Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,813 · Stories: 19,540

• Varzea Thrush Turdus sanchezorum

  

  This western Amazonian thrush was described as a distinct species in 2011. It is associated mainly with várzea forest along large tributaries of the upper Amazon and Solimões system.

• Brown Thornbill Acanthiza pusilla

  The Brown Thornbill lives in shrubs and forest understory in eastern and southeastern Australia and feeds mainly on insects.

• Red-faced Guan Penelope dabbenei

  The Red-faced Guan is a large bird of mountain forests in southern Bolivia and northwestern Argentina. It has red bare facial skin and a red throat wattle.

• Belding's Yellowthroat Geothlypis beldingi

  This warbler has a fragmented range on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. BirdLife describes freshwater marshes with reeds and cattails as its main habitat.

• White-browed Scimitar Babbler Pomatorhinus schisticeps

  The White-browed Scimitar Babbler is a medium-sized bird with a slightly curved yellow bill, a white eyebrow, and a clean white breast.

• Golden-headed Manakin Ceratopipra erythrocephala

  The Golden-headed Manakin is striking for the male's golden head and black body. Males perform courtship displays in the forest, and the birds eat fruit and small arthropods.

• Mouse-colored Antshrike Thamnophilus murinus

  An antshrike that often forages with mixed-species flocks in the middle levels of Amazonian evergreen forest.

• Choco Tapaculo Scytalopus chocoensis

  This tapaculo was described from wet Pacific-slope forest in Ecuador. The paper describes a male type specimen and notes that earlier reports had assigned the species' vocalizations to other tapaculos.

• Smew Mergellus albellus

  A small diving duck. Males are black and white, while females have red-brown heads; some birds visit Britain in autumn and winter.

• Superb Parrot Polytelis swainsonii

  The Superb Parrot uses woodlands and grasslands in southeastern Australia. Males have yellow foreheads and throats and a red crescent between the throat and breast.

• Cocos Cuckoo Coccyzus ferrugineus

  This cuckoo occurs only on Cocos Island off western Costa Rica, where it uses humid forests and shrubland.

• Giant Laughingthrush Ianthocincla maxima

  This large laughingthrush is found in China. It uses mountain scrub along forest edges, rhododendron thickets, and meadows.

• Black-faced Grosbeak Caryothraustes poliogaster

  This grosbeak has a black face, yellow head and breast, and olive upperparts. In Central American lowland forest it eats insects, fruit, and seeds.

• Germain's Swiftlet Aerodramus germani

  Germain's Swiftlet is a swiftlet whose taxonomic treatment varies among sources. A southern Thailand foraging study treated it as Aerodramus inexpectatus germani and reported foraging over water, forest and open paddy.

• Mountain Chickadee Poecile gambeli

  This small bird lives in mountains from southwestern Canada into the western United States. Its white eyebrow and black head stand out, and it moves to lower elevations in fall and winter.

• Beaudouin's Snake Eagle Circaetus beaudouini

  This snake eagle lives in the sparsely wooded Sahel. It searches from prominent perches and takes snakes and other small prey.

• Chestnut-backed Tanager Stilpnia preciosa

  This tanager lives in forests and forest edges of southeastern South America, feeding on fruit and canopy insects. It sometimes joins mixed-species flocks.

• Antarctic Prion Pachyptila desolata

  The Antarctic Prion is a small seabird with a blue-gray back and white belly. It gathers over the Southern Ocean and feeds on small crustaceans near the water's surface.

• Luapula Cisticola Cisticola luapula

  This bird uses wetlands and seasonally flooded grasslands in south-central Africa. Its upperparts are streaked, with rufous on the crown and wings.

• Cactus Wren Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus

  The Cactus Wren has a white stripe over the eye and a spotted chest. It uses cacti and thorny shrubs in dry country and builds a rounded grass nest among them. Its range extends from the southwestern United States into central Mexico.

• Western Capercaillie Tetrao urogallus

  The world’s largest grouse lives mainly in pine woodland. In Britain, it remains in northern Scotland.

• Great hornbill Buceros bicornis

  A bird with a large raised structure on top of its massive bill.

• Eurasian hobby Falco subbuteo

  A long-winged falcon that flies swiftly to catch small birds and dragonflies in the air.

• Brown Noddy Anous stolidus

  A tern that breeds in colonies on small islands in tropical and subtropical seas. Adults are dark brown, with a white forehead fading to grey at the nape, and take fish and squid near the ocean surface.