Project Produces High-Res Images of the Rarest Mammals in the Congo

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“Tropical rainforests don’t give up their secrets easily,” says Emma Stokes, vice president of WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) Global. But thanks to a year-long camera trap project in the Congo, scientists studying this ecosystem have gathered high-resolution images of the “rarest, endangered mammals for the first time.”

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Videos by Outdoors

Stokes says: “You can spend years walking through these forests without seeing much of the extraordinary wildlife that lives there. You only know it’s there by the signs it leaves behind.”

And yet, camera traps that are part of this important project have captured brilliant high-res images of this “unseen rainforest.” Some of the rare, endangered mammals that passed by the remote cameras include the leopard, the African forest elephant, the African forest buffalo, the giant pangolin, and the African golden cat.

See the rare mammals of the Congo in high definition here:

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Header image by Will Burrard-Lucas/WCS.