Amazing Animals

1. An elusive Saharan cheetah recently came into the spotlight in Niger, Africa, where a hidden camera snapped photos of the ghostly cat, whose pale coat and emaciated appearance distinguish it from other cheetahs. Its appearance, and how the Saharan cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus hecki) is genetically related to other cheetahs are open to question. The cat is so rare and elusive that scientists aren t even sure how many exist. Among the threats to the p .....

Giant Jellyfish

2. Nemopilema nomurai, known as Nomura s jellyfish, can grow up to 6.6 feet (2 meters) in diameter. It is edible, though it hasn t caught on widely. WhenNomura s jellyfish bloomed in 2005, some Japanese coped by selling souvenir cookies flavored with jellyfish powder, according to the New York Times. .....

Glitzy Gala

3. As if attending an underwater gala, seadragons are adorned with gowns of flowing limbs. These graceful characters belong to a family of fish called Syngnathidae, which also includes seahorses and pipefish. Now, University of California, San Diego, marine biologists Greg Rouse and Nerida Wilson are using genetics to unlock some of the mysteries of this mystical animal. In popular dive spots off the coast of Australia, the duo took tiny snips of ti .....

Caught on Camera

4. A jaguar in Peru is captured on an automated camera set by Smithsonian researchers. Such cameras allow scientists to monitor wildlife in remote locations. .....

Ball of Color

5. This photomicrograph shows the ruby tailed wasp called Chrysis ignita, which is the most commonly observed of this species. The abdomen s is coloring ruby red and bronze ? give the wasp its name. The underside of the abdomen is also concave, which allows the wasp to roll itself into a protective ball if threatened. Ruby tailed wasps are parasitoids, meaning they eventually kill their hosts. Chrysis ignita parasitizes mason bees: The females l .....

The Downside of Island Life

6. This colorful, tropical bird called the Tuamotu kingfisher lives on one tiny island Niau in the Tuamotu Archipelago, French Polynesia, in the south Pacific. Today, just 125 of the birds exist, and scientists say they will go extinct without serious intervention.By working with farmers and residents on the island inhabited by the kingfishers, Dylan Kesler, at the University of Missouri s School of Natural Resources, has come up with factors crit .....

Bat Hunt

7. A Brazilian free tailed bat flies with its prey a moth clutched in its mouth. According to an article published April 1, 2011 in the journal Science, bats save U.S. farmers 22.9 billion dollars a year by eating pests that would otherwise destroy crops. .....

Penguin Pomp Birds of a Feather

8. A flock of gentoo penguins at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga puts on a show. At heights of almost 3 feet (1 meter), gentoos are the third largest penguin species in the world. Gentoos build nests out of round, smooth stones, which are highly prized by females. To curry favor with a potential mate, male gentoos sometimes present gifts of these coveted rocks. .....

You Lookin at Me

9. The satanic leaf tailed gecko (Uroplatus phantasticus) is the smallest of 12 species of bizarre looking leaf tailed geckos. The nocturnal creature hasextremely cryptic camouflage so it can hide out in forests in Madagascar. This group of geckos is found only in primary, undisturbed forests, so their populations are very sensitive to habitat destruction. Large Uroplatus species have more teeth than any other living terrestrial vertebrate species.T .....

Pronghorn Dash

10. A pronghorn fitted with a GPS collar leaps through the snow. Scientists in Idaho have set up a similar collaring program to track the migration of thesegrazing mammals. The Idaho pronghorns make an 80 mile (129 kilometer) journey between their summer and winter ranges, and human development can cut off their migration routes. The collars, which eventually drop off of the animals, will give researchers a better idea of which areas are crucial to p .....

Tooth and Claw

11. A red fox trots away with its kill a smaller arctic fox. This scene in northern Alaska is becoming more common as warming temperatures have opened up new territory to red foxes, threatening the survival of their arctic cousins. .....

A Bedbugs bite

12. This is a close up look at any homeowner s nightmare: A bedbug. These reddish brown bugs, each the size of an apple seed, are tough to eliminate once they take hold in the linens. Bedbugs were once virtually wiped out in the United States, but international travelers have carried them back to U.S. soil. This scanning electron microscope photograph of a bedbug s head reveals its mouthparts, which are used to pierce the skin and suck the blood of i .....

Into the Blue

13. Here a close up shot of a loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) in the Gulf of Mexico s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, which is about 100 miles (179 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast. Two new studies are showing the turtles are being contaminated with so called persistent organic pollutants (POPs), which include banned substances such as DDT and toxaphenes, once used as pesticides; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), once used as in .....

