
The week in wildlife – in pictures
An alligator lurks among water lilies at dusk in Edmundo Navarro de Andrade state forest in Rio Claro city, São Paulo, Brazil. Photograph: Igor Do Vale/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs, including a rare monk seal, nesting gannets and lurking alligator
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A swan and cygnets on a pond in Bushy Park, Dublin
Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA
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A dark small-branded swift butterfly (Pelopidas mathias) extracts nectar from the colourful wildflower in Tehatta, West Bengal, India. The butterfly belongs to the family Hesperiidae and is found throughout much of south, south-east and east Asia, and as far as the Philippines. It is also present in tropical Africa and Arabia. This butterfly is considered a pest to rice-growing cultures as newly hatched caterpillars are especially voracious in eating young seedlings
Photograph: Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
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An egret tends to her chicks in their nest near the Brahmaputra River in Guwahati, India
Photograph: Biju Boro/AFP/Getty Images
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A black-bellied pangolin in Ziama, Guinea. A recent trial of camera traps placed above the ground to study arboreal or semi-arboreal species has captured images of black-bellied and white-bellied pangolins. Due to the success of this trial, Fauna & Flora is rolling out arboreal camera traps on a wider scale. Pangolins are one of the most trafficked mammals in the world, due to high demand for their scales, which are used in traditional medicines. It is estimated that more than 1 million pangolins have been poached in the last 10 years
Photograph: Fauna & Flora
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A green iguana (Iguana iguana), also known as the American iguana, is seen the Botanical Garden of Medellín, Colombia
Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
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Nesting gannets at Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, UK, where about 500,000 seabirds flock to the chalk cliffs to find a mate and raise their young. From March to October the cliffs come alive with nest-building adults and young chicks, including puffins, gannets and guillemots, forming one of the UK’s top wildlife spectacles
Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA
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An endangered and rare female Mediterranean monk seal lies on the shore of Jaffa in Israel
Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters
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An orphaned fox cub is released for the first time into a larger outdoor enclosure for monitoring and care before being released into the wild at the Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable, Cape Cod, US
Photograph: Lauren Owens Lambert/AFP/Getty Images
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A local resident rescues a baby owl after Cyclone Mocha in Kyauktaw in Myanmar. Cyclone Mocha crashed ashore in Myanmar and south-eastern Bangladesh uprooting trees, scattering flimsy homes in Rohingya displacement camps and bringing a storm surge into low-lying areas
Photograph: Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images
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An alligator lurks among water lilies at dusk in Edmundo Navarro de Andrade state forest in Rio Claro city, São Paulo, Brazil
Photograph: Igor Do Vale/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock
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A great egret perches on a tree branch on the banks of the Brahmaputra River, in Guwahati, Assam, India
Photograph: David Talukdar/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
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A duck flies over the water lilies during dusk in Edmundo Navarro de Andrade State Forest in Rio Claro city, São Paulo, Brazil
Photograph: Igor Do Vale/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock
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A Bengal tiger walks along the banks of the Karnali river inside Bardiya national park at Bardiya, Nepal
Photograph: Skanda Gautam/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock
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A little vermilion flycatchers bird perches next to chicks of the same bird species, in Santa Cruz, Galápagos islands, Ecuador. The little vermilion flycatcher is an endemic species to Galápagos and is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature
Photograph: Galapagos National Park/Reuters
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A squirrel pokes its head out between some stones at the Munzur Valley national park, which is largest and the most biodiverse national park in Tunceli, Turkey
Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
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A greater one-horned rhino takes a bath on the Karnali river in the jungle inside Bardiya national park at Bardiya, Nepal
Photograph: Skanda Gautam/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock
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A parrot chick looks out from its nest in a tree in Guwahati, India
Photograph: Biju Boro/AFP/Getty Images
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A rainbow sea slug found in a a rock pool on a beach in Falmouth, UK. Sighting of the rare animal, more often found in Spain, Portugal and France indicates warming seas in the UK
Photograph: Vicky Barlow Ltd/thehidephotography
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Flamingos at Sel Kapani Dam Lake in Golbasi district of Ankara, Turkey
Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
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Monkeys play on overhead electric power cables in a street in the north-central town of Anuradhapura, India
Photograph: Ishara S Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images