Mammals > Mustelids & Carnivorans
The Giant Otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), celebrated in Spanish as lobo de río (‘river wolf’) and in Portuguese as ariranha, is the world’s longest mustelid and the sole living species in the genus Pteronura. Endemic to the vast freshwater river...
Birds > Trochilids & Apodiformes
The Marvelous Spatuletail (Loddigesia mirabilis) is one of the most anatomically extraordinary and geographically restricted hummingbirds on Earth, found exclusively within the Utcubamba River valley high in the cloud forest Andes of northern Peru. Classified as the...
Mammals > Callitrichids & Primates
The Golden Lion Tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia) is an iconic, brilliantly colored New World monkey endemic to the hyper-diverse but critically fragmented Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) of southeastern Brazil. Belonging to the family Callitrichidae, this small...
Plants > Orchidaceae & Asparagales
The White Egret Orchid (Pecteilis radiata), celebrated in traditional Japanese culture as ‘sagisō’ (heron grass) and revered across international botany as one of the most breathtaking terrestrial orchids on Earth, is a small, tuberous perennial geophyte...
Reptiles > Carettochelyids & Testudines
The Fly River Turtle (Carettochelys insculpta), universally renowned across global herpetology as the ‘pig-nosed turtle’, is an extraordinary, colossal freshwater chelonian belonging to the monotypic family Carettochelyidae. Indigenous to the tropical...
