The Red panda munches its way through its own bodyweight in bamboo (for a female, up to 200,000 leaves) every day in the isolated mountain ranges in western China and the Himalayas.
Sumatran Rhino
The smallest of the five extant species of rhino, the 300 surviving hairy two-horned creatures chew vegetation in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Amur Leopard
One of only seven remaining female Amur leopards in the wild was shot in Russia at the end of April. Their natural habitat – the Sikhote-Alin mountains in north-east Russia – is rapidly deteriorating and disappearing as the forests the leopards prefer to live in are destroyed.
Bactrian camel
These rare two-humped camels survive in the wilds of the Mongolian Gobi Desert by eating snow in place of water – it’s estimated there are only 950 alive in the wild.
African wild ass
The ancestor of the domestic donkey, the African wild ass is down to its last few hundred surviving relations in the wilds of Ethiopia and Somalia. Despite being legally protected, the asses are still hunted for food and traditional medicine.
Aye-aye
Native to Madagascar, the aye-aye is under threat not only from its forest home being destroyed but also because the local population think that, with its bulging eyes and long, crooked fingers, it’s an evil omen.
Golden-rumped elephant-shrew
The bright yellow rumps of this Kenyan elephant-shrew – so named because of its extremely long trunk-like nose – have been fading as their habitat's destroyed. And their numbers aren’t helped by the fact that they’re notoriously monogamous.
Saiga antelope
Numbers of one of the world’s fastest animals have plummeted from over a million a decade ago to fewer than 50,000 today. These graceful beasts roam the wilds of China, Kazakhstan and southern Siberia, but are under threat from poachers as their horns are used in Chinese medicine.
Grevy's Zebra
The largest of the zebra family and native to Kenya and Ethopia, the Grevy’s are considered endangered because they’re hunted for their narrowly striped skin. They’re also threatened by habitat loss and have to compete with growing livestock herds for water supplies.
Hawksbill Turtle
Not only are hawksbills hunted for their shells, they also get caught up in fishing nets and suffer from their nesting beaches being destroyed to make way for new hotels and marinas. It’s estimated that there are only about 8,000 nesting females spread throughout the tropics.
Orangutan
The quest for supposedly environmentally friendly biofuels has had a serious impact on the survival of one of our closest mammalian relations. The production of palm oil for use as fuel is destroying orangutan habitats in Sumatra and Borneo at an alarming rate, with the population decreasing by 1,000 each year. It’s thought the species could become extinct in the wild within a decade if the destruction of their rainforest home continues.
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