Oroy Plata

14. Robotic insects? The jewelry of an ancient Egyptian queen? No, these bugs are the real thing: Two species of gold and silver beetle found in the rainforests of Costa Rica. The reflective shells of Chrysina aurgians (gold) and Chrysina limbata (silver) may help the bugs blend into their damp, forest environment, which is studded with shimmering droplets of water. A new study published in the open access journal Optical Materials Express finds that .....

Dreamy Drifters

15. It s not hard to imagine where these moon jellies got their name. As delicate as they look, jellies are tough: They ve been around for 600 million years,predating sharks and surviving multiple mass extinctions, including the one that killed the dinosaurs. What makes jellies such survivors? Unlike fish, they re able to absorb oxygen directly through their bodies, storing it in their tissues so they can hunt in deep waters. Baby jellies can develop .....

Dedicated Mama

16. If you think gestating one baby is tough, try 3,000. The squid Gonatus onyxcarries around her brood of 2,000 to 3,000 eggs for up to nine months. Thesquid moms have their arms full: While carrying their eggs, they re stuck swimming with their fins and mantle instead of their much more effective arms. So why would G. onyx take such care of its thousands of offspring? According to a 2005 study published in the journal Nature, the squid carry their .....

Snow White Penguin Chick

17. Not all emperor penguins sport black and white tuxedoes. Scripps reseacher Gerald Kooyman spotted this unique all white emperor chick, dubbed Snowflake, during a penguin survey on the ice shelf of the Ross Sea, Antarctica, in December 1997.Its white feathers blended in so well with the icy background that Kooyman said he almost missed the chick ? emperor penguin chicks are usually covered in a grayish down coat, with dark tail feathers and dark b .....

What Big Paws You Have

18. A researcher examines the paws of a sedated polar bear in this 1982 photograph taken in Alaska. Polar bears giant paw pads help them keep traction on ice and snow. .....

Hitch a Ride on a Dragonfly

19. A close up look at a dead dragonfly found in Georgia revealed this miniature hanger on. The tiny insect seen in this scanning electron microscope image may have been a dragonfly parasite. Or the bug could be nothing more than debris picked up by the dragonfly on its travels. .....

Ice cold Adapter

20. Even in the chilliest water, life can thrive. This Antarctic ice fish, photographed during an Alfred Wegener Institute Polarstern mission, has no red blood cells or red blood pigments. The adaption makes the fish s blood thinner, saving energy that would otherwise be needed to pump the blood around the body. .....

Cold Crustacean

21. This shy looking critter is an inhabitant of Antarctica first found during the research vessel Polarstern s ANTXXIII 8 cruise. Found in water near Antarctica sElephant Island, the arthropod is about 1 inch (25 mm) long. .....

Walking the Dog

22. Step right up, come this way, see the amazing see through Chihuahua! Okay, it s really just a normal Chihuahua, but scientists in Germany caught the animal on high speed x ray film as part of a project to learn more about how canines move. This Chihuahua is one of 327 dogs from 32 different breeds videotaped, a project that the researchers hope will boost knowledge about dog anatomy and evolution. For example, did you now that the length of a dog .....

Yum You Look Delicious

23. A common leaf tailed gecko licks its chops. These Madagascar natives have more teeth than any other land dwelling vertebrate. .....

Baby Bat

24. This juvenile big brown bat may be cute, but the animals are major carriers and transmitters of rabies. A new study, published online June 6, 2011 in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that hibernation keeps rabies infected bats alive long enough to pass the disease on to young bats in the next season. These hibernation patterns continue the cycle of rabies infection. .....

Flirty Fish You re Pretty Cute

25. Come here often? This giant sea bass seems to have an eye for the ladies at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Jealous boyfriends should think twice before challenging their fishy foe: Buccalo, as he s known, is over four feet long and weighs 165 pounds. .....

All Wrapped Up and Ready to

26. The emerald tree boa, which is found in the Amazon basin, is equipped with highly sensitive heat sensing organs that it uses for 3 D thermal imaging oftheir prey. Its color pattern and the way the tree boa drapes itself over branches are similar to the green tree python from Australia and New Guinea. .....

