Rufous hummingbird, moon jellyfish, puffer fish, dung beetle, veiled chameleon, and the Japanese macaque are featured on Google's animated Earth Day 2014 doodle.
The Google doodle begins with an animation of a rufous hummingbird hovering over flowers with mouseover text "The Rufous Hummingbird wishes you a happy Earth Day 2014!" Next to the image are three buttons - a search button that throws up Google results for Rufous Hummingbird, a share button that lets you share the doodle with the text "Celebrate Earth Day with the Rufous Hummingbird! #EarthDayDoodle" on Twitter, as well as buttons for sharing to Facebook and Google+, and the reload button that takes you to the next slide.
The next slide may throw up anyone of the five other species featured in the doodle - the dung beetle, veiled chameleon, Japanese macaque, moon jellyfish, puffer fish. Every species gets its own slide in the doodle, its own mouseover text - "The Dung Beetle/ Moon Jellyfish/ Puffer Fish/ Japanese Macaque/ Veiled Chameleon wishes you a happy Earth Day 2014!" as well as share buttons that you can use to share to Twitter ("Celebrate Earth Day with the Dung Beetle/ Moon Jellyfish/ Puffer Fish/ Japanese Macaque/ Veiled Chameleon! #EarthDayDoodle") or Google+ or Facebook. The search button shows you search results for Dung Beetle/ Moon Jellyfish/ Puffer Fish/ Japanese Macaque/ Veiled Chameleon. The reload button shows one of the species at random.
The first ever Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970. The idea was the brainchild Gaylord Nelson, then a US Senator from Wisconsin. Nelson conceived the idea after witnessing the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student movement that was going on at the time against the Vietnam war, Nelson dreamt of movement that would make people think about air and water pollution and force environmental protection onto the national political agenda.
Earth Day is now observed in around 192 countries, with activities being coordinated by the nonprofit Earth Day Network, chaired by the first Earth Day coordinator Denis Hayes.
For more Earth day doodles click here. Or you can see other recent Google doodles.
Earth Day Google doodles over the years