Today is Earth Day 2010.  For forty years this annual event has served to focus attention on issues such as conservation, pollution, climate and sustainability.  That 2010 is also the International Year of Biodiversity makes this Earth Day even more important.

Every 24 hours approximately 100 species go extinct, relegated forever to the past tense.  It seems to me that every day should be Earth Day.  But since I have no interest in preaching, I thought I’d mark this event with a special edition of put on your faces.  Because it’s faces like these that we stand to lose.

Mallard duckling (Anas platyrhynchos)

White-lined sphinx moth (Hyles lineata)

Blackbuck (a.k.a. Indian antelope; Antilope cervicapra); juvenile male

Green heron (Butorides virescens)

Fox squirrel (a.k.a. eastern fox squirrel, stump-eared squirrel, raccoon squirrel or monkey-faced squirrel; Sciurus niger); male

Green anole (a.k.a. Carolina anole; Anolis carolinensis); male

Differential grasshopper (Melanoplus differentialis); male

Great-tailed grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus); male

Fallow deer (Dama dama); light morph male (buck/stag)