The week in wildlife

A stork takes off from its nest atop a magnolia tree as spring temperatures rise in Strasbourg, France
Photograph: Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images

Buba, a bear cub born in January 2010, with her mother Ursina at the Juraparc of Mont-d'Orzieres near Vallorbe, Switzerland. The European brown bear has long been extinct in Britain and Ireland, but is still found in north-east Europe and Russia. There is a tiny population in the Pyrenees, on the border between Spain and France, which is on the edge of extinction, as well as an equally threatened group in the Cantabrian Mountains in Spain. There are also populations in the Abruzzi mountains and in the Trentino valley in Italy
Photograph: Dominic Favre/EPA

A bee lands on wild flowers in the Temblor Range, at the south-western end of the San Joaquin Valley in California
Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

A two metre-long, golden-spotted lizard discovered in the forested mountains of the Philippines six years ago is a previously unknown species, scientists said this week. The northern Sierra Madre forest monitor lizard was discovered by researchers in 2004 when indigenous people on the main island of Luzon were seen carrying a dead reptile. But it took until last year -when researchers captured an adult and obtained DNA samples - to determine that it was a new species
Photograph: Joseph Brown/University of Kansas/Reuters

This newly discovered creature - a loriciferan - was found more than 10,000 feet underwater off the southern coast of Greece. It is identified as an undescribed species of the genus Spinoloricus and has specialised organelles so that it can survive without oxygen
Photograph: Roberto Danovaro/BMC Biology

Cherry blossom in full bloom over a river in Tokyo
Photograph: Toru Hanai/Reuters

Barnacle geese in flight over the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust centre in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. Barnacle geese spend their winters in the milder climate of the UK and Netherlands. The birds will now be migrating back to their habitats on the Arctic islands of the north Atlantic to breed
Photograph: Richard Taylor-Jones/WWT/PA

An Indian rhinoceros (also known as the great one-horned rhino) at the Kaziranga national park, north-east India. The Indian rhino once ranged across the north Indian plains in the wetlands of the rivers Indus, Ganga, and Brahmaputra. Today it is found only in pockets in the north-eastern state of Assam and in Nepal. In Assam, their rhino habitat is limited to just two national parks - Kaziranga and Manas. Kaziranga is well-known for its successful conservation of this species of rhino, and provides shelter to a variety of endangered species of mammals, birds and reptiles
Photograph: STR/EPA

An anteater looks for food on a tree at the Palo Verde national park in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Some 1,000 hectares were burned by a forest fire this week in this important sanctuary for migratory birds and other species
Photograph: Yuri Cortez/AFP

A hunter kills a harp seal on the opening day of the 2010 Canadian commercial seal hunt, on 8 April, off the coast of Newfoundland. Conservationists say the Canadian government has sanctioned the killing of 330,000 seals this year despite record low ice conditions which caused many harp seal pups to perish prematurely
Photograph: IFAW/AFP/Getty Images

A large gorgonian - dubbed Cousin It - 650m underwater off the north coast of Molokai, Hawaii. A gorgonian is a type of coral that has a horny or calcareous (stony) branching skeleton
Photograph: University of Hawaii at Manoa

Men watch an alligator snapping turtle crawl along a street in Beijing, China. This species is one of the largest freshwater turtles in the world, and listed as an endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Previously seen in China mainly as a restaurant delicacy, more and more Chinese families are keeping turtles as pets. An alligator snapping turtle can be bought in Beijing for 20,000 Chinese yuan ($2930)
Photograph: Diego Azubel/EPA

Millions of sea turtles have been inadvertently trapped and killed by commercial fishing fleets over the last 20 years, a global survey found this week
Photograph: NOAA

This reed warbler was forced to give up its nest to a cuckoo egg - but then fed the chick and raised it as its own. Despite being dwarfed by the young intruder, the tiny mother delivered a steady stream of worms to its large mouth. Female cuckoos lay their eggs in another bird's nest and then leave them to hatch and be bought up by smaller birds. UK photographer David Kjaer snapped the pair
Photograph: David Kjaer/Solent News

A green basilisk lizard (Basiliscus plumifrons) in the garden of a hotel near La Fortuna, in the Costa Rican rainforest
Photograph: Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images