21 December 2025

Happy Holidays!

If you are celebrating I hope you have a very merry Christmas. And, if you aren’t, best wishes for a happy holiday season and the New Year.
I hope the 2025 is finishing well and you have some exciting travel lined-up for 2026.
The year started strong with a black Indochinese Leopard in Thailand, and ended strong too with my first Leopard Seal on Tierra del Fuego.
In-between it was filled with a fun-filled (and freezing) mole-rat safari through Romania; a stress-filled search for Sato’s Beaked Whales off Hokkaido; a high speed mammal weekend in China; a superb Clouded Leopard in Borneo; a stunning Banded Linsang in Thailand; and an epic adventure through Sulawesi that seems to have unearthed several species new to – or lost by – science (I’m tearing out what little hair I have left trying to finish the trip report). Thank you Jirayu, János, Mari, Frank, Shavez, Carlos & Marcelo for finding them, and to all the friends who came along on those trips.
And that is how 2025 turned into my biggest mammal year ever: 350 species. This impressed me until Ian Thompson told me how many he has seen this year!
Almost 120 of these were lifers. I thought the quest for lifers would get harder but it feels almost the opposite. And that is largely because of all the pioneering work this community is doing uncovering – and sharing – the world’s mammalian secrets one by one. So thank you all. These are exciting times!
Last, but not least, I want to give a shout out to all the tour operators, lodged and guides who advertise on mammalwatching. I know just about all of them personally. Good people who run great trips. And they are supporting this website through their advertising, helping our community to grow. So if you are thinking of where to go next then the Trip Providers Directory is a great place to start.
Next year I’m excited for trips to Northeast Brazil in May (still two spots open), the DRC for Bonobos; and chasing carnivores in Madagascar. There will be more.
What have been your 2025 highlights?  And what do you have planned for 2026?
All the best to mammalwatchers near and far. I hope to see you many of you – and many new mammals – next year.
Jon
Cover: a festive Leopard Seal from Tierra del Fuego
Post Views: 271

Post author

Jon Hall
Genetically Welsh, spiritually Australian, currently in New York City. I’ve also lived and worked in London, Canberra, Paris and Lusaka, and watched mammals in over 100 countries.
Post Views: 271

10 Comments

  • 21 December 2025
    Bruno Kovacs Gomez

    Hi Jon,
    What an amazing year you have had!! (Hopefully mine can be half as good as yours next year 🙂 )
    For me, my main mammalian highlights this year have been my first Cantabrian Brown Bears in Somiedo and my first Golden Jackal in Hungary.
    Hopefully I can meet you in the near future in a trip .
    Happy Holidays !
    Bruno

    1
  • 21 December 2025
    Andreas Jonsson

    The year highlight for me was a Black Indochinese Leopard in Kaeng Krachan.
    The biggest disappointment as usual the missed attempts for Sunda Clouded Leopard and Marbled Cat on Borneo 🙂 Probably another try 2026.

    No new species of cats for me 2025 which is the first year in a very long time, but it also getting harder and harder. Hope 2026 will bring some. Hopefully already in the end of February when Uganda is booked.

    Happy holidays and happy new mammalwatching year!

    1
  • 21 December 2025
    JanEbr

    Haha so you saw over half my my lifelist number in one year? I seem do be doing something very wrong 🙂

    For me on the one hand, this year was a bit limited by Ivana’s work obligations – yet on the other I almost can’t believe that we are still in the same year in which we discovered French Guiana. I guess doing more short trips instead of a small number of much longer ones actually makes the year feel longer.

    The discovery of French Guiana as a place with the freest rainforest access was surely a highlight, but it’s actually a pretty difficu

    1
    • 21 December 2025
      Jon Hall

      And wasn’t your French Guyana report already voted someone’s best report of the year? Definitely a highlight!

      • 21 December 2025
        JanEbr

        Huh, this commenting thing didn’t work entirely as planned 🙂 Anyway what I wanted to say that Alex’s Azores present a pretty stiff competition to FH as to what was the 2025 highlight!

        And we are off to Dominican Republic on the 24th for “Christmas” 🙂

        1
  • 22 December 2025
    Cory Cravatta

    I’m terrible at keeping track of my sightings but this has, definitely been a lifer year for me as well. Not sure what my top sighting is but its got to either be my first wolverine that stayed in view long enough for photos, the fleeting otter civet in Borneo, or perhaps my wild Jon Hall sighting in Kaeng Krachan. Hopefully the next time I run into you, I’ll know who you are and we’ll actually chat in person.

    Have lots of trips planned this year. Leaving for China with Sid this Friday. Heading to India from there. Have Jirayu booked in May and then back to Borneo for another attempt at Clouded Leopard and Marbled Cats. May be continuing on to more locations from Borneo if things work out.

    Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and my best for a wonderful and mammal filled 2026.

    1
    • 23 December 2025
      Jon Hall

      I think a wolverine beats otter civet and sure as hell beats me! Where did you see that – did you send a report (sorry if I don’t remember that one). Sounds like lots of fun stuff planned for next year!

  • 23 December 2025
    Cory Cravatta

    I didn’t do a report. It was when I was in Alaska for my summer job at Katmai National Park this year. Saw one last year but didn’t have a chance to photograph it. Actually had three sightings this year but one stayed in view for about five minutes.

  • 23 December 2025
    Samuel Marlin

    Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you Jon and all the mammal watcher community.
    It is always so much pleasure to visit this website and read all these great trip reports.
    We had many 2025 highlights: first a cool pale fox in Senegal (in January), then sun bear, leopard cat and many cool primates in Thailand (in April, we missed the black leopard though), then a miserable trip to Greece in May but we managed however to get good observation of Mediterranean monk seal and finally a marvelous wedding anniversary trip to Botswana/Zambia where we had chance with lions (mating, hunting), leopard (hunting), wild dogs (a pack with 12 pups!), many mongoose species and brilliant night drives.
    2026 should be even better I hope, since we booked: 1 full week in Tai Forest, Ivory Coast (leaving in 3 days), 1 week in Estonia in February for Eurasian lynx, 1 week in April in CAR/Dzanga Sangha area and 3 weeks in Malaysia/Borneo with the main part organized by Martin Royle for the classic cat & nocturnal tour 🙂
    regards
    Samuel

    1

Leave a Reply