South Korean band AESPA perform at ABC Good Morning America summer concert series in Central Park in New York City, U.S., July 8, 2022. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

Wildlife photographer Danté Fenolio has headed into areas untouched by sunlight – deep seas, caves and underground – and found creatures that are exploding with colour. Here: The golden harlequin toad has vanished from the wild, and only a small number live on in captivity. A fungus caused them, and many other amphibians, to die out in their home in Central America. (Photo by Danté Fenolio/The Guardian/Johns Hopkins University Press)

The coendou porcupine couple 'Joppi' (L) and 'Fletcher' nibble at a vegetables in their enclosure at the zoo in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 03 December 2015. Coendou porcupines are nocturnal rodents related to porcupines and guinea pigs and native to the rain forests of Central and South America as well as Trinidad. (Photo by Arne Dedert/EPA)

A butterfly flies into the jaws of a crocodile inhabiting the Tarcoles River, the most polluted basin in Central America and one of the most polluted in Latin America, in the place of Tarcoles, province of Puntarenas, Costa Rica, 05 June 2018. Costa Rica, a country recognized worldwide for its environmental policies, seeks to be a leader in the replacement of single-use plastic with renewable and compostable alternatives, despite its lag in terms of recycling and integrated waste management. (Photo by Jeffrey Arguedas/EPA/EFE)

“Yucca is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the agave family, Agavaceae. Its 40-50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitish flowers. They are native to the hot and dry (arid) parts of North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Early reports of the species were confused with the cassava (Manihot esculenta). Consequently, Linnaeus mistakenly derived the generic name from the Carib word for the latter, yuca. It is also colloquially known in the midwest United States as “Ghosts in the graveyard”, as it is commonly found growing in rural graveyards and when in bloom the flowers appear as an apparition floating.” – Wikipedia

Photo: A yucca standing among flowers bursts forth a very large stalk of flowers as a heavy wildflower bloom on June 21, 2005 in the Angeles National Forest northwest of La Canada, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

In this Tuesday, March 20, 2018 photo, a Vampire Bat drinks bovine blood in the Criaturas de la Noche (Creatures of the Night) Bat House, the Audubon Zoo's new night house in New Orleans. The various species are all from Central and South America, and the building's interior simulates an abandoned warehouse set up to protect Mayan artifacts during a dig. (Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP Photo)

This photo taken on February 10, 2025 shows a captured green iguana being held by hunters after it was brought down by a slingshot in Pingtung. Taiwan's iguana population has exploded since the spikey-backed giant lizards were introduced from Central and South America more than 20 years ago as exotic pets. Many escaped or were dumped by their owners and have bred rapidly in the warm climate of southern Taiwan, invading neighbourhoods and ravaging farmers' crops. (Photo by I-Hwa Cheng/AFP Photo)

“The Red-eyed Treefrog (Agalychnis callidryas) is an arboreal hylid native to Neotropical rainforests in Central America. Red-eyed tree frogs, as their name states, have red eyes with vertically narrowed noses, a vibrant green body with yellow and blue vertically striped sides, and orange or yellow webbed feet and toes”. – Wikipedia. (Photo by Donald Quintana)