Is it a chimp? Is it a gorilla? For a while noone knew. It's large and nests on the ground like a gorilla, but eats fruit like a chimpanzee. Recent DNA testing identifies the Bili ape of the isolated forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a chimp subspecies - even though overgrown and with an unusual gorilla-like crest on its skull.

Karl Ammann/www.karlammann.com

Plectasin - a powerful antimicrobial that fights pneunomia and meningitis - has recently been isolated from this fungus from northern European pine forests. Many other fungi-based medicines probably remain to be discovered, as do drugs and foods from all kinds of wildlife species.

Biopix.dk/www.biopix.dk

That familiar taste comes from the pod of a rainforest orchid from Mexico, first used by the ancient Totonac people. The vanilla orchid is pollinated by the melipone, a tiny bee that cannot survive outside Mexico. So commercially cultivated Vanilla planifolia must be hand-pollinated, making it expensive.

BIOS Hazan Muriel/Still Pictures

A 'chameleon snake', recently discovered by WWF conservationists in Borneo's rainforests, the Kapuas mud snake appears reddish-brown in daylight, but goes white in the dark. Researchers think this may help control body temperature, as dark skin absorbs sunlight. Some 360 species have been discovered in Borneo in the last decade.

Mark Auliya/WWF