Week in wildlife in pictures: a dangling marmoset, rare leopard babies and an eyelash snake

A koala and its joey climb a tree in bushland in Brisbane, Australia

A leopard meanders across the Yala National Park, Sri Lanka

An Atlantic puffin with its catch in the Shiant Isles, Scotland, which lie between Harris and the west coast. The islands are home to an estimated 63,000 pairs of puffins, making them the second largest puffin colony in the UK after St Kilda

Thousands of starlings take off from their roosts at dawn, on the Somerset Levels near Glastonbury, UK

The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) has announced the birth of a rare litter of three Arabian leopard cubs – one male and two female – marking a major milestone in efforts to safeguard the future of this critically endangered subspecies of big cats. The triplets were born at RCU’s Arabian Leopard Conservation Breeding Centre this summer

Galápagos tortoises in the Charles Darwin Research Station at Galápagos National Park

A peacock spreads its tail feathers at the Yala National Park, Sri Lanka

Deer rut in the early morning fog in Bushy Park, south-west London

Egrets rest among solar panels in Jiangsu, eastern China

A marmoset dangles upside down by its hind legs while eating a banana in Forte Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Introducing the limestone eyelash pit viper, a newly discovered species of snake that lives in the forests of southern Thailand. “Normally [pitvipers] have one large scale above the eye which looks a bit like an eyebrow and gives these snakes a serious look,” said one of the scientists behind the find, Nikolay Poyarkov. But this new species has a number of small, slightly protruding scales above the eye, giving the impression of eyelashes. “The snake looked pretty cute,” Poyarkov added

… And another new (to us) arrival, a lime-green tree frog discovered living high on a mountain in northern Laos. Nearly 250 new species were discovered in south-east Asia’s Greater Mekong region in 2023, according to a World Wildlife Fund report

A zebra at Chivero Recreational Park, Zimbabwe, where four white rhinos died after sewage-polluted Lake Chivero, 30km from the capital, Harare. The animals had been poisoned by cyanobacteria, which is also toxic to humans. ZimParks relocated the remaining rhinos to avoid further deaths

An elephant inspects a bus in Kataragama, Sri Lanka

A young male sea wolf, likely carried by Antarctic ocean currents, makes a rare appearance on Ipanema beach, Brazil, earlier this week. Bathers watched from a safe distance as the marine mammal rolled in the sand, visibly tired but showing no apparent injuries. Sightings like this are uncommon at this time of year in Rio de Janeiro but occasionally occur mid-year when Antarctic currents are stronger

A Siberian crane prepares to take flight in Poyang lake, Jiujiang, China

A Sombrero ground lizard. The species is endemic to Sombrero island, a tiny isle (just over a mile long) near Anguilla in the Caribbean. Its population has increased from fewer than 100 individuals in 2018 to more than 1,600 today, a new survey has revealed, thanks to conservation efforts

Goitered gazelles under protection in Şanlıurfa province, Turkey. Under threat of extinction due to the deterioration of their natural environment and poachers, the gazelles were taken under protection by the state in 1977

Pink flamingos at sunset in Pérols, near Montpellier, southern France

Malabar pied hornbills perch on a tree at the Yala National Park, Sri Lanka