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A brown she-bear with cubs in Kurilskoye lake in Tikhon Shpilenok, South Kamchatka nature reserve on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian far east on 4 September.
Photograph: Yekaterina Shtukina/Tass/Getty images
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A Sarpa salpa swims in a kelp forest in the Indian Ocean, False Bay, Cape Town, South Africa on 8 September. Kelp is the fastest growing algae, sometimes exceeding 15 metres in length. The kelp forests influence the waters around them by calming the waves, creating a unique marine environment in which thousands of species thrive beneath these giant tree-like structures.
Photograph: Nic Bothma/EPA
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An Adimantus ornatissimus grasshopper rests on a tree near New Delhi on 9 September. The grasshopper family is one of the most diverse, including more than 6,700 valid species around the world.
Photograph: Harish Tyagi/EPA
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P-54, a three-year-old mountain lion living in the Santa Monica mountains, gave birth to a litter of kittens – males P-82 and P-83, and female P-84 – last May. Researchers believe this is her first litter. A mountain lion baby boom has occurred this summer in the Santa Monica mountains and Simi hills west of Los Angeles. Thirteen kittens were born to five mountain lion mothers between May and August, according to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
Photograph: US National Park Services
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A herd of Sulawesi black apes (Macaca tonkeana) waiting for passersby to provide food on the Trans Sulawesi road section, Parigi Moutong regency, Central Sulawesi province, Indonesia on 8 September. Even though the local natural resources conservation agency has prohibited the provision of food to endemic animals because it can change their behaviour, many passersby ignore the ban.
Photograph: Basri Marzuki/NurPhoto/PA Images
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One of the finalists of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2020. It’s a mocking bird (kingfisher) taken by Sally Lloyd-Jones seen near Kirkcudbright, Scotland.
Photograph: Sally Lloyd-Jones
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Eight-month-old koala joey Jasper clings to mother Nutsy at Sydney zoo on 8 July.
Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP
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Tahlequah the orca – famous for carrying her dead calf for 17 days – last week gave birth to another calf, seen here swimming vigorously alongside its mother.
Photograph: Katie Jones/Center for Whale Research/Permit #21238/WhaleResearch.com
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Bats fly in formation as they emerge from their habitat on Khao Chakan mountain during sunset in the eastern Thai province of Sa Kaeo on 5 September.
Photograph: Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images
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Acorn woodpeckers look for bugs in a dead tree in the Angeles national forest where the Bobcat fire is burning above Duarte, California about 27 miles north-east of Los Angeles on 7 September.
Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
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Although protected by the US Endangered Species Act since 1973, there are only about 300 black-footed ferrets alive in the wild today, spread across about 20 sites in the western US, Canada and Mexico. Habitat loss and the widespread shooting and poisoning of prairie dogs are factors, but nothing poses a greater threat than the plague-carrying bacteria Yersinia pestis.
Photograph: Kathryn Scott Osler/Denver Post/Getty Images
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Smoke from numerous nearby wildfires tints the sun a vivid colour as a vulture is silhouetted on its perch on a dead tree near Elkton in western Oregon on 9 September. Hot and dry weather continues in the Pacific north-west with the potential for more massive wildfires.
Photograph: Robin Loznak/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
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The carcass of an alligator killed during a fire in the Pantanal wetlands, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, on 27 August. Fires raging in the Pantanal, the biggest tropical wetlands on Earth, are threatening a nature reserve that’s home to the world’s largest jaguar population.
Photograph: Ibere Perisse/Projeto Solos/AFP/Getty Images
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Timble Ings Wood, Washburn valley, where water voles are being released by Yorkshire Water as part of efforts to help the endangered animals.
Photograph: Yorkshire Water/PA
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A macaw seeking food about to land on an antenna in Caracas, Venezuela on 5 September. Caracas’ signature bird, the blue-and-yellow macaw, is one of four such species that inhabit the valley. Legend has it that it was introduced in the 1970s by Italian immigrant Vittorio Poggi, who says he nurtured a lost macaw and trained it to fly with his motorcycle as he cruised around his neighbourhood.
Photograph: Matias Delacroix/AP
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A ditch jewel dragonfly (Brachythemis contaminata) seen on the outskirts of New Delhi on 6 September.
Photograph: Harish Tyagi/EPA
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A male lesser prairie chicken climbs a sage limb to rise above the others at a breeding area near Follett, Texas. Wildlife advocates say efforts to restore the birds could be set back by a proposal made on 4 September to exempt areas from habitat protections that are meant to save imperilled species.
Photograph: David Crenshaw/AP
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An Indian leopard in Jhalana forest reserve in Jaipur, India.
Photograph: Shivang Mehta/Alamy