A tiger’s tongue is coarse enough to lick flesh to the bone.

Finalist – Nature inFocus Photography Contest, 2021
Sebastian Di Domenico, Casanare, Colombia

A rare encounter caught on camera. The Jaguarundi is one of the rarest cat species in the Americas and it is never easy to see one in the wild. The animal resides in a range of habitats, including forests, mangroves and savannas. The photographer found a few pugmarks on his trip to the Llanos, when the felid suddenly emerged from the forest cover to access a creek. Not only was this a rare encounter, the felid also exhibited a rare colour morph. Jaguarundis are mostly black or dark brown in colour. In a few seconds, the animal vanished into the woods again, leaving the photographer with this memorable image.

Sorry! The experts, it turns out, blew it again. NY Post:

In the process of trying to save one animal, another was decimated.

The 45-square-mile Maria Island was once a safe space for the pocket-sized little penguin species. The corner blip of land was free of the menaces the birds face elsewhere and proved a safe home for the creatures, which grow to be just two pounds. Just a decade ago, some 3,000 breeding pairs of little penguins thrived there, the Guardian reported.

Then, in response to an outbreak of a deadly facial tumor disease among Tasmanian devils, 28 of the marsupials were released on the island between 2012 and 2013. Since then, the face tumor disease’s spread has slowed and the devils’ ranks have grown to approximately 100.

But all of that comes at the expense of the little penguins, as there are no longer any on the island.

“Losing 3,000 pairs of penguins from an island that is a national park that should be a refuge for this species basically is a major blow,” Dr. Eric Woehler of BirdLife Tasmania told the Guardian.

RTWT

Photographer Anurag Gawande waited for 2 years for the opportunity to capture a rare black leopard on camera as it crossed a road in Tadoba National Park in Maharashtra, India.

He even caught a video of the handsome cat.

That green line and purple cloud isn’t rain. It’s the monarch butterfly migration being picked up by Doppler radar from the US Weather Service over Oklahoma City. How cool is that?

WaPo link

HT: Karen L. Myers.

BBC: A Hellbender salamander holds a northern water snake in its jaws in this photo taken in Tennessee’s Tellico River. David Herasimtschuk says the snake eventually managed to escape after wrestling with North America’s largest aquatic salamander.

Picture taken in China’s Qilian Mountains by Yongqing Bao has earned him the top prize in the 2019 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

I’m afraid the marmot did not make it. BBC