Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,768 · Stories: 19,540

• Water Rail Rallus aquaticus

  

  A secretive rail that breeds in wetlands in Britain and Ireland. Birds arriving from continental Europe add to the winter population.

• Common Vole Microtus (Microtus) arvalis

  The common vole is a small vole with brown-gray fur and a short tail. In grassland and farmland, it searches for plants beneath grass cover or underground.

• Pringle's Puffback Dryoscopus pringlii

  A small bushshrike of eastern Africa, recorded in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania. It uses dry savanna and thicket.

• Long-tailed Bat Chalinolobus tuberculatus

  A small bat of New Zealand. At dusk it flies along forest edges and catches insects.

• 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.

• Thomson's gazelle Eudorcas thomsonii

  An African grassland gazelle with a bold dark stripe along each side.

• Cabanis's Bunting Emberiza cabanisi

  Cabanis's Bunting occurs in sub-Saharan Africa. Males have a dark crown, white eyebrow, and yellow underparts.

• Verreaux's White-footed Rat Myomyscus verreauxii

  This mouse lives in South Africa's Western Cape. It has a buff-brown back, pale underside, large naked ears, white feet, and a long scaly tail.

• Yellow-eared Spiderhunter Arachnothera chrysogenys

  The Yellow-eared Spiderhunter is a forest bird marked by a yellow patch behind the ear and streaked underparts. It feeds on nectar as well as spiders and insects.

• Mearns's Squirrel Tamiasciurus mearnsi

  This squirrel is restricted to the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir in Baja California, Mexico. It lives in high-elevation conifer forest and uses tree hollows for nests.

• Brown-banded Antpitta Grallaria milleri

  This ground-dwelling bird inhabits humid forests in Colombia's central Andes. It walks along the forest floor to forage and has a broad chestnut band across the breast.

• Sooty Mangabey Cercocebus atys

  The sooty mangabey is a monkey of West African forests. It has dark fur and uses both the ground and trees in groups.

• Jabiru Jabiru mycteria

  A large wetland bird with a white body, bare black head and neck, and a broad bill. It wades in shallow water to find food.

• Hooper's Deermouse Peromyscus hooperi

  This deer mouse has records from a restricted part of north-central Mexico. It uses grassy foothills and mountain slopes, distinct from nearby desert scrub.

• Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica

  The Westland Petrel breeds around Punakaiki on New Zealand's South Island. It has dark plumage and a yellow bill with a dark tip, and is mainly nocturnal at its breeding colony.

• Small Big-eared Brown Bat Histiotus montanus

  The small big-eared brown bat has large ears and gray-brown fur. Chile's biodiversity account reports winter torpor as temperatures fall and describes the ears folding.

• Rufous-winged Cisticola Cisticola galactotes

  The Rufous-winged Cisticola is a small cisticola of grassland and wetland edges in southeastern Africa. Its rufous back feathers help identify it.

• Royal Antelope Neotragus pygmaeus

  This small antelope lives in West African forests. Its specialist account describes it using thickets along forest edges and in clearings.

• Plain Swift Apus unicolor

  This blackish-brown swift has a small pale throat patch, narrow pointed wings and a deeply forked tail. It breeds on Madeira and the Canaries, and some birds move to North Africa in winter.

• Cyprus Mouse Mus cypriacus

  This mouse was described as an endemic species of Cyprus. It has agouti-patterned fur on the back, and the original description recorded captures in abandoned cultivated plots in the island's south.

• Sharp-tailed Sandpiper Calidris acuminata

  A sandpiper with rich cinnamon and chestnut markings in breeding plumage. After adults migrate south, juveniles travel via Alaska toward Australasia.

• Red Giant Flying Squirrel Petaurista petaurista

  The red giant flying squirrel spreads a membrane between its limbs to glide from tree to tree. It is nocturnal and lives among forest trees.

• Paradise Jacamar Galbula dea

  The Paradise Jacamar has dark upperparts and underparts and elongated central tail feathers. In Bolivia's Amazonian forest, pairs perch high in the canopy and may associate with mixed-species flocks.

• Hamlyn's Monkey Cercopithecus hamlyni

  A white T-shaped stripe across the face makes this monkey distinctive. It lives in bamboo-rich forests and forms small groups.