The week in wildlife

A wollemi pine, one of the rarest trees in the world and named in the sampled red list index for plants. One in five of the world's 380,000 plant species is threatened with extinction and human activity is doing most of the damage, according to a global study Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters

To raise awareness of the plight of the endangered Egyptian vulture, WWF-Spain has launched a project called El Viaje del Alimoche (The Journey of the Egyptian Vulture), which allows users to track the migratory journey of four of the rare birds through a real-time online platform Photograph: Chris Hellier/Corbis

Seafloor with red and green seaweeds, the Isles of Scilly. Prof Juliet Brodie from the Natural History Museum took part in the last major study of the seaweeds of the Isles of Scilly in 1983, and this year returned to lead a team of Trust volunteers in an intensive survey expedition Photograph: Kat Brown/The Wildlife Trust

Seized endangered star tortoises lay in a box as they are shown to the media at the Thai customs office in Bangkok on 29 September 2010. Thai customs authorities said they had seized 1,140 endangered star tortoises that were smuggled into the country on a flight from Bangladesh Photograph: NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images

The grossly distended abdomen of the honeypot ant, filled with glucose and fructose from nectar and honeydew, exploits the unpredictable food sources provided by desert flowers Photograph: NHPA/Extreme Insects/HarperCollins

Two killer whales are seen from the air aboard the zeppelin airship, Eureka, near San Juan Island Photograph: Ted S. Warren/AP

A pygmy rabbit in Salmon, Idaho. The hardships facing the pygmy rabbit, a diminutive species that inhabits the sagebrush steppe of the western United States, are not sufficient to warrant protections under the Endangered Species Act, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Wednesday Photograph: HO/Reuters

Injured and abandoned, a lone wildebeest calf sees off a medium-sized female lion. Dripping blood from previous injuries, this callow calf somehow rejoined the herds Photograph: Paul Goldstein/Exodus Travels

A male chaffinch at the Spinneys reserve, Bangor, north Wales Photograph: David Jones/PA

The huemul deer. This is a rare animal that survives only in remote, fragmented habitats – such as the basins of the Baker and Pascua rivers, in the Chilean Patagonia, under threat by dams Photograph: Jeff Foott /iLCP