I ve Seen a Ghost

27. This pale creature haunts the sea floor near the Philippine island of Luzon. Newly discovered during the California Academy of Sciences? 2011 PhilippineBiodiversity Expedition, this species of sea slug doesn t need ectoplasm (or a shell) to ward off predators. Instead, sea slugs produce toxins to protect themselves. Some of these toxins are quite dangerous: In 2009, five dogs in New Zealand died after eating gray side gilled sea slugs that had wa .....

Milk the Snake

28. A Papuan taipan gives up its venom for science. These snakes, which can grow to be 6 feet (2 meters) long, are shy, but they will bite when threatened. And that bite is nasty: According to the University of Melbourne s Australian Venom Research Unit (AVRU), taipans will often inflict multiple bites on their victims, injecting bigger payloads of venom with each bite. The venom contains toxins that destroy nerves and prevent the blood from clotting .....

Pigeon Cam Gives Birds Eye View of Forest Trees

29. Ready for your close up? This pigeon s head held camera captures all, including the secret of how these birdbrains navigate tricky forest environments. Researchers from Harvard University attached tiny cameras to the heads of pigeons and trained them to fly through an artificial forest in order to learn how the birds make choices in flight. The pigeons proved excellent navigators, the researchers reported on July 1 at the Society for Experimental .....

Director s Cut

30. This ringtail possum has the camera, so who s going to provide the action? Taken in 1943 somewhere in northern Australia, this photo is part of the Australian War Memorial collection. The possum, someone s pet, apparently became interested in a Department of Information movie camera and assumed the director s position. Normally, ringtail possums live a less artistic life in dense, brushy forests. Like the more famous koalas that share their Aussi .....

Frog in a Log

31. Now you see him A gray tree frog peers out of a hole in a tree in Louisiana. Like chameleons, gray tree frogs can change colors to match their surroundings, ranging from gray, brown, green or even white. On the underside of each hind leg, the frogs have a splash of bright orange color, which may confuse predators. .....

Penguins All In A Row

32. Three gentoo penguins line up at Gamage Point, Antarctica. Gentoos stand about 22 inches (56 centimeters) tall and weigh about 12 pounds (6 kilograms). Adults are marked by a white strip spanning the top of the head like a bonnet, but babies are grey and white balls of fuzz. .....

Penguin Promenade

33. African penguins take a sidewalk stroll. These two foot tall birds are also known as jackass penguins because of their loud, donkey like calls. They nest in burrows along southern Africa s coastal waters, laying two eggs that are cared for by both mom and dad. One major African penguin colony is right near Cape Town, South Africa, at Boulders Beach. There, penguins rub elbows with tourists and swimmers. .....

Sea Turtle Stare Down

34. A Hawaiian green sea turtle mugs for the camera at the Hawaaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. .....

St Patty s Puffin

35. Ireland: Home of Guinness beer, leprechauns and ... puffins? Yes, the rocky islands on Ireland s west coast are the summer breeding grounds of a variety of birds, including this little fellow photographed on Skellig Michael in July 2011. Atlantic puffins like this one nest in bonded pairs, and both mom and dad help hatch and raise one chick per year. .....

Wondrous Whale Dance

36. A humpback whale breaches in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. A new study, published Aug. 16 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that to protect marine mammals like these gentle giants, humans need only set aside 4 percent of the world s oceans for conservation. The research found that just 9 conservation sites would protect habitat for 84 percent of all marine mammals species on Earth. The critical .....

Eye Popping Undersea Color

37. A gelatinous nudibranch (Janolus barbarensis) adds a splash of color to the ocean in Morro Bay, Calif. Nudibranches are ocean dwelling mollusks without shells; they re often called sea slugs, but some sea slugs are in a family of their own, unrelated to the 3,000 or so species of nudibranch. Marine scientists believe that the colors on nudibranches keep predators at bay, much like a neon sign reading, Tastes terrible, do not eat! And indeed, so .....

Looking for a Seafood Buffet

38. A moray eel lurks outside a cage full of fish in the Caribbean Sea. The fish are part of a living experiment to find out how different species affect the growth of noxious seaweed that can harm coral reefs. The eel, on the other hand, is just hungry. .....

Bold Fashion From a Colorful Critter

39. This harlequin shrimp isn t clowning around (yeah, yeah, cue groans).Hymenocera elegans here is found in the waters off of Indonesia. Popular among aquarium enthusiasts for their bright colors, harlequin shrimp are nonetheless tough to care for in a tank. One reason is their diet: They eat only starfish (and sometimes sea urchins), and they reportedly prefer to eat them alive. Since the prey is so much larger than the predator, it sometimes takes .....

