Week in wildlife in pictures: a new shrew, itchy deer and tortoises on rafts

Kenny, a seven-year-old fallow buck, and friend use a donated Christmas tree as a scratching post at Auchingarrich Wildlife Park, Crieff, UK. The park asks people to drop off their trees in return for a free hot drink. The trees are then used around the park in many ways – as food, climbing frames, enrichment, bedding, woodchip and more

Leaf-cutter ants take their haul back to their nest at the Metropolitan Natural Park, a protected area in Panama City

A newborn albino red-bellied short-necked turtle resting next to its sibling at the Ferme aux Crocodiles in Pierrelatte, south-eastern France. The birth of an albino individual of this aquatic species native to Australia and New Guinea is an extremely rare phenomenon

Wild boar roam the streets near Calpe, Spain. The boar are causing problems for the tourist hotspot: thousands of the animals have come down from the hills to the towns of the Costa Blanca. Calpe has even hired wildlife experts to round up the boars and remove them

An endangered tortoise clings to a floating branch in a flood in southern Madagascar. During Cyclone Dikeledi, thousands of critically endangered tortoises were swept away from the Lavavolo Tortoise Center, where they had been confiscated from illegal wildlife traffickers, and were left swimming for their lives …

… Sanctuary staff, local volunteers and even police officers joined together in a rescue operation, wading through the floodwaters with large baskets to collect the bewildered tortoises. Some rescuers converted damaged building structures into makeshift rafts for the tortoises to ride on as they moved around to find others. They believe they managed to save more than 10,000 tortoises

Valentine’s day may yet be a happy one for the greater mouse-eared bat: this female, found hibernating in the South Downs, joins Britain’s loneliest bat as very nearly the only members of their species in the UK. The male, who is elderly, spends the winter in a disused railway tunnel in Sussex. Ecologists believe population recovery is possible if the two of them can only get together

A robin perched on a tree sings out, his breath visible in the crisp air in Kidderminster, UK

Introducing the Mount Lyell shrew, the only known California mammal never photographed alive, until now. Three young scientists caught five of the tiny shrews in their pitfall traps overnight (all were quickly released). The furry creatures are less than 4in long, and weigh only a gram and a half – about the same as two paperclips

A red fox hunts for mice on a snowy field in Kars, Turkey

A baby cream-bellied thrush waits to be fed in its nest in Asunción, Paraguay

Yoko, a baby swell shark, surprised marine researchers in Louisiana, US, by hatching from an egg laid in a tank inhabited by female sharks that had not had any contact with males for three years. Biologists were unsure whether the egg was produced by parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction) or delayed fertilisation

Deer play at Nara Park, near Osaka, Japan

Earlier this week a young minke whale swam up to a ferry approaching Sydney, Australia – a rare sight, since these whales usually stay in Antarctic waters. Scientists were unsure why it had come so far north. A wildlife researcher said it could just be a case of “misnavigation”. “The good thing is it looks in good condition, and it was observed going out to [sea], which is a good thing,” she said. “If we’ll see it again, I’m not sure”

A pelican patiently waits close to fishing boats, hoping to feast on leftover fish from the day’s catch in Balıkesir, Turkey

A giraffe walks past golfers during day one of the SDC Open in Bela-Bela, South Africa

Migrating gray cranes roam the Agamon Hula conservation lake near the Lebanon border, northern Israel. Hula Lake nature reserve, home for thousands of migrating birds in the autumn and spring, reopened to the public in December 2024 after being closed for more than a year due to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah

Monarch butterflies alight on the branches of an oyamel fir tree in the Piedra Herrada sanctuary, Temascaltepec, Mexico. The monarch butterfly biosphere reserve was declared a Natural World Heritage Site by Unesco in 2008