Giant flying frogs, a fish that mates face-to-face, a parachute gecko, and a blind cave spider are among the hundreds of species recently discovered in the Mekong region of southeast Asia. There’s a Zorro-masked water snake, a skydiving gecko, a “fishzilla” walking snakehead fish, and, of course, the hunch-bat of Vietnam.

Oltaiyoni was found wandering all alone in the wild. Three-week-old Ashaka was stuck in a mud hole, desperate for help. Barsilinga was rescued at just two weeks old, when his mother was gravely wounded by poachers. I'm surrounded by these three orphans, and more, as they come in from a mud bath at their new home, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT), an organization in Nairobi, Kenya that rescues and rehabilitates elephants. But it's not until baby Sokotei, wrapped in a blanket, his sleepy eyes gazing at me, lifts his warm little trunk to my face, sucking at my cheek like a tiny vacuum, that I start brainstorming ways to bring the orphan, who lost his mom to a mysterious illness, back to my New York apartment.

The demand for ivory and other illegal animal parts is on the rise in China and other Asian markets, and in Africa, tens of thousands of elephants are being slaughtered each year to meet it. Rhinos and tigers - whose horns and various other parts are also popular in China and Vietnam - are aggressively poached as well.