Nest Weaving Bird Learns from Experience

40. Practice makes perfect for the Botswanan Southern Masked Weaver, shown above weaving a complex nest of out grass. Weavers aren t born knowing how to build these structures, researchers reported today (Sept. 26, 2011) in the journal Behavioural Processess. Instead, the bird vary their technique from one nest to another, sometimes building left to right, sometimes starting from right to left. As the birds gain more experience building nests, they d .....

Funny Fellow

41. A blue dragonfly perches on a flower. The insect seems to be making googly eyes, but of course those black dots aren t really pupils; dragonflies havecompound eyes with hundreds of tiny lenses. .....

Snowbird Snuggles In

42. Nothing like a nice nest of twigs and snow to keep you warm on a winter s night. The gray jay takes the weather in stride, though these Canadian birds don t fly south for the winter, and they start their breeding season in mid February when temperatures are below 5 degrees Fahrenheit ( 15 degrees Celsius). A new study by researchers at the University of Guelph finds that these birds survive in their winter wasteland by storing berries, fungi, i .....

Blood Red Bats Take to the Skies

43. We couldn?t wait until Halloween to share this spooky thermal image of bats in flight. Provided by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, this imagewas taken by Boston University researchers trying to better understand how bats navigate the air in response to weather, bug activity and climate change. According to the United State Geological Survey, bats save farmers at least $3 billion a year by scarfing down insects that would otherwise eat cr .....

Thumb Sucking Acrobat

44. A baby orangutan takes thumb sucking to a new level thanks to prehensile feet. Much like human children, baby orangutans remain dependent on their moms for a long time, sometimes being carried most of the time until they re 5 years old. Young orangutans normally don t leave mom s side until they re 10 or so, and even when they do strike out on their own, they often return to visit for the next few years. .....

Miniature Monster

45. This creepy crawly is a spider water beetle, a water loving bug that lives in mountain rivers on Palawan Island in the Philippines. The beetles get theirname from their long, spindly legs (imagine if this fellow stretched his out!). They also create their own little scuba diving bubbles called plastrons, which allow them to live permanently under the water. .....

Do You Hear Something Rattling

46. Look out, this rattler is ready to strike. Fortunately, rattlesnakes really are more afraid of you than you are of them. They rarely bite unless provokedand would much prefer to warn you away. Only about 7,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes in the United States each year, and only about 0.2 percent of bites result in death, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. .....

Halloween Treat

47. It s hard to miss a flamingo tongue snail (Cyphoma gibbosum), with its mantle splotched with a pattern of irregularly shaped orange, white and black spots.Considered gastropod mollusks, the snails are members of the Mollusca phylum, which includes octopuses and oysters, and the class Gastropoda, which includes marine snails with and without shells.Mollusks encompass a wide variety of animals, with the lineage dating back some 500 million years. J .....

Sleepy Seal

48. Even though the oceans tend to warm slower than the land, researchers report in the Nov. 4 issue of the journal Science that similar movement rates areneeded for organisms to stay ahead of climate change on land and in the oceans.After analyzing 50 years of global temperature and climate data, Michael Burrows of the Scottish Marine Institute in Argyll and his colleagues found that the speed and direction of climate change, along with the arrival .....

Jellies In Leopard Print

49. These leopard spotted jellies are appropriately decorated, considering they re terrifying predators if you re a plankton. This species, Mastigias papuais known as the spotted jelly or the lagoon jelly. They live in coastal waters in the South Pacific and grow about 5.5 inches (14 to 16 centimeters) in diameter. But what makes spotted jellies really cool is that they grow their own gardens. The jellies get their greenish brown tinge from algae t .....

The Scary Clown of the Animal Kingdom

50. This colorful creature acts more like Stephen King s It than Bozo the Clown. The mantis shrimp, a predator that is neither a mantis nor a shrimp, spearsand dismembers prey with its powerful claws. Mantis shrimp are also capable of using their claws as hammers to crush snail shells, and larger species can even muster enough force to crack aquarium glass. Mantis shrimp look shrimp like, but they re actually their own subgroup of crustacean. Accor .....

Incoming

51. Flies are quite adept at buzzing around, despite the fact that their wings are small in comparison to their bulky bodies. Now, new research published Nov. 17 in the journal Nature has uncovered the gene switch responsible for building the flight muscles in flies. Much like hummingbirds, flies have to flap their wings extremely fast to stay aloft. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster contracts and relaxes its flight muscles 200 times a second. Re .....

