Wildlife

Today is the International Day for Biological Diversity. That’s a bit of a mouthful, but put simply it’s a day officially set aside to celebrate the world’s wealth of wildlife. For 2014 the theme is Island Biodiversity.

Today is International Day for Biological Diversity. An opportunity to celebrate and wonder at the amazingly diverse variety of species we share the planet with. This year it has a water theme, so we’ve been having some fun over on Twitter, and here’s our pick of the weirdest and most wondrous watery wildlife you definitely need to know about.

Yesterday brought the news that yet another Cairn well off Greenland - the sixth so far - has come up dry. The Delta-1 well will be plugged and abandoned and Cairn now has to pin its hopes for this year's drilling season on two remaining wells.

Charismatic megafauna at play. Did we get your attention?

The word 'biodiversity' is often bandied about as shorthand for 'lots of lovely animals and plants'. We probably think of African plains teeming with herds of antelopes, zebra and wildebeest, a jungle cacophonous with crickets, monkeys and birds, or perhaps a coral reef that looks like a still from Finding Nemo.

But that's because most of us are a little shallow when it comes to the species we co-inhabit this planet with. We get overexcited by the big things, the cuddly things, and the wow! things.