Photo of the Day 18 October 2008

Grazing Eland, Drakensberg Range, South Africa, 2001
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
The rich foliage, roots, and bulbs on the slopes of South Africa's Drakensberg Range attract a wide variety of mammals, including eland, the world's largest antelope species. Logging, overgrazing, and soil erosion, however, threaten this critical African habitat.

Photo of the Day 17 October 2008

Convent Tower, Trinidad, Cuba, 1994
Photograph by David Alan Harvey
The bell tower of the Church and Convent of Saint Francis rises above the cobblestone streets of Trinidad, Cuba, a colonial town so well preserved it's often referred to as a "museum city." Built by Franciscan monks in the early 18th century, the church now houses a museum focusing on the fight against counterrevolutionaries in the early days of communist Cuba.

Photo of the Day 16 October 2008

Wrestling Wolves, Ely, Minnesota, 1998
Photograph by Joel Sartore
Gray wolves, like these two wrestling at Ely, Minnesota's International Wolf Center, were hunted to near extinction in the western U.S. in the 1800s and early 1900s. But 34 years on the Endangered Species List and a successful federal reintroduction program begun in 1995 has helped the species recover dramatically. Western populations were delisted in February of 2008.

Photo of the Day 15 October 2008

Persian Ruins, Persepolis, Iran, 1999
Photograph by Alexandra Avakian
The ancient city of Persepolis in modern-day Iran was one of four capitals of the sprawling Persian Empire. Built beginning around 520 B.C., the city was a showcase for the empire's staggering wealth, with grand architecture, extravagant works of silver and gold, and extensive relief sculptures such as this one.

The height of Persian rule lasted from about 550 B.C. until 330 B.C., when Alexander the Great overthrew the ruling Archaemenid dynasty and burned Persepolis to the ground.

Photo of the Day 14 October 2008

Tribal Dancers, Ndumu Game Reserve, South Africa, 1996
Photograph by Chris Johns
Dance for South Africa's Zulu is like storytelling, with each movement imbued with historical and cultural significance. Here, the crimson skirt of a tribeswoman sways during a performance at the Ndumu Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal.

Photo of the Day 13 October 2008

Iceberg, Jakobshavn Fjord, Greenland, 2007
Photograph by James Balog
At four miles (six kilometers) wide and several thousand feet thick Jakobshavn Isbræ disgorges icebergs like these faster than any other of Greenland's glaciers. Its output, accelerated by global warming, totals some 11 cubic miles (45 cubic kilometers) of ice each year.

Photo of the Day 12 October 2008

Fisherman on the Yellowstone River, United States, 1997
Photograph by Annie Griffiths Belt
Deep in thought on his boat near the snowy banks of the Yellowstone River, a fisherman examines his bait. The Yellowstone River is the longest undammed river remaining in the lower 48 states, flowing for 670 miles (1,078 kilometers) through Wyoming and Montana before ending in North Dakota, where it joins the Missouri River.

Photo of the Day 11 October 2008

Coastline, Big Sur, California, 2000
Photograph by Frans Lanting
The Santa Lucia Range sprawls down to the rocky coastline in Big Sur, California. This wall of mountains plunges into the Pacific along 90 celebrated miles (145 kilometers) of California coast. State and federal preserves protect the wild solitude that lures artists, seekers, and plain folk to Big Sur.

Photo of the Day 10 October 2008

Buddhist Pilgrims, Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, Tibet, 2000
Photograph by Maria Stenzel
Pilgrims pray outside Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet. Inside this massive temple are some of Buddhism's most important icons, including the famed Jowo Rinpoche statue—a seated Buddha installed when Buddhism was adopted by Tibetan royalty in the seventh century.

Photo of the Day 9 October 2008

Yawning Tiger, Siberia, Russia, 2000
Photograph by Reza
The millions of acres of virgin forest in eastern Russia are home to an extraordinary variety of wildlife, including about 350 endangered Amur tigers, such as this adult yawning in a Siberian field.

Photo of the Day 8 October 2008

Ice Hikers, South Islands, New Zealand, 2002
Photograph by David McLain
Hikers negotiate a crevasse on Franz Josef Glacier in South Island, New Zealand. This highly accessible river of ice begins in the peaks of the Southern Alps, but flows some 8,000 vertical feet (2,400 vertical meters) into the lush rain forest of New Zealand's Westlands National Park.

Photo of the Day 7 October 2008

Coconut Palm, New Caledonia, France, 2000
Photograph by Peter Essick
A coconut palm stands on a breezy tropical beach in France's New Caledonia. Tourists enjoy these sun-soaked beaches, but botanists explore the island’s incredible plant diversity. Out of 3,400 identified native plant species, three-quarters are endemic to this archipelago and many can be traced to the Cretaceous era.

Photo of the Day 6 October 2008

Tutankhamun Tomb Mural, Valley of the Kings, Egypt, 2005
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett
A mural on the north wall of Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb maps out his journey to the next world. Here, the sky goddess Nut, second from left, welcomes Tut to the realm of the gods. The black, zigzaggy symbols in Nut's open palms symbolize a greeting.

Carved into the Valley of the Kings, Tut's tomb hid his mummy and funerary regalia until archaeologist Howard Carter revealed its contents to world acclaim in 1922. Though the peripheral rooms were looted in antiquity, the burial itself remained untouched.