Back from the Dead

52. This beetle is a predator in the water but vulnerable in the wider world.Graphoderus bilineatus, a European water beetle, is listed as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and was thought to be locally extinct in Germany. But researchers with the Barcoding Fauna Bavarica project in Germany discovered that these beetles are still kicking around. The project is part of a larger scientific push to barcode spe .....

Hello There Bear

53. A brown bear rolls on its back in the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. .....

Hungry Hungry Puffin

54. Yum, anchovies. Actually, this generous puffin meal is made up of sand lances, little fish commonly found in the North Pacific and North Atlantic. Sand lances and other forage fish are critical to the survival of seabirds like this puffin. According to new research published Dec. 23 in the journal Science, seabirds need about a third of the fish in the sea to maintain their current lifestyles. That information is important because it gives rese .....

A Dignified Bunch

55. Fur seals sun themselves on South Georgia Island in the Southern Ocean. Oxford zoologist Alex Rogers snapped this shot during an expedition to explore the first known deep sea hydrothermal vents in the Antarctic. The fauna under the water turned out to be even more intriguing than the animals on land. See a gallery of photos from the vents here. .....

Excuse Me Waiter

56. But there s a frog in my drink. Or maybe this little guy is an amphibious genie, here to offer three froggy wishes? Either way, it s best not to sip this beverage: This strawberry poison dart frog from Isla Bastimentos in Panama is quite toxic. A new study, published in January 2012 in the journal The American Naturalist, finds that these frogs coloration patterns, as seen by birds, corresponds to how deadly they really are. Now that s truth in .....

Brand New Snake Species

57. This striking black and yellow fellow is a brand new species just discovered in remote Tanzania. Dubbed the Matilda s horned viper after the daughter of the Wildlife Conservation Society s Tanzania program director, the snake measures 2.1 feet (60 centimeters) in length and sports horn like scales above its eyes. The WCS announced the discovery of the new horned viper on Jan. 9, but they re keeping the exact location of the snake s habitat a secr .....

Fly Behind Bars

58. Stuck behind bars for a crime he didn t commit? Nah, this fruit fly is part of an experiment to uncover how insects navigate thousands of miles duringmigration, or even find their way from flower to flower in the front yard. The bars of light demarcate a light emitting diode (LED) flight arena, but what really holds the fly in is a magnetic field (he s glued to a metal pin, allowing him to move naturally within the field but keeping him in plac .....

High Stakes Slug

59. This banana slug yin yang is not quite as innocent as it seems. In fact, it s a bizarre mating dance and just the beginning of how weird things are about to get for these mollusks. You see, banana slugs are hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female sexual organs. These organs are located, oddly enough, near their heads, explaining the cheek to cheek position you see here. When banana slugs start to mate, they nip, bite, and eventua .....

Deadly Undersea Beauty

60. The tendrils of a sea anemone bring to mind the petals of a flower but these petals bite. Sea anemones are predatory animals. Their tentacles arestudded with venomous cells called nematocysts, which release toxins into prey such as fish and crustaceans, paralyzing the victims for easy digestion. .....

Were Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

61. Strangest class picture of all time? Nope, just a little tourism. A 12 foot long female tiger shark shows off her size above a row of SCUBA divers at Tiger Beach in the Bahamas, a popular ecotourism spot. There have been worries that these eco tourist spots disrupt sharks natural wanderings by making them overly dependent on the chum that tour guides throw out to attract the giant, predatory fish. But new research suggests that s not the case. I .....

Fearsome Jaws

62. A newly discovered wasp found in Indonesia has enormous sickle shaped jaws to rival its fearsome sting.The new species has been dubbed Megalara garuda after the Garuda, a part human, part bird legend that is the national symbol for Indonesia. Little is known about the wasps behavior, but based on other wasp species, males may use their giant jaws to hold females during mating. The wasp was simultaneously discovered by researchers Lynn Kimsey of .....

Seal Surprise

63. Welcome to my ice crevasse. Two divers meet an unexpected surprise in the frigid waters of Palmer Land on the Antarctica Peninsula during a 1962 1963 expedition. Their encounter was with a Weddell Seal (Leptonychotes weddellii), a deep diver that favors a coastal ice habitat. These bruisers can tip the scales at up to 1,360 pounds (600 kilograms) and they live farther south than any other mammal on EarthThis vintage photograph was taken in 1962 d .....

