Week in wildlife: a very long stick insect and a bouncing bettong

The Guardian

5 days ago

Two young seal pups have been released into the sea after being nursed back to health in south-east England. Skittles and Hopscotch, both about five months old, were discovered along the Sussex coastline earlier this year, underweight and suffering from injuries and parasites. According to the RSPCA, the pups were in such poor health that they would not have survived without intervention. After eight weeks of care – including being hand-fed fish soup – the pair were strong enough to return to the wild. They were released on the pebbled shore at Hastings seafront Photograph: RSPCA/Cover Images
The Australian Wildlife Conservancy last month released 147 brush-tailed bettongs on to its sanctuary at Mount Gibson, Perth. Eight threatened native mammal species, including bilbies, numbats, quolls and phascogales, all once locally extinct, have successfully been reintroduced over the past decade since the conservancy bought the 130,000-hectare (321,200-acre) former sheep property in 2000 Photograph: Jane Palmer/Australian Wildlife Conservancy
A lucky kingfisher perches on a branch with a fish at Chard reservoir in Somerset, UK Photograph:Walruses swim in the seas around the Svalbard archipelago, between the north coast of Norway and the north pole Photograph: Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images
A cow stands on a flooded street in Varanasi, India, after heavy monsoon rains induced a rise in the level of the River Ganges Photograph: Niharika Kulkarni/AFP/Getty Images
Flamingos fly in the 40,000-hectare (99,000-acre) Gediz Delta, formed by the accumulation of silt carried by the River Gediz to the Gulf of İzmir, Turkey. The delta, protected as an important bird and nature area, hosts wide biodiversity on its meadows and wetlands Photograph: Mahmut Serdar Alakus/Anadolu/Getty Images
A fox runs past Ryan Higgins of London Spirit to catch up on the latest score during the Hundred match between London Spirit Men and Oval Invincibles Men at Lord's cricket ground in London, UK Photograph:A new stick insect species has been discovered in Queensland. It is 40cm (16in) long and thought to be the heaviest insect in Australia Photograph: Angus Emmott, James Cook University/Reuters
A nutria – a herbivorous, semiaquatic rodent – surfaces at a lake in the Bois de Boulogne, western Paris, France Photograph: Martin Lelievre/AFP/Getty Images
A Physalia physalis , a marine hydrozoan also known as the Portuguese man o' war or bluebottle, washed up on a beach in Hendaye, south-west France. Beaches in the south of France have been closed to swimmers due to the invasion of these animals with venomous tentacles. There has also been an increase of jellyfish off UK waters Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images
A tourist has discovered an 'extinct' jellyfish while rock-pooling in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. For nearly 50 years, Depastrum cyathiforme was feared globally extinct, but a holidaymaker on South Uist found four and took what turned out to be the first-ever photographs of the species Photograph: Guy Freeman
A pelican catches a fish in the lake in St James's Park, London, UK. Six great white pelicans live in the park and are fed daily by park staff Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Zuma Press, Inc/Alamy Live News
Birds sit on a park bench as a dense fog envelops the skyline of Sydney, Australia Photograph: Mark Baker/AP
A hummingbird flutters around a flower in the summer light at sunset in Mexico City, Mexico Photograph: Carlos Perez Gallardo/Reuters
New Forest ponies cross a clearing. There are about 5,000 ponies in the New Forest national park, owned by people known as commoners, who have the right to graze their animals on the open forest. The ponies are often referred to as wild due to their free-roaming nature Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/Shutterstock
A shrimp at 1,271m (4,170ft) of depth in the Mar del Plata canyon in the Argentine Sea, in the Atlantic Ocean about 300km (186 miles) off Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires province. Hundreds of thousands of Argentinians are obsessed with a YouTube broadcast from a robot which is showing creatures never before seen in the South Atlantic, with live commentary from the scientists leading the expedition Photograph: Schmidt Ocean Institute/ROV SuBastian/AFP/Getty Images
Fireflies breed at the Chipinque ecological park in San Pedro Garza García, Mexico Photograph: Daniel Becerril/Reuters
Lynx could thrive if released in Northumberland, research has found, and 72% of people in the region where they would roam support reintroducing the elusive cat. Lynx, one of two native cat species along with the wild cat, vanished from Britain about 800 years ago due to hunting and loss of their woodland habitat Photograph: Berndt Fischer/The Wildlife Trusts/PA
A green frog near Fontenay-le-Vicomte, Île-de-France, northern France
Photograph: Martin Lelievre/AFP/Getty Images