Rainforest destruction threatens Sumatran Tiger.

A Sumatran tiger.

New analysis has found that rainforest destruction caused by rampant palm oil plantations damage threatens more than 190 threatened species, including orangutans and tigers like the sumatran tiger.

Image Credit: Photograph by Bernard Spragg/IUC

Source: The week in wildlife – in pictures | Environment | The Guardian

Protecting wildlife in the Ngerukewid Islands.

“The Ngerukewid Islands National Wildlife Preserve is a ‘no entry, no take, no disturbance’ area within the larger Rock Islands Southern Lagoon World Heritage Area [of Palau],” says photographer Stuart Chape.

“The marine and terrestrial areas of the Rock Islands have great biological, cultural, and economic value to Palau and the world, and provide critical habitat for the majority of the country’s threatened and endangered species.

The wider area supports Palau’s tourism industry and the nation’s economy, as well as contributing to people’s health and well-being through commercial and subsistence harvesting of its natural resources.”

Image Credit: Photograph by Stuart Chape.

via Saved: Wildlife in Earth’s protected areas.

The Peruvian Beauty & Baby Gorilla.

Andean cock-of-the-rock, the national bird of Peru, living in ‘secondary’ Peruvian Amazon rainforest, which is regenerating after human disturbance. Secondary forest accounts for 53% of the world’s forests and is of extreme scientific importance for conserving biodiversity.

Photograph: Will Nicholls/Rex Shutterstock

A baby mountain gorilla clings to the back of its mother, on Mount Bisoke volcano in Volcanoes national park, northern Rwanda. Rwanda has named 24 baby mountain gorillas in an annual naming ceremony that reflects the African country’s efforts to protect the endangered animals, which attract large numbers of foreign tourists to the volcano-studded forests where they live

Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

See more Images via The week in wildlife – in pictures | Environment | The Guardian

The Solitary Jaguar.

Jaguar (image via: Awesome-Desktop/S.K.)

The Jaguar (Panthera Onca) is the third-largest of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and the only living member native to the western hemisphere.

Growing up to 160 kg (350 lb), Jaguars are distinguished by rosette-emblazoned fur, comparatively short tails and an exceptionally powerful bite that enables them to successfully prey on armored reptiles such as caimans and turtles.

(Images via: Fanpop and WWF/Go Wild)

Jaguars are stated to be Near Threatened by the IUCN and while their current range is roughly half of what it once was, these often solitary big cats can still be found from southern Arizona in the United States down to Paraguay and northern Argentina.

Source: Rio Meow: 9 Amazing Wild Cats Of South America – WebEcoist

The Super Cute Western Pygmy Possum.

A face anyone could love: the western pygmy possum. (Credit: Amanda McLean)

by Becky Crew,

JUST WHEN WE thought it couldn’t get much more adorable than the common spotted cuscus, along comes the western pygmy possum (Cercartetus concinnus) to blow everything we thought we knew about cute right out of the water.

Endemic to Australia, these furry little bundles with whiskers for days are found in the bush and arid shrub lands of southwestern Western Australia, several regions of South Australia and western Victoria, and Kangaroo Island, favouring places thick with bottle brushes, banksia, and grevillea.

They’re also found in parts of south western New South Wales, but their numbers have dwindled to the point where they’re now endangered in the state.

With a body growing to just 7.7cm long, plus an 8cm-long tail, western pygmy possums might be pretty tiny, but they’re actually one of the largest pygmy possums in the world.

Members of the pygmy possum family, called Burramyidae, are found in Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea, and Tasmania has the honour of hosting the smallest possum in the world – the 6.5cm-long, 9g Tasmanian pygmy possum (Cercartetus Lepidus).

It basically looks like a mouse.

via Western pygmy possum Burramyidae – Australian Geographic.

The Happy Snubfin Dolphin.

Article and Photo by Alex Brown, Doctoral candidate at Murdoch University in Western Australia.

The snubfin dolphin appears to smile from its smooth, round head, like an old friend who’s lost his hair but still has an abundance of happiness to share.

Of course, that’s reading a lot from the unusual – for a dolphin – looks of the snubfin. It’s a marine mammal and smiling isn’t one of its tricks. That’s just the way it is, but those looks do make them endearing to humans.

The snubfin is found only in Australia’s tropical north and probably in the southern areas of the island of New Guinea and was only recognised as a separate species in 2005. Before that everyone thought it was a type of river dolphin found in south-east Asia.

