Two jaguar cubs burned to death, their small bodies carbonized. Tapirs with raw, bloodied paws had been scalded by smoldering cinders. Nests of unhatched eggs from rare parrots were consumed by flames as tall as trees.

Wildfires are laying waste to Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland and one of the most important biodiversity sanctuaries on the planet.

And the blazes, the worst on record since Brazil started tracking fires in 1998, are taking a deadly toll on wild animals, including at-risk species that scientists have been working for decades to protect.

“We’re watching the biodiversity of the Pantanal disappear into ash,” said Gustavo Figueirôa, a biologist working for SOS Pantanal, a conservation nonprofit. “It’s being burned to a crisp.”

The Pantanal is a maze of rivers, forests and marshlands that sprawl over 68,000 square miles, an area 20 times the size of the Everglades. About 80 percent lies within Brazil, with the rest in Bolivia and Paraguay.