This plucky little bird was given a good licking when it dared to venture near a massive bison. The brown-headed cowbird was feeding on insects when the towering beast gently touched it with her tongue. The bird let out a chirp before flying off.

Two cheetahs sit on a hillock to look for a prey in the Maasai Mara National Reserve

Tens of thousands of lesser and greater flamingos gather at Lake Oloiden, near Naivasha, Kenya

An animal keeper wraps a six-month-old Golden Brushtail Possum in a blanket at Wildlife Sydney animal park. Although rare, the Golden Brushtail Possum is still found in the wild in areas of Tasmania, an island state south of the Australian mainland.

The Erie Zoo's lowland gorilla Samantha shares her space with Panda, a Dutch rabbit, at the zoo in Erie, Pennsylvania, USA

A family of hippos are covered by weeds as they surface from a pond in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in southwestern Kenya

This baby squirrel suffered injuries to her leg and was separated from her mother when she fell from a tree - and she is not even three weeks old. The grey squirrel, called Violet, endured the ordeal when the branch her nest (known as a drey) was laying on was cut down. Fortunately, the couple cutting down the tree spotted Violet and immediately phoned the Wildlife Aid Foundation for advice on what to do. The foundation, based in Leatherhead, Surrey, took her in, bandaged her leg, and have been feeding her a special milk formula, similar to that her mother would have provided.

The white jaguar cubs parents are 17-year-old golden-brown spotted father named Mescal and 13-year-old black mother named Molly.

A wildebeest performs a death-defying leap to freedom over the open mouth of a hungry 1,100lb crocodile. This wildebeest was one of the lucky ones out of a mind-boggling 1.5million-strong herd crossing the Mara River, to reach the mating grounds in Kenya. Photographer and conservationist Eli Weiss captured the image on camera after waiting hours for the action to start.