The week in wildlife – in pictures

A rose has been naturally magnified through a drop of early-morning dew in Turnhout, Belgium Photograph: Roman Fefelov/Barcroft Media

Red-crowned cranes are seen at the state nature reserve of rare birds in Yancheng, east China's Jiangsu Province. A great many rare birds have migrated to the nature to overwinter, including red-crowned cranes, oriental storks, and hooded cranes Photograph: Sun Huajin/Xinhua Press/Corbis

An elephant bull charges a female hippopotamus as her calf scampers to safety. This female hippo was flipped several feet into the air as she stood her ground against an aggressive elephant bull at the Erindi Private Game Reserve in Namibia.The elephant was grazing alongside a group of hippos, but took exception when the mother hippo ventured slightly too close. Amazingly, the mother emerged relatively unscathed from the attack, apparently suffering nothing worse than a little gash on her side - and a rather bruised ego Photograph: Rian Van Schalkwyk/Barcroft Media

Healthy coral grows at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Scientists are gathering in the US Virgin Islands to discuss ways of helping to restore severely degraded coral populations Photograph: Victor Manuel Galvan/AP

Vibrant colours in the autumn foliage at Nara Park in western Japan. The park attracts 13 million visitors from all over the world every year Photograph: Everett Kennedy Brown/EPA

An endangered Mississippi sandhill crane seen at the Audubon Centre for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans, Louisiana. The birds are being transported to the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge in Gautier, Mississippi
Photograph: The Times-Picayune /Landov / Barcroft Media

An ipe (lapacho) tree is seen in this aerial view of the Amazon rainforest in Para State, Brazil. Initial data from the space agency suggests that destruction of the vast rainforest spiked by more than a third over the past year. This month environmental issues will be under the spotlight as a United Nations Climate Change Conference opens in Warsaw, Poland Photograph: Nacho Doce/Reuters

Two tussling monarch butterflies. Male butterflies can be very territorial when seeking a mate Photograph: Steve Shinn/Rex

European grey wolves in Rhodes, eastern France. A new study comparing DNA from modern dogs and ancient fossils suggests that today's pets descended from wolves in Europe. The bolder the wolf, the more he would be able to eat and the more loyal to humans he would grow. International researchers in the journal Science believe this process of domestication likely began as many as 19,000 to 32,000 years ago
Photograph: Jean-christophe Verhaegen/AFP/Getty Images

This picture shows an Icelandic black-tailed godwit as new research by the University of East Anglia (UEA) has found that climate change has altered the nesting patterns of birds resulting in earlier migrations. Individual birds migrate like clockwork arriving at the same time each year. According to the study, younger birds are migrating earlier because of changes to nesting and hatching patterns Photograph: University of East Anglia/PA

Confiscated ivory tusks, one carved, the other not, among the 5.4 tonnes to be destroyed at the National Wildlife Property Repository in Colorado, United States. The banned elephant ivory was destroyed Thursday after being accumulated over the past 25 years, seized during undercover investigations of organised smuggling operations or confiscated at the US border Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP