Meet the world’s animals.

Photos: 12,813 · Stories: 19,540

• Calayan Rail Aptenorallus calayanensis

  

  This rail is known only from Calayan Island in the northern Philippines. The 2004 description reported it as common in forest over coralline limestone in the island's north-central area.

• Fire-tailed Sunbird Aethopyga ignicauda

  The male has long tail feathers and is longer than the female. This small bird feeds on nectar, small insects, and spiders.

• Bannerman's Shearwater Puffinus bannermani

  Bannerman's Shearwater is endemic to the Ogasawara Islands. Breeding colonies have been confirmed in forests on Minamiiwoto and Higashijima.

• Chattering Cisticola Cisticola anonymus

  A 2007 paper treated a Sierra Leone population as Chattering Cisticola, while noting it might represent a distinct local form. It describes grey-brown birds with plain backs recorded around wet rice fields.

• African Palm Swift Cypsiurus parvus

  The African Palm Swift is a slender swift with a deeply forked tail that clings beneath palm fronds.

• Chatham Islands Snipe Coenocorypha pusilla

  The Chatham Island Snipe is a small shorebird with finely patterned upperparts. It now lives on a small group of Chatham Islands and probes soil for food.

• Tawny-breasted Honeyeater Xanthotis flaviventer

  The Tawny-breasted Honeyeater occurs on New Guinea and nearby islands and in northeastern Australia. It uses forest, mangroves and edges, locally to about 1,500 m.

• Blue-naped Chlorophonia Chlorophonia cyanea

  The male is a small bird with vivid blue, green, and yellow plumage. It searches for fruit high in trees; the preserved account records it at nine southeastern Brazilian localities.

• Chihuahuan Raven Corvus cryptoleucus

  The Chihuahuan Raven lives in dry grasslands and desert scrub. It forms flocks year-round and searches widely for food.

• Black-breasted Plovercrest Stephanoxis lalandi

  This small crested hummingbird occurs in the Atlantic Forest of southeastern Brazil. A 2014 taxonomic study restored the boundary between two forms that earlier authors had treated as one species.

• African Collared Dove Streptopelia roseogrisea

  The African Collared Dove has a pale rosy-grey head and neck and a narrow dark half-collar on the nape. It searches for seeds on the ground.

• Superciliated Wren Cantorchilus superciliaris

  The Superciliated Wren is about 15 cm long. It has a rufous back and tail with black bars on the tail and flight feathers. A white eyebrow, head sides, throat, and breast contrast with the rufous lower underparts. It forages in semideciduous-forest understory and midstory and dry scrub in northwestern Peru, up to about 1,000 m.

• 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.

• Short-crested Monarch Hypothymis helenae

  This monarch flycatcher occurs in the Philippines. A study on Luzon found a nest in secondary forest.

• Simeulue Scops Owl Otus umbra

  The Simeulue Scops Owl is a small owl found on Simeulue Island off northwest Sumatra. Adults weigh about 95 g and hunt invertebrates at night.

• Chestnut-banded Plover Charadrius pallidus

  This small shorebird is adapted to salty lakes and mudflats. It has separate eastern and southern African populations; southern birds use coastal lagoons and inland saline pans.

• Snowy Cotinga Carpodectes nitidus

  Males have mostly white plumage and a blue-gray bill, while females are brown-gray. Details of its life in Panama are limited; altitudinal movements known from Costa Rica have not been confirmed there.

• Ticking Doradito Pseudocolopteryx citreola

  The Ticking Doradito breeds in central Chile and western Argentina, then moves north to Bolivia in winter.

• 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.

• Simple Greenbul Chlorocichla simplex

  The Simple Greenbul is marked by its white throat and two white crescents around the eye. In Upper Guinea it is found in regrowth and thickets.

• Elegant Tern Thalasseus elegans

  A long-billed tern that flies over the sea and catches fish.

• Spectacled Weaver Ploceus ocularis

  This weaver occurs in wooded edges, riverside vegetation, and gardens across sub-Saharan Africa. It eats insects as well as fruit and nectar.

• Ladder-tailed Nightjar Hydropsalis climacocerca

  It is gray-brown with fine markings. The male has a long tail that looks W-shaped when spread. It is nocturnal and occurs along rivers.

• Red-browed Finch Neochmia temporalis

  The Red-browed Finch lives in eastern Australia, in grassy areas and along creeks. Small flocks search for grass seeds and insects, and the bright red eyebrow, rump, and bill are distinctive.