Little is known about them.

Alex Brown, a a doctoral candidate at Murdoch University in Western Australia, says the snubfin’s shy behaviour, coupled with the inaccessibility of much of their habitat, makes them difficult to study.

He’s working on estimating the population size now after several trips to look at different groups of the dolphins along the coast in the north west.

The general scientific thinking is that there are well below 10,000 mature snubfin dolphins.

By numbers alone, this would place them in a vulnerable classification.

Read more via Meet Australia’s Amazing And Mysterious Snubfin Dolphin, The Happiest-Looking Mammal In The Sea | Business Insider.

‘Extinct’ New Guinea Big Eared Bat re-surfaces.

The bat reappeared in Papua New Guinea, according to a new study

When the New Guinea big-eared bat, which hadn’t been seen for over a century, was captured, it hadn’t even been hiding.

In fact, student researchers Catherine Hughes and Julie Broken-Brow from the University of Queensland trapped the bat in Papua New Guinea in July 2012 while it was flying in an open area by a logged rainforest now overrun by grasslands, according to their study published in Records of the Australian Museum.

The bat remained an unidentified species for nearly two years at the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery until Dr. Harry Parnaby, a researcher at the Australian Museum, requested to loan the mystery mammal.

He subsequently identified it as Pharotis imogene, a critically endangered species according to the IUCN Red List.

With ears nearly twice the size of its face, the insectivore—so tiny you could lift it with a pair of chopsticks—had last been seen in 1890, said researcher Dr. Luke Leung in a statement.

via “Extinct” Bat Isn’t Actually Extinct | TIME.

Two Rhinos & a cheeky Oxpecker.

Photograph by Matt Parry, runner-up.

On an early morning safari drive in the Amakhala game reserve, South Africa, we came across these two rhinos coming out of the mist.

A little bird is hitching a ride with one of the rhinos.

Comment by Mick Ryan, Judge: Is there any species more prehistoric-looking than the endangered white rhino.

This beautiful image, including the little oxpecker, a bird that feeds on ticks on the bodies of large mammals, is both majestic and sad.

Photography can document what is precious to us and be a starting point for action that will save the Earth and the living things that inhabit it.

Source: Readers’ travel photography competition: October – the winners | Travel | The Guardian

‘Loneliness’ of the Last White Rhino.

‘Sudan doesn’t know how precious he is. His eye is a sad black dot in his massive wrinkled face as he wanders the reserve with his guards.’

Photograph: CB2/ZOB/Brent Stirton/National Geographic

What is it like to look at the very last of something?

To contemplate the passing of a unique wonder that will soon vanish from the face of the earth? You are seeing it. Sudan is the last male northern white rhino on the planet.

If he does not mate successfully soon with one of two female northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta conservancy, there will be no more of their kind, male or female, born anywhere.

And it seems a slim chance, as Sudan is getting old at 42 and breeding efforts have so far failed.

Apart from these three animals there are only two other northern white rhinos in the world, both in zoos, both female.

It seems an image of human tenderness that Sudan is lovingly guarded by armed men who stand vigilantly and caringly with him. But of course it is an image of brutality.

Even at this last desperate stage in the fate of the northern white rhino, Sudan is under threat from poachers who kill rhinos and hack off their horns to sell them on the Asian medicine market – despite the fact that he has had his horn cut off to deter them.

Sudan doesn’t know how precious he is.

His eye is a sad black dot in his massive wrinkled face as he wanders the reserve with his guards. His head is a marvellous thing.

It is a majestic rectangle of strong bone and leathery flesh, a head that expresses pure strength.

How terrible that such a mighty head can in reality be so vulnerable. It is lowered melancholically beneath the sinister sky, as if weighed down by fate.

This is the noble head of an old warrior, his armour battered, his appetite for struggle fading.

Read further via A picture of loneliness: you are looking at the last male northern white rhino | Jonathan Jones | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Rufous-crested Coquette.

Image Credit: © Jean Paul Perret

The rufous-crested coquette (Lophornis delattrei) is a rare hummingbird found in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru.

The male has a characteristic orange crest which make this little bird quite special.

I had to wait quite some time until I was able to have a proper picture of this little bird: they are very small, fast and other bigger species of hummingbirds tend to chase him away.

I took this picture in northern Peru, close to the town of Moyobamba.