Pretty in Pink

64. Extending its arms 8 inches (20 cm) across, a pink crab perches on a bed of soft coral 2,310 feet (740 meters) deep in the Sangihe Talaud region off ofIndonesia. The Little Hercules ROV captured this image of the colorful critter during a 2010 ocean expedition. Crabs like these are only found living on soft coral. .....

Cozy Penguin Babies

65. Brrr It s cold out there! Baby emperor penguins snuggle up with their parents on the chilly Antarctic ice. Recent research headed by Michelle LaRue ofMinnesota University turned up good news for these beautiful birds: Using high resolution satellite imagery, the scientists counted the entire population of emperor penguins in the Antarctic and found twice as many as expected. Still, LaRue said in a statement, the loss of sea ice in the Antarctic .....

Predator Under Threat

66. Gliding watchfully over coral and reef fish, a black tip reef shark patrols the waters off the Rose Atoll of American Samoa. A recent study found that reef sharks like this one are vanishing rapidly near populated islands, with up to 90 percent of sharks in these areas missing compared to isolated reefs. The cause could be illegal shark fishing or simply human activity in these reefs that leaves less food for the sharks. For more on these threate .....

Pucker Up

67. Ready for fishy kisses? On second thought, it s best to steer clear of this south Atlantic scorpion fish. This fellow is part of the Scorpaenidae family, a group that includes the world s most venomous species. (The lionfish, with its venomous fin rays, is another family member.) This image was taken in 2002 during a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expedition to explore the eastern coast of the U.S. from Florida to North Ca .....

Flee the Flea

68. Where do fleas get their incredible jumping abilities? Look no further than these massive hind legs. Although fleas only get about 1/8 of an inch (3 millimeters) long, they have a horizontal jump range of up to 7 inches (18 centimeters) that s more than 1,000 times their body length. Flea bites are to be avoided; it s these jumping insects that are responsible for transmitting the Black Death, or plague, from rats to humans in the 1300s. .....

The Oceans Tiny Aliens

69. Alien or sea creature? This delicate blue organism is a nudibranch, a type of marine mollusk. Nudibranches are often confused for sea slugs, but the two groups are separate. The blue nudibranch seen here is just an inch (2.5 cm) long. It was found clinging to sargassum seaweed during a NOAA Life on the Edge mission in 2003. Scientists explored the continental .....

The Pink Lady

70. Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) plays a key role in the food webs of the South Ocean. In fact, throughout their evolutionary history, these tiny crustaceans have developed many biological rhythms that are closely connected to large seasonal changes in their environment.But how will marine organisms like the krill react to environmental changes at the poles, such as receding sea ice and ocean warming, given that their vital processes, such as .....

The Face of a Killer

71. The visage of a tiny velvet ant peers up in this scanning electron microscope image magnified 23 times. This tiny creature, genus Dasymutilla is not actually an ant at all, but a wasp. She (this is a female) boasts a nasty sting, especially if you re another wasp or bee. In order to reproduce, velvet ants lay their eggs inside the larvae of wasps and bees. When the eggs hatch, they feed on the still living but paralyzed larvae that house them. .....

Points of Light

72. Here s a marine mystery for you: What is this glowing creature emerging from the depths? If you recognized it as the underside of a jellyfish, congrats! This photograph was captured near the wreckage of the Shinkoku Maru, a World War II era Japanese oil tanker sunk by a torpedo attack in 1944. The shipwreck now rests in the Chuuk Lagoon in Micronesia. .....

Daring Rescue

73. Divers free a Hawaiian Monk Seal entangled in a lost fishing net in this 1997 photograph from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Fortunately for this unlucky seal, the divers were successful. Marine litter remains a problem in the area more than a decade later, however. In July 2012, NOAA divers plucked 50 metric tons of marine debris out of the Pacific near the islands during a single clean up mission. .....

Cub Cuddles

74. Don t try this at home: An unidentified child cuddles a tiger cub during the 1937 National Geographic Society Smithsonian Expedition to the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. The purpose of the expedition was to collect zoo animals for the National Zoological Park. .....

Hello Friend

75. A male northern elephant seal watches a shorebird trot by in this photograph from the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in California. Male elephantseals earn their name with their enormous size, growing up to 13 feet (4 meters) long and weighing up to 4,500 pounds (2,000 kilograms). .....

Emperors Gravity Defying Leap

76. I can fly! I can fly Well, maybe not. Emperor penguins may be flightless, but as this 2011 shot reveals, they re perfectly adapted to their semi aquaticlifestyle. These penguins can dive more than 1600 feet (500 meters) down for up to 12 minutes. After a completed hunting spree, the birds launch themselves back onto the ice like feathery torpedoes. .....

