Forest
Navigating multi-layered tree trunks and leaf-strewn forest floors with sharp hearing and nimble footwork.
Asian Elephant
A boneless trunk with about 150,000 muscle units, a pregnancy of nearly two years, and rumbles humans can barely hear.
Asian Giant Hornet
The world's largest hornet, whose raiding parties can kill thousands of honeybees in a few hours.
Banana Slug
A forest slug that may grow 20 cm long or more, coated in slime that numbs the mouth and tongue if swallowed.
Boomslang
Giant round eyes, a 180-degree gape, and venom that turns the blood against itself.
Brazilian Wandering Spider
A web-less wandering spider of south-eastern South America that hunts among the vegetation after dark, throws its front legs up when threatened, and carries venom packed with peptides that jam ion channels.
Canada Lynx
A snowshoe-pawed wild cat of the northern forests whose numbers rise and fall with the snowshoe hares it eats.
Clouded Leopard
Longer fangs for its skull size than any other wild cat, and ankles that rotate so it can hang from the branches by its back feet.
Deer Tick
Waits on a plant for a passing host to brush by, then feeds for days.
Dhole
A whistling, clucking wild dog that hunts in packs and can catch prey more than ten times its own weight.
Elk
A bull's bugle is two sounds at once, and his antlers regrow every year at up to two-thirds of an inch a day.
Eurasian Lynx
Europe's biggest wildcat, snowshoe-pawed and able to kill prey up to three to four times its own size by biting down on the snout until it suffocates.
European Hornet
Central Europe's biggest vespine wasp, warmed by its own flight muscles.
Fisher
A fox-sized relative of weasels that climbs trees, hunts porcupines and whose females spend almost all of their adult lives pregnant or nursing.
Gaur
The largest living wild cattle, whose herds, one warden wrote, are prepared to stand and fight a tiger rather than run.
Indian Peafowl
Iridescent member of the pheasant family whose feathers get their color from a two-dimensional photonic crystal, and whose train rattles out a broadband, pulsating sound.
Luna Moth
A big green silk moth whose spinning hindwing tails pull bat attacks off its body, and whose adults do not eat.
North Island Brown Kiwi
A flightless night forager with its nostrils near the tip of its bill and an egg that averages 15 percent of its mother's weight.
Pacific Giant Salamander
North America's largest terrestrial salamander, guarding Pacific Northwest streams with a startled bark, a noxious tail secretion, and gills it can keep for life.
Periodical Cicada
17 years underground, then a few remarkably loud weeks
Pileated Woodpecker
A crow-sized woodpecker that chisels rectangular holes into trees to reach the ants inside.
Red Deer
The UK's largest land mammal: a stag of up to 190 kg that regrows its antlers each year and roars through the autumn rut.
Ring-Tailed Lemur
Black-and-white ringed tail, yoga-pose sun worship, and wrist gland scent wars.
Sloth Bear
Missing top front teeth, a vacuum-cleaner mouth for termites, and a stand-and-fight defense against tigers.
Tasmanian Devil
Pound for pound, the strongest estimated bite of any living mammal predator studied, bloodcurdling nocturnal screams, and a scavenger's take-no-prisoners appetite.