The week in wildlife – in pictures
-
A cuckoo holds a grub in its beak near Horsham in the south of England
Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty
-
An owa or white-handed gibbon hangs on a tree after being released into Indonesia’s wild forest of Sampoiniet, Aceh province. The Owa was rescued from a domestic owner by the Aceh natural resources conservation agency
Photograph: Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP/Getty
-
Purple heron (Ardea purpurea) squabs in their nest in Germany’s Wagbachniederung nature reserve in Waghausel, near Karlsruhe. The Wagbachniederung is an important resting place for breeding birds in Europe endangered by extinction, and one of the most important bird protection areas in Germany
Photograph: Ronald Wittek/EPA
-
A Darwin’s flycatcher or little vermilion flycatcher (Pyrocephalus nanus) in the Santa Cruz island of the Galapagos. Six Darwin’s flycatchers, endemic to the Galapagos and at risk of extinction, have been born where there are only 40 reproductive couples
Photograph: Parque Nacional Galapagos/AFP/Getty
-
-
Green turtles nest at the world’s largest green turtle rookery on Raine Island, Australia, a remote vegetated coral cay 620km north-west of Cairns. Researchers discovered they were underestimating numbers after using drone technology for the first time
Photograph: Great Barrier Reef Foundation an/AFP/Getty
-
One of the world’s rarest species of whale was discovered stranded in the UK earlier this year. The female True’s beaked whale was found at Kearvaig Bay in Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands. It is now in the collections of National Museums Scotland
Photograph: Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme/PA
-
Griffon vultures stand together in a feeding area, where carrion is left by conservationists as part of a project to increase the population of the protected bird in Israel
Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters
-
A goldsmith beetle (cetonia aurata) crawls on rhododendron flowers as a bee approaches it in a garden outside Moscow
Photograph: Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty
-
-
A great spotted woodpecker at Bath City Farm in a beech woodland planted in the 1830s
Photograph: Michael Williams/Rupert Higgins
-
A brown bear shot dead in Ariege, in south-west France. French police are hunting the killer after the government said it would bring legal action against the culprit
Photograph: AFP/Getty
-
A puffin flies from the rock face at Bempton Cliffs on the north-east coast of England
Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty
-
A female giant anteater and her three-month-old twin cubs at the Chimelong safari park in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China
Photograph: Chen Jimin/China News Service/Getty
-
-
A female parent bug (Elasmucha grisea) protects her babies from an approaching threat, a mirid bug. Very few insects offer any parental care, usually just laying eggs on the appropriate food plant or other food source. The common earwig (Forficula auricularia) is one of the few other species that cares for their young
Photograph: Rupert Higgins
-
Record-breaking sunshine has encouraged midsummer butterflies to emerge unusually early, with dozens of species appearing a month before their usual flight season. The large blue is among the species that has been spotted earlier than any season in almost 50 years
Photograph: Matthew Oates
-
A congregation of ibises gather on the bank of the Nile in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum
Photograph: Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty
-
Divers observe underwater Moray fish following the easing of coronavirus restrictions at Karaburun, in Izmir province, Turkey
Photograph: Mahmut Serdar Alakus/Anadolu Agency/Getty
-
-
Milu charge out of water at the Dafeng Milu national nature reserve in Yancheng, Jiangsu province, eastern China
Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock
-
The branching antennae and huge torso of the male eucharitid wasp (Pseudochalcura gibbosa) are barely visible to the human eye. Since 2014, entomologists have sampled millions of insects around Los Angeles, identifying 800 species, including 47 new to science. The most striking of Los Angeles’ miniature inhabitants are featured in an online exhibition, Spiky, hairy, shiny: insects of LA
Photograph: Lisa Gonzalez/BioScan Natural History Museums
