2015 Year in Pictures: Animals

1. 2015 Year in Pictures: Animals

2. Cats crowd the harbor on Aoshima Island in the Ehime prefecture in southern Japan, Feb. 25. An army of cats rules the remote island in southern Japan, curling up in abandoned houses or strutting about in a fishing village that is overrun with felines outnumbering humans six to one. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

3. Giant panda cubs are seen inside baskets at a giant panda breeding centre in Ya’an, Sichuan province, China, Aug. 21. (Reuters)

4. A newborn Asian elephant is helped by his mother Farina (R) to stand up at Pairi Daiza wildlife park, a zoo and botanical garden, in Brugelette, Belgium, May 25. (Francois Lenoir/Reuters)

5. epa05057923 YEARENDER 2015 NOVEMBER Owls are spotted sitting in hollow nest in Patan, Nepal, 18 November 2015. EPA/NARENDRA SHRESTHA (Narendra Shrestha/EPA)

6. A gull flips a herring in order to swallow it whole while flying away with a meal robbed from a delivery truck, July 8, in Rockland, Maine. Herring is primarily used for lobster bait, with a small percentage of it going to the sardine industry. (Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press)

7. The Cotopaxi volcano spews ash and vapor, as seen from El Pedregal, Ecuador on Sept. 3. Cotopaxi began showing renewed activity in April and its last major eruption was in 1877. (Dolores Ochoa/Associated Press)

8. A small dog peers from a car at an Ukrainian army checkpoint near Kurakhove, Ukraine, March 3, on a road leading to Russia-backed separatists held territory. (Vadim Ghirda/Associated Press)

9. Lemurs eat at Qingdao Forest Wildlife World in Qingdao, Shandong province, China, Jan. 27. (China Daily/Reuters)

10. A bee collects pollen from a sunflower on Sept. 18, in Dresden, eastern Germany. (Arno Burgi/AFP/Getty Images)

11. Dairy cows nuzzle a barn cat as they wait to be milked at a farm in Granby, Quebec, Canada July 26. (Christinne Muschi/Reuters)

12. The wing of a Giant Owl butterfly is pictured at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in San Diego, Calif., March 13. (Mike Blake/Reuters)

13. A gosling peers out from its mother’s wings, April 15, in Santa Clara, Calif. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

14. A male baboon (Papio Hamadryas) poses at the Safari Zoo in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sept. 9. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

15. A macaw flies over buildings with the Avila mountain behind, in Caracas, March 31. (Jorge Silva/Reuters)

16. Buffalos escape a fire, which is spreading on a patch of land by the Yamuna river, on a hot summer day in New Delhi, India, June 9. (Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)

17. A stag deer covers his antlers with bracken in Richmond Park in west London, Britain, October 16. The Royal Park has had Red and Fallow deer present since 1529, and early autumn sees the rutting or breeding season begin amongst the herd of over six hundred animals. (Toby Melville/Reuters)

18. A flamingo and flamingo chicks are seen in a corral before being fitted with identity rings at dawn at a lagoon in the Fuente de Piedra natural reserve, in Fuente de Piedra, near Malaga, southern Spain, Aug. 8. (Jon Nazca/Reuters)

19. A dog wipes out during the Surf City Surf Dog Contest in Huntington Beach, Calif., Sept. 27. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

20. An American coot runs across the surface of the Salton Sea before taking flight near Niland, Calif. on April 29. Located on what is called the “Pacific flyway,” heavy migrations of waterfowl, marsh and seabirds take advantage of the Salton Sea during spring and fall. For them, the lake is a desert oasis from vast stretches of rock and sand. (Gregory Bull/Associated Press)

21. English bulldog Mack was more interested in the balloons than the official opening by The Massachusetts Port Authority of the Bremen Street Dog Park in East Boston, Sept. 14. (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff)

22. A Thai veterinarian takes a picture of a 2-year-old orangutan during a health examination at Kao Pratubchang Conservation Centre in Ratchaburi, Thailand, Aug. 27. (Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

23. A giraffe drinks at a watering hole at Melorani Safaris at Olifantsvallei, South Africa on Aug. 18. In 1986 the landowner, Stewart Dorrington, turned his family cattle ranch, a three-hour drive north east of Johannesburg, into a wildlife reserve where he hosts about two-dozen bow and arrow hunters a year. (Denis Farrell/Associated Press)

24. A green vine snake feeds on an Indian Forest Skink inside the Silent Valley national park in Kerala, India, Nov. 28. (Abhishek N. Chinnappa/Reuters)

25. A Gentoo penguin feeds its baby at Station Bernardo O’Higgins in Antarctica on Jan. 22. (Natacha Pisarenko/Associated Press)

26. A cow stands in the middle of a busy road as auto-rickshaws pass by in Bengaluru, India, June 2. (Abhishek N. Chinnappa/Reuters)

27. A bird eats a fish surrounded by dead fish on the banks of the Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro Feb. 24. International Olympic Committee members meeting in Rio de Janeiro will determine if its waters will be clean for the sailing events in 2016, (Ricardo Moraes/Reuters)

28. Two saltwater crocodiles fight in a vicious duel to the death in the Lakefield National Park on the Cape York Peninsula in the country’s tropical north. Saltwater crocodiles, which can grow up to seven metres (23 feet) long and weigh more than a tonne, have become increasingly common in Australia’s north since they were declared a protected species in 1971. (Sandra Bell/AFP/Getty Images)

29. A hippopotamus walks across flooded street in Tbilisi, Georgia, June 14. The flood killed at least 12 people and partly destroyed Tbilisi Zoo, killing dozens of animals, while 30 more - including tigers, lions and bears managed to escape from their cages (Beso Gulashvili/Reuters)

30. An old male lion raises his head above the long grass in the early morning, in the savannah of the Maasai Mara, south-western Kenya on July 7. (Ben Curtis/Associated Press)

31. A palm-sized baby ray in its ‘Kindergarten Aquarium’ at AquaDom; Sea Life in Berlin, Germany, June 17. The slots above the mouth that look like eyes are gills on the animal’s underbelly. When fully-grown these endangered animals reach a range of one meter. (Jens Kalaena/EPA)

32. One stork stands on the back of another as they communicate with each other on a nest on a structure in Biebesheim am Rhein, Germany, March 9. A nesting colony of the migratory birds has been present for two years here. The birds return every year for rearing their young. (Boris Roessler/EPA)

33. Palestinians herd sheep in the Judean desert between Jericho and Jerusalem, Feb. 6. (Ammar Awad/Reuters)

34. A hyena eyes a herd of zebra at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya, Aug. 19. (Joe Penney/Reuters)

35. A bird flies in front of the Eiffel Tower ,which remained closed on the first of three days of national mourning, in Paris, Nov. 15. (Daniel Ochoa de Olza/Associated Press)

36. Ducks take wing in Ward’s Pond on Oct. 22. Ward’s Pond sits on the border of Jamaica Plain and Brookline within Olmsted Park in the Emerald Necklace. (Lane Turner/Globe Staff)

37. Starlings swirl in the sky in a phenomenon known as murmuration in the Negev Desert at dusk near the Bedouin city of Rahat, southern Israel, Feb. 5. (Ariel Schalit/Associated Press)

38. Brodie, a border collie, takes in the sites on his bus as he rides The Common Dog dog shuttle enroute to doggie day care in Everett, Mass., on Sept. 16. (Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff)