Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,768 · Stories: 19,540

• Violet-headed Hummingbird Klais guimeti

  

  The Violet-headed Hummingbird is a small hummingbird found locally in humid foothill and lower Yungas forests in Bolivia. Males have violet-blue on the forehead and throat.

• Single-Striped Lemniscomys Lemniscomys rosalia

  The single-striped lemniscomys is a grassland mouse with one dark line along its back. A southern African assessment reports that it uses places with tall grass cover.

• Sulawesi Dwarf Kingfisher Ceyx fallax

  A small kingfisher with a reddish-brown back and blue rump. It hunts insects and small animals on Sulawesi and nearby Lembeh.

• Rio Grande Ground Squirrel Ictidomys parvidens

  This ground squirrel occurs in southern and western Texas. Rows of square white spots mark its back, and its tail is bushy. It lives in grassland and brush and uses several burrows.

• Tufted puffin Fratercula cirrhata

  A seabird that grows long, pale-yellow head plumes for the breeding season.

• Lusitanian Pine Vole Microtus (Terricola) lusitanicus

  This small vole is native to the Iberian Peninsula and makes underground passages in moist grassland soil.

• Rufous-backed Wren Campylorhynchus capistratus

  A wren of Central American dry forest and scrub. Its white eyebrow and rufous back stand out, and it may build a globular nest in thorny trees.

• Red-flanked Duiker Cephalophus rufilatus

  This small antelope is recorded along forest–savanna mosaics from the Sahel margin into north-eastern Central Africa. It is reddish-brown, with a dark face mark and a thin tufted tail. The gray back band can vary.

• Painted Stork Mycteria leucocephala

  A large stork of wetlands on the Indian subcontinent. It has a white body with a pink tinge and searches shallow water for small fish.

• Japanese pipistrelle Pipistrellus abramus

  A small bat that roosts in buildings and flies over familiar places after sunset.

• Western barn owl Tyto alba

  An owl with a heart-shaped face, seen over farmland and grassland in Britain.

• Laos Langur Trachypithecus laotum

  The Laos langur lives in limestone forest in central Laos. At the study site, young animals showed varied coat colors, and groups were observed eating young leaves.

• Stripe-breasted Creeper Rhabdornis inornatus

  The Stripe-breasted Creeper lives in Philippine forests. Its white throat and belly, brown back, and broadly white-streaked sides are useful field marks; it may perch on dead branches.

• Brown Fruit-eating Bat Artibeus (Artibeus) concolor

  This small fruit-eating bat lives in South America. A study in French Guiana recorded Cecropia fruit in fecal samples from this species.

• Pied Lapwing Hoploxypterus cayanus

  The Pied Lapwing is a small South American lapwing found east of the Andes. Its red legs and bold black, white, and sandy-brown plumage stand out.

• Western Pseudomys Pseudomys occidentalis

  This mouse from Western Australia has a rounded snout and a long, marked tail. By day it stays in a group burrow and feeds mainly on plants.

• Rufous-tailed Jacamar Galbula ruficauda

  The Rufous-tailed Jacamar lives along lowland forest edges from Central into South America. It waits on a branch and catches insects in flight.

• Horse-tailed Squirrel Sundasciurus (Aletesciurus) hippurus

  This diurnal squirrel occurs on the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo. Its back is reddish brown, its head and shoulders are grey, and its tail has alternating dark and grey bands.

• Olive-crowned Flowerpecker Dicaeum pectorale

  This small flowerpecker lives in the forest canopy and secondary growth of western New Guinea. Males have a bright red breast, and it uses fruit and nectar.

• Caucasus Pine Vole Microtus (Terricola) daghestanicus

  This vole lives in high mountain meadows of the Caucasus. Its back is dark and its underside is silvery.

• Rufous-tailed Lark Ammomanes phoenicura

  The Rufous-tailed Lark is a lark whose earth-toned plumage blends into dry, open ground. It walks on the ground while searching for seeds and insects.

• Tamarau Bubalus mindorensis

  The tamaraw is a wild bovid found only on Mindoro in the Philippines. Accounts describe it using grassland and secondary forest, with adults usually living alone.

• Yellow-billed Turaco Tauraco macrorhynchus

  The Yellow-billed Turaco lives in forests of western and central Africa. Its green and blue-violet plumage is striking; it moves along branches and feeds mainly on fruit.

• Grey Long-eared Bat Plecotus austriacus

  The grey long-eared bat has very long ears and catches moths and other prey in flight over open grassland.