Rainforest
Surviving intense tropical humidity, dense multi-tiered canopies, and fierce biological competition in jungle biomes.
Philippine Tarsier
Hand-sized night primate with the largest eyes for its body of any mammal, a head that turns 180 degrees, and legs built for jumping.
Proboscis Monkey
An oversized nose that works as both a visual badge and a vocal amplifier, webbed fingers and toes that help it swim across rivers, and a cow-like habit of bringing food back up to chew it again.
Pygmy Marmoset
The world's smallest monkey, small enough to fit in a human hand, gouges holes in tree bark and laps up the sap that puddles inside.
Red-Eyed Tree Frog
A neon-green rainforest sleeper whose flash of scarlet eyes and bright flanks may give a predator pause long enough to escape.
Resplendent Quetzal
A cloud forest trogon revered by pre-Columbian cultures, whose males grow iridescent tail plumes up to 90 centimeters long.
Reticulated Python
The longest python, up to 33 feet of snake with black X's running down its back in a diamond-like pattern.
Ringed Caecilian
A legless burrower about 40 cm long whose newborns eat their mother's skin and drink milk from her vent.
Satanic Leaf-Tailed Gecko
Dead-leaf camouflage down to the fake decay and missing pieces, horn-like brow scales, and a loud, red-mouthed bluff when confronted.
Satin Bowerbird
Stick-avenue builder, blue-object collector, and a courtship act of buzzes, rattles and mimicry.
Scarlet Macaw
A big scarlet parrot that feeds mostly in the forest canopy, with a beak that can break open the toughest nuts.
South American Bushmaster
The longest of all vipers, able to aim a strike in the dark by body heat alone, from the only pit vipers in the Americas that lay eggs.
Southern Cassowary
A five-inch dagger-like claw on each foot, a leap of up to seven feet, and a casque that glows under ultraviolet light.
Strawberry Poison-Dart Frog
A 2-gram rainforest frog in warning colors, whose poison appears to come from the ants and mites it eats.
Sun Bear
The world's smallest bear, 23 to 65 kg, with the longest tongue and a chest crescent as individual as a fingerprint.
Sunda Colugo
Southeast Asian mammal with a furred gliding membrane from neck to fingers, toes and tail, carrying it up to 100 metres with little height loss.
Sunda Slow Loris
The deceptively cute nocturnal primate whose elbow-gland secretion carries a protein closely resembling a cat allergen.
Superb Lyrebird
Ground-dwelling mimic whose courtship act includes a fake alarm-flock illusion convincing enough to fool real birds.
Three-Toed Sloth
A slow-metabolism canopy dweller whose fur hosts its own community of moths and algae.
Tufted Capuchin
A stocky Amazon monkey that smashes fruit its jaws cannot crack, or opens it with a piece of branch.