26 animal species humans are pushing to the brink – II
Published 9 Nov 2021, 10:03 GMT
A grey big-eared bat leaves its roost to forage. The conversion of traditional stone barns to rural homes has meant the loss of safe roosting sites, which has contributed to the species’ decline. Today, the remaining nine grey long-eared bat roosts in England are all in rural buildings.
A captive platypus in Melbourne, Australia. The unique monotreme - a mammal that lays eggs, sports venomous spurs and has a duck-like bill – is endemic to Australia and threatened due to habitat loss.
A Eurasian red squirrel at the Wildwood Trust, Canterbury. British red squirrels have had their range squeezed by the introduction of the American grey squirrel, which outcompetes the red in its habitat and carries the squirrelpox virus – fatal in the smaller red squirrel.
A male rhino named Harapan poses at the White Oak Conservation Center in Florida, where he lived briefly before being moved to the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia.
Monarch butterflies sunbathing on tree trunks in Michoacan, Mexico.