Camera-trap Study Takes 52,000 Images of Rare Wild Animals [PHOTOS]

Researchers set up more than 400 hidden cameras in order to capture images of some of the world's most elusive mammals.

A group of biologists successfully captured 52,000 images of some of the most fear-inducing creatures on this planet.

The photos were taken between 2008 and 2010 in forest areas in Brazil, Uganda, Surinam, Lao, Costa Rica, and Indonesia. Sixty cameras were placed in each location.

The normally camera-shy animals included a giant anteater, an endangered gorilla carrying her small child, jaguars, chimpanzees, and elephants.

"These kind of captured them doing what they're doing, being themselves," technical director of TEAM and lead author of the study Dr. Jorge Ahumada said, reported Wired Science.

The study was recently published in the journal "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society."

According to Wild Science, Ahumada said that the study and photographs will help raise awareness for these animals and that many of them are extremely endangered.

"The bigger the forest (mammals) live in, the higher the number and diversity of species, body sizes and diet types. Some mammals seem more vulnerable to habitat loss than others: insect-eating mammals - like anteaters, armadillos and some primates, are the first to disappear - while other groups, like herbivores, seem to be less sensitive," Ahumada said, according to Wired Science.

"The results of the study are important in that they confirm what we suspected: habitat destruction is slowly but surely killing our planet's mammal diversity," he added.