The week in wildlife – in pictures
by Eric HilaireThe pick of the best flora and fauna photos from around the world, including a giant tortoise and a painted stork
Gentoo penguins at the Yankee Harbour in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica.
Photograph: Johan Ordóñez/AFP via Getty Images
A fox in Sarikamis district of Kars, Turkey.
Photograph: Huseyin Demirci/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
A young male lion yawns as he wakes up in Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park.
Photograph: Jérôme Delay/AP
An Asian giant tortoise is pictured at the Turtle Conservation Centre at a forest reserve in Rajendrapur, Bangladesh.
Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images
A painted stork flies past as others scout for fish at Pulicat Lake in Sriharikota in southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh.
Photograph: Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Images
A lizard emerges at a wildfire dubbed the Cave Fire, burning in the hills of Santa Barbara, California.
Photograph: David McNew/Reuters
Overall winner of 2019 British Ecological Society photography competition: Red night by Roberto García Roa (University of Valencia), taken in Madagascar. A Malagasy tree boa perches in a tree.
Photograph: Roberto García Roa/2019 British Ecological Society photography competition
Vets prepare to examine a dead deer at Khun Sathan National Park in Thailand’s Nan province. The deer was found dead after swallowing 7kg kilograms of plastic bags and other rubbish.
Photograph: Office of Protected Area Region/AFP via Getty Images
A pair of bottlenose dolphins surface off the coast off Savannah, Carolina, US.
Photograph: Robert F Bukaty/AP
Fish swim in a Kelp forest in the Indian Ocean, False Bay, Cape Town, South Africa. Huge Kelp forests can extend up to 3km offshore in South Africa’s waters. Kelp forests influence the waters around them by calming the waves, slowing the water and thus allowing it to be warmed by the sun. This creates a unique marine environment in which thousands of species thrive beneath these giant tree-like structures.
Photograph: Nic Bothma/EPA
A rescued male Sumatran Tiger named Atan Bintang, before its release to its original habitat, at Sumatran Tiger Rehabilitation Center in Dharmasraya, west Sumatra, Indonesia.
Photograph: Jefri Tarigan/Jefta Images/Barcroft Media
A student in a koala suit stands between placards during a rally calling for action on climate change in front of the Liberal Party headquarters in Sydney.
Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images
Dead short-tailed shearwaters near Nome, Alaska. Migratory short-tailed shearwaters are Australia’s most numerous seabird, but washed-up carcasses, late arrivals and low numbers have conservationists worried.
Photograph: Sara Germain/Alaska Department of Fish & Game
Two mature Chrysaora fuscescens medusae. Known as the Pacific sea nettle, it lives off the west coast of the US and Canada, reaching as far north as Alaska and as far south as Baja California in Mexico. Adults have 24 long, red tentacles that deliver a mild sting if touched.
Photograph: T. Murai/World Atlas of Jellyfish
A hedgehog at Secret World Wildlife Rescue in Somerset, which receives about 600 hedgehogs for rehabilitation every year. In autumn, hedgehogs often struggle to find enough food to put on weight for winter hibernation.
Photograph: SAM_HOBSON/WWF
A star duck on a tree, Yichun City, Heilongjiang Province, China.
Photograph: Costfoto/Barcroft Media
A Scottish bog might appear drab from a distance but, close up, the sphagnum moss underpinning the ecosystem is striking. like here at Forsinard in Scotland where a sundew pops up over a blanket of Sphagnum moss.
Photograph: Peter Cairns
Hooded vultures wait for scraps of meat at Bissau’s main slaughterhouse. Tens of thousands of hooded vultures flock to the city of Bissau to in search of food left behind in rubbish heaps or around market areas.
Photograph: John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images
A doll’s head lies among piles of dead fish collected from the dried municipal dam in drought-stricken Graaff-Reinet, in South Africa.
Photograph: Mike Hutchings/Reuters