Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,636 · Stories: 19,540

• Chestnut-crested Puffbird Malacoptila striata

  

  The Chestnut-crested Puffbird is endemic to Brazil. Its dark brown streaks and white crescent-shaped breast band stand out, and it searches in forest for insects and small animals.

• Tibetan Eared Pheasant Crossoptilon harmani

  A pheasant found in southeastern Tibet and one locality in northeastern India. Its blue-gray plumage, white throat band and long, drooping tail are distinctive.

• Giant Pitta Hydrornis caeruleus

  The Giant Pitta is a large pitta of lowland forests in Southeast Asia. A Sabah bird guide describes males as blue and females as browner.

• Pangani Longclaw Macronyx aurantiigula

  The Pangani Longclaw is 19–20 cm long. The male has a yellow-orange throat and black cheek stripes, and searches for prey while walking through grassland.

• Cape Shoveler Spatula smithii

  The Cape Shoveler is a duck of shallow wetlands in southern Africa. Males and females differ in plumage and in the color of their eyes and legs.

• Saunders's Tern Sternula saundersi

  Saunders’s Tern is a small seabird that breeds on African and Asian coasts and islands bordering the northern Indian Ocean. At the Farasan Islands, parents spent more time at the nest when temperatures moved away from the range suitable for the eggs.

• Silvery-throated Spinetail Synallaxis subpudica

  Its chestnut crown and long tail stand out. This species is endemic to Colombia's Eastern Andes, where pairs search for food from the ground to about two metres above it.

• Chinese Blackbird Turdus mandarinus

  A 2024 study examined male Chinese Blackbirds in Nanjing and analyzed songs that mimicked cuckoo calls. The study population belonged to the urban subspecies T. m. mandarinus in eastern China.

• Lesser Greenlet Hylophilus decurtatus

  The Tumbes population in north-western Peru is recorded in humid and semi-deciduous forest, from the canopy to the subcanopy. The local account describes an olive back and grey head.

• Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni

  The male has blue-gray upperparts. It nests in small colonies on its breeding grounds, and some travel to South Africa outside the breeding period.

• Tanzanian Red-billed Hornbill Tockus ruahae

  This red-billed hornbill form was recorded in central and southern Tanzania. Its original description named ruahae as a subspecies of Tockus erythrorhynchus.

• Sao Tome Grosbeak Crithagra concolor

  The Sao Tome Grosbeak is a large finch found only on São Tomé Island. It has a large, powerful bill and rusty-brown plumage, and feeds on seeds in the forest canopy and understory.

• Temminck's Babbler Pellorneum pyrrogenys

  Temminck’s Babbler is a plain rufous-brown bird that stays low on the forest floor. It searches leaf litter for insects and other small invertebrates and has a loud, far-carrying song.

• Rustic bunting Emberiza rustica

  A bird with a raised crown that visits river flats and farmland in winter flocks.

• Tufted Tit-Tyrant Anairetes parulus

  Long black crown feathers form a crest, and the pale belly has dark streaks. In Chile it occurs widely in scrub and open places with scattered trees.

• Unicolored Blackbird Agelasticus cyanopus

  This bird lives in lowland wetlands and wet grasslands of South America. Adult males are black, while females have brown upperparts and yellowish underparts.

• Resplendent Quetzal Pharomachrus mocinno

  The Resplendent Quetzal lives in moist montane forest from southern Mexico to Panama. Males have iridescent green plumage, a red belly, and long tail plumes, and often eat fruits from the laurel family.

• Purple-throated Cotinga Porphyrolaema porphyrolaema

  This cotinga has a purple throat. Adult males are black and white, while females are brown and barred, so the sexes look very different.

• Rufous-cheeked Laughingthrush Garrulax castanotis

  The Rufous-cheeked Laughingthrush occurs on Hainan in China, in northern Vietnam, and in eastern Laos. Some older treatments grouped it with the Grey Laughingthrush; this account follows the current treatment of Garrulax castanotis as a separate species.

• Common Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula

  A small shorebird that breeds on beaches. Britain has birds present year-round, winter visitors, and birds passing through on migration.

• Red-backed Fairywren Malurus melanocephalus

  Bright males have a black body and a red-orange back. Females and young are browner, and the species uses grassy habitats.

• South Georgia Diving Petrel Pelecanoides georgicus

  The South Georgia Diving Petrel is a diving seabird with dark upperparts and a white underside. It is thought to remain near its breeding colonies, although its at-sea range is not well known.

• Matinan Blue Flycatcher Cyornis sanfordi

  Matinan Blue Flycatcher is a montane flycatcher of the Minahasa Peninsula in northern Sulawesi. A study observed it in evergreen montane forest and recorded its repeated, clear song.

• White-browed Fantail Rhipidura aureola

  The White-browed Fantail is a small bird with a white brow and a fan-shaped tail. It catches small flying insects in woodland and open places.