Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,768 · Stories: 19,540

• Tawny-winged Woodcreeper Dendrocincla anabatina

  

  This woodcreeper lives in Central American forest. Tawny flight feathers and a rufous tail stand out, and it may forage near army-ant swarms.

• Pond Bat Myotis (Myotis) dasycneme

  This bat catches food while flying close to the water surface. Records from northwestern Germany include seasonal passage and wintering.

• White-winged Lark Alauda leucoptera

  The White-winged Lark is a lark whose white wing patches stand out in flight. It uses dry steppe and fields, and may gather in flocks outside the breeding season.

• Fat Sand Rat Psammomys obesus

  The fat sand rat is a stocky gerbil-like rodent that burrows near desert shrubs and changes its activity with the heat.

• Mexican Sheartail Doricha eliza

  This small hummingbird is endemic to Mexico. Its breeding range is split between the northern Yucatan Peninsula and central Veracruz, where records include coastal scrub and dry deciduous forest.

• Chestnut Short-tailed Bat Carollia castanea

  The chestnut short-tailed bat is a nocturnal fruit-eating bat. In a study, it relied on the scent of ripe Piper fruit when foraging and used more echolocation when that scent was absent.

• African Hill Babbler Sylvia abyssinica

  This babbler occurs in scattered African highlands. It searches near the ground in forest understory and dense scrub.

• Klipspringer Oreotragus oreotragus

  A small antelope that lives among rocks and leaps across rocky ground.

• Bar-tailed Trogon Apaloderma vittatum

  The Bar-tailed Trogon lives in humid African mountain forest. By day it searches for caterpillars and other insects.

• Bergmans's Collared Fruit Bat Myonycteris relicta

  Bergmans's Collared Fruit Bat was described from southeastern Kenya and northeastern Tanzania, and was later recorded in Zimbabwe.

• Lompobattang Leaf Warbler Phylloscopus sarasinorum

  This leaf warbler occurs on the Lompobattang massif in southwestern Sulawesi. A pale crown stripe and a wingbar help describe it. The paper treats birds elsewhere on Sulawesi as the separate species P. nesophilus.

• Formosan Rock Macaque Macaca cyclopis

  A macaque of Taiwan’s forests. It is mainly arboreal but also searches for food on the ground.

• Banded Lapwing Vanellus tricolor

  The Banded Lapwing lives in short grassland and farmland in Australia. Its black breast band and white throat stand out. It is nomadic and searches for invertebrates on the ground.

• Mutable Sun Squirrel Heliosciurus mutabilis

  The Mutable Sun Squirrel occurs in forests and savannas of eastern Africa. It is active by day and forages both in trees and on the ground.

• Madagascar Ibis Lophotibis cristata

  This ibis lives only in the forests of Madagascar. Its white wings and crest stand out, and it probes the forest floor for food with a long bill.

• Nimble-footed Deermouse Peromyscus levipes

  The nimble-footed deermouse is a member of the deer-mouse group found in the mountains of eastern Mexico.

• Crested Bunting Emberiza lathami

  This bunting has a conspicuous crest: males are dark, while females show brown streaking. The species ranges from northern India and the Himalayan foothills east through China to northern Indochina, and feeds on seeds.

• Desert Red Bat Lasiurus frantzii

  Desert Red Bats live in North America and eat insects such as moths, flies, cicadas, and ants. Their fluffy amber fur and white shoulder patches are useful identification features.

• Pale Batis Batis soror

  The Pale Batis is a small bird of miombo woodland and coastal forest.

• Blick's Arvicanthis Arvicanthis blicki

  Blick’s grass rat is a rodent specialized for Ethiopia’s high-elevation grasslands. Its skull has a downward-twisted snout region and enlarged eye sockets, and records span 2,750–4,050 m.

• Bassian Thrush Zoothera lunulata

  The Bassian Thrush lives in forests of Australia and Tasmania and searches beneath leaf litter on the forest floor. Pale spots and dark crescent-like markings pattern its plumage; it eats insects, worms, and fruit.

• Lesser Long-nosed Bat Leptonycteris yerbabuenae

  The lesser long-nosed bat ranges from Mexico into the southwestern United States and farther south in Central America. It feeds at flowers such as cacti and agaves.

• Black-tailed Gnatcatcher Polioptila melanura

  The Black-tailed Gnatcatcher is a small blue-gray bird of dry scrub in the southwestern United States and Mexico. Breeding males grow a black cap, and both parents take part in raising their young.

• West African savanna buffalo Syncerus brachyceros

  This is the West African savanna form of the African buffalo. In W Regional Park, seven breeding herds were tracked; late in the dry season they used areas near permanent rivers, and six shifted southwest as the rains began.