Happy Halloween

77. If you prefer your creatures of the night to be cute rather than cuddly, have we got the critter for you. This is an aye aye, a species of nocturnal lemuroriginally found only in Madagascar. The aye aye is a harmless omnivore with one long, spindly finger it uses to fish grubs out of rotten logs. Like 91 percent of lemur species, aye ayes are threatened with extinction, but it s not just habitat loss and deforestation that may do this fuzzy creat .....

Guardian of the Lava

78. What are you doing at my rock outcrop? Geology fieldwork sometimes brings scientists face to face with local fauna, like this curious red fox living in a lava field on Iturup Island. This volcanic island is part of the disrupted territory between Russia and Japan, with both nations claiming it as their own .....

Alien Anemone

79. Looking nearly unreal with its green and purple color scheme, this anemone decorates the ocean floor near Chuuk, one of the Federated States of Micronesia. Despite the vegetal look, anemones are actually animals that prey on small fish and crustaceans. .....

Cuddly Cuties

80. Two cuties get cuddly in this 1937 photograph taken on a National Geogrpahic Society Smithsonian Institution expedition to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). This image is part of the collection of William Mann, director of the National Zoo, and Lucile, his wife and a writer and editor, but the Smithsonian knows little about this strangely cozy primate and tiger cub. .....

Blooming Jellies

81. Swirling in a translucent mass, a bloom of jellyfish like salps pulsates through the waters off the coast of New Zealand. Some reports have suggestedthat blooms like this are on the increase, choking fishermen s nets and power plant intake pipes. But while these striking consequences do happen, a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science finds no strong evidence for a global jelly rise over the past 200 .....

Happy Hitchhikers

82. A load of round yellow eggs weighs down this Hemiphractus fasciatus , the casque headed tree frog. Mama frog will carry these eggs on her back until they hatch as mini frogs no tadpoles here! These frogs are threatened with extinction and are one of 11 species of high conservation concern being bred in captivity in Panama. .....

Zigs and Zags

83. My, what a zig zaggy mouth you have! The cock s comb oyster (Lopha cristagalli) is a common site in tropical waters in the Indo West Pacific. This specimen was photographed in Chuuk, one of the Federated States of Micronesia, in 2006. Like other oysters, these creatures survive by cementing themselves to one spot and filtering edible debris out of the water. .....

Earthbound Stars

84. A huddle of starfish adds a splash of color to the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary in Washington State. The Sanctuary protects 2,408 square nautical miles off the coast, the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Living in this protected area are organisms ranging from microscopic plankton to sea otters to albatross to migrating gray whales. It s a high nutrient environment, which is why intertidal species like these starfish thrive. .....

Wanna Polyp

85. My, how many tentacles you have! This alien looking creature is known asNematostella vectensis, or the starlet sea anemone. Like other anemones, starlets start life as free swimming larvae. They then settle into an appropriately mucky spot on the seafloor and metamorphose into their adult polyp form, seen here. Anemones lack brains, but the section of the larvae containing the sensory organs actually becomes the bulbous root end of the adult, whi .....

Summers Sparkle

86. An unidentified dragonfly species shows off delicate wings in this photo taken in a maize field in Italy in 2010. .....

Blue Beauty

87. A Great Blue Heron wades in the wetlands. These majestic birds rely on watery environments for their food supply (fish and other aquatic animals), but humans are no less dependent. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, wetlands and streams are a crucial source of water, with 117 million Americans relying on water supplies that, in turn, rely on the nation s hundreds of thousands of miles of streams. Wetlands also provide a buffer agai .....

Geronimooooo

88. A black tailed prairie dog gets the jump on a rival in a snowy mating season fight. A new study published March 8 in the journal Science finds that femaleprairie dogs like to stay close to mom. Unlike many species that move away from their families to avoid competing with kin, prairie dogs are more likely to disperse when their families move away. .....

Hanging in the Keys

89. Good new for fish in the Florida Keys: A new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report finds that the declaration of the Tortugas Ecological Reserve has done wonders to combat overfishing in this sensitive ecosystem. Black and red grouper and yellowtail have all rebounded since the formation of the reserve in 2001. Mutton snapper, once thought wiped out by overfishing, have started to return to the area to spawn. Even better, .....

