The Field Museum Went to Peru to Capture Animal Selfies

Given the opportunity, animals are just as prone to taking selfies as the rest of us. This latest batch of animal selfies comes to us courtesy of Chicago’s Field Museum, which sent 25 scientists to a remote area of the Amazon in Medio Putumayo-Algodón, Peru, to study local wildlife. They set up 14 motion-activated cameras for the 17 days they spent taking biological inventory there, and plenty of animals deigned to be photographed, including the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari) above.

“These images are the first time this remote wilderness and the species that call it home are being recorded for science,” Jon Markel, a Geographic Information Systems specialist at the Field Museum, said in a statement.

In total, the Field Museum team observed 1820 different species of flora and fauna, including 19 species the museum thinks are entirely new to science.

This is a crab-eating raccoon (Procyon cancrivorus):

And here's a giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), a pig-sized termite eater that spends much of its time in underground burrows:

The Field Museum team also took drone footage of the area:

Rapid Inventory 28 From Above from The Field Museum on Vimeo.

Scroll through the rest of the animal selfies here.

All images courtesy The Field Museum via Facebook.