A dramatic rise in owning exotic pets in China is fuelling global demand for threatened species. The growing trade in alligators, snakes, monkeys, crocodiles and spiders is directly linked to species loss in some of the world’s most threatened ecosystems. Here: A fennec fox (Vulpes zerda) is groomed in a pet store in central Beijing. Native to the Sahara in North Africa, the species became a popular pet after being depicted as a character in Disney’s 2016 animated movie Zootopia. Individuals can cost between $2,000–$3,000. (Photo by Sean Gallagher/The Guardian)

Shoppers walk past crocodiles for sale at a market in Bata on February 3, 2015. Markets in Equatorial Guinea sell a variety of animals including pangolins, monkeys and crocodiles as food. (Photo by Carl de Souza/AFP Photo)

Pakistan fans during the first one day international match at the Sophia Gardens, Cardiff on Thursday, July 8, 2021. (Photo by Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)

Children jump over a puddle of water as they play during a rainstorm on a street in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, September 18, 2021. (Photo by Emilio Morenatti/AP Photo)

Dancer of the Berlin State Ballet (Staatsballett Berlin) wear face masks as they perform during the dress rehearsal of Don Quixote in a production choreographed by Victor Ullate, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic at Deutsche Oper opera house in Berlin, Germany, December 1, 2021. (Photo by Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)

A man walks into the The Life Tabernacle megachurch as local residents attend Sunday service challenging state orders against assembling in large groups to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana U.S., April 5, 2020. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Kazakh girls watch as the Russian Soyuz TMA-15 rocket carrying Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Frank De Winne of Belgium and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko readies for take-off from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan on May 27, 2009. Three astronauts, from Canada, Belgium and Russia, blasted off for the International Space Station in a landmark mission that will double its crew to six for the first time. (Photo by Dmitry Kostyukov/AFP Photo)

This picture taken on May 4, 2020 shows a gentoo penguin swimming in an enclosure at the Ocean Park theme park, which is currently closed due to the COVID-19 novel coronavirus, in Hong Kong. (Photo by Richard A. Brooks/AFP Photo)