta is a small bird of mountain forest in Laos and Vietnam. It searches for small invertebrates in the lower forest and bamboo. The account used here gives no breeding information.