Bad News for Bats

90. Bad news for everyone s favorite flying mammals: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has confirmed that bats at Fern Cave National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama have white nose syndrome. The disease is a fungus that grows on hibernating bats, causing them to exhibit often fatal behavior such as flying outside in cold weather. In eastern North America alone. 5.7 million to 6.7 million bats have died of white nose syndrome. Fern Cave is the winter home .....

Mommy and Me

91. Wait up, Mom! Shomili, a four month old greater one horned rhinoceros runs behind her mother Sundari at San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Shomili, or Mili as zookeepers call her, was released into the park s Asian Savanna habitat to join the rest of the zoo s herd on April 23, 2013. Mili is the 65th greater one horned rhino born at the zoo, which is working to conserve this endangered species. Only about 3,400 of these rhinos survive in the wild. .....

Bad Birthday Boy

92. Somebody s not sharing his cake! One year old Tikal the jaguar keeps his twin sister Maderas away from their birthday party treat at the San Diego Zoo on April 26, 2013. Zookeepers made the young jaguars a cake made of ice and frozen blood, and Tikal was not inclined toward generosity. Mama knows best though: The cubs mother Nindiri wasn t having any of her son s selfishness, and she joined in to enjoy the frozen treat, too. .....

Welcome to the Neighborhood

93. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration executive director Joe Pica meets the locals during a dive off the Dominican Republic. Pica was retrieving an acoustic buoy when this humpback whale stopped by to say hi. Humpbacks are found all over the world s oceans they migrate as many as 16,000 miles (25,000 kilometers) a year. .....

Peek A Boo

94. What s going on out there? At just a few hours old, this baby gentoo penguinpeaks out from beneath its parent. The as yet nameless chick is the first gentoo born at Edinburgh Zoo this year. According to the zoo, a sibling joined this curious chick several hours later, and a third in the clutch was working its way out of the egg. .....

Awesome Otter

95. Ahanu the otter slips through the water at the Denver Zoo. The two year old male is a new zoo resident, brought from the Oakland Zoo in California to keep Denver s previous male otter, Otto, company. Otto s earlier companion Ariel died of old age last year, and given otters highly social nature, Otto needed a new friend. .....

Swan Lake

96. Can you guess the location of this gorgeous sunset scene? This is Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, approximately 110,000 acres of bird friendly wetlands in eastern North Carolina. Ducks, raptors and black bears call the refuge home, as does the reintroduced endangered red wolf. Streaking across the sunset sky in this image are hundreds of tundra swans. These white birds migrate from their breeding grounds along the Arctic Ocean down the U. .....

Delicate Dragonfly

97. A meadowlark dragonfly shows off its delicate wings at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine. Dragonflies are apparently experiencing a moment in the sun: According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, dragonfly festivals and dragonfly field guides are becoming increasingly popular. No surprise with their jewel like colors and gossamer wings, dragonflies give butterflies a run for their money in the beauty department. .....

Aww Baby Okapi Takes a Stroll

98. A 17 day old female okapi tests out her land legs at the San Diego Zoo on Tuesday (June 4, 2013). This is the public debut for this little girl, who was born May 19 to mother Safarani. Okapis are giraffe relatives native to Central Africa; their shy tendencies kept early European explorers in the dark about their true existence for decades. It wasn t until 1901 that the species was formally classified and scientifically named. .....

Tadpole Eat Tadpole

99. Most tadpoles survive on a diet of algae. But not Lepidobatrachus laevis, the tadpole of Budgett s frog. Not only are Budgett s frog tadpoles carnivorous,they re cannibals as this image of a Budgett s frog tadpole slowly digesting in the gut of another Budgett s frog tadpole reveals. .....

Humpback Whale Kenai Fjords

100. For an animal that can weigh more than two dozen tons, humpback whales sure can catch some air.As the above image shows, humpback whales often take flight in Alaska s Kenai Fjords National Park, at the edge of the North Pacific Ocean. The whales enormous size makes for spectacular splashdowns. Male humpbacks grow to an average length of 46 feet (14 meters) and an average weight of 25 tons. Females are even bigger, at an average of 49 feet (14.9 .....

Worlds Cutest Baby Wild Animals

101. Giant panda Tai Shan is a celebrity in his own right. When he was born at the Smithsonian s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., in July 2005he prompted a 50 percent increase in zoo attendance and a rash of fan Web sites. He earned the nickname Butterstick after a zoo worker described him shortly after birth as about the size of a stick of butter. Because Tai Shan s parents are on lease from China, even though the cub was born in the United States, .....