Photo of the Day 5 October 2008

Lighthouse at Twilight, Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, 2000
Photograph by Kenji Yamaguchi
A gentle twilight surrounds North Carolina's historic Cape Hatteras lighthouse. Since the Civil War, the lighthouse has guided ships through this treacherous stretch of ocean, dubbed the Graveyard of the Atlantic. In 2000, this iconic landmark was relocated a half mile (0.8 kilometers) inland due to a shifting shoreline.

Photo of the Day 4 October 2008

Islands, Wellington, New Zealand, 2002
Photograph by Frans Lanting
New Zealand is one of the world's richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life. Today more than a third of the country's land, including offshore islands, is protected as parks and reserves.

Photo of the Day 3 October 2008

Approaching Storm, Wyndham, Australia, 2004
Photograph by Randy Olson
Lightning dances on the horizon at dusk near Five Rivers Lookout outside of Wyndham in northern Australia. Intense tropical storms illuminate the evening sky at the start of the "wet"—the rainy season that lasts from about December to March. "When the wet arrives and you feel the wind coming at you," says photographer Randy Olson, "that's the best feeling in the world in these hot little towns."

Photo of the Day 2 October 2008

Soccer and Sailboats, Port Townsend, Washington, 1984
Photograph by Sam Abell
A bustling seaport in the late 19th century, Port Townsend, Washington, has fought to maintain its historic charm. More than a million visitors come each year to see its Victorian mansions, mountain vistas, and water spectacles, like the Wooden Boat Festival in Puget Sound (top).

Photo of the Day 1 October 2008

Monastery, Petra, Jordan, 1998
Photograph by Annie Griffiths Belt
The moon peeks over the imposing architecture of the Monastery (Al Deir) in Petra, Jordan. The formidable Monastery, built more than 2,000 years ago, was probably a shrine for the Nabataean people of ancient Petra.

Photo of the Day 30 September 2008

Thermal Vent, New Zealand, 2004
Photograph by Peter Essick
Scientists believe that forests, grasslands, and the waters of the oceans act as carbon sinks—stealing back roughly half of the carbon dioxide we humans emit, slowing its buildup in the atmosphere and delaying its effects on climate.

Eons pass before carbon, buried in the Earth's crust, issues as a gas from a volcanic vent in New Zealand (above), or locked up in limestone, erodes off mountains. Carbon cycles faster when decaying from a leaf or traveling as wind-tossed pollen.

Photo of the Day 29 September 2008

Crumbling Billboard, Arizona, 1997
Photograph by Vincent J. Musi
A crumbling billboard overlooks Arizona’s historic stretch of Route 66. This fabled road once linked towns of all sizes from Chicago to Los Angeles, serving as the main thoroughfare for generations of westward migrants.

Photo of the Day 28 September 2008

Ritual Dancers, Tsurphu Monastery, Lhasa, Tibet, 2000
Photograph by Maria Stenzel
Tibetans believe both the negative and positive things done during Losar, the Tibetan New Year celebration, reverberate through the year to come. Here, Buddhist monks from the Tsurphu Monastery near Lhasa chase away bad spirits with a dance honoring the dharmapala divinity.

Photo of the Day 27 September 2008

Black Sea Castle, Yalta, Russia/Ukraine, 1987
Photograph by Steve Raymer
The neo-Gothic Swallow's Nest castle perches 130 feet (40 meters) above the Black Sea near Yalta in southern Ukraine. Built by a German noble in 1912, the flamboyant seaside residence now houses an Italian restaurant.

Photo of the Day 26 September 2008

Killer Croc, Gatumba, Burundi, 2004
Photograph by Bobby Model
A villager of Gatumba, Burundi, displays a photograph of an infamous Nile crocodile known as Gustave as workers in the background wade in the Rusizi River. Estimated in 2004 to be 20 feet (6 meters) long and 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms), Gustave is reputed to have devoured scores, even hundreds people along the Rusizi and Lake Tanganyika.

Photo of the Day 25 September 2008

Fossil Mold, Aus, Namibia, 1998
Photograph by O. Louis Mazzatenta
A paleontologist in Aus, Namibia, makes a mold of a Pteridinium by brushing multiple layers of latex on the fossil. Though their remains are common in many parts of the world, much about these and other similar Precambrian life forms has puzzled scientists, including whether they were plants, animals, or something in between.

Photo of the Day 24 September 2008

Chiru Expedition, Chang Tang, Tibet, 2002
Photograph by Galen Rowell
An expedition member hauls a custom-built ricksha laden with supplies across the desolate Chang Tang alpine steppe in northern Tibet. A group of elite mountaineers put together the expedition to witness births at the remote calving grounds of the elusive chiru, or Tibetan antelope.

The expeditioners chose to use lightweight rickshas instead of four-wheel-drive vehicles, which would get stuck in the mud and spook the chiru with engine noise.

Photo of the Day 23 September 2008

Cerro Llullaillaco, Argentina, 1999
Photograph by Maria Stenzel
A view from the top of Cerro Llullaillaco (Yu-YAI-ya-ko) shows the stark expanse of the Andes Mountains in western Argentina. In 1998, Llullaillaco's 22,000-foot (6,700-meter) summit yielded an Inca ruin containing dozens of artifacts and three perfectly preserved children sacrificed some 500 years ago. It still ranks as the world's highest archaeological site.

Photo of the Day 22 September 2008

Bat Eating a Frog, Barro Colorado Island, Panama, 2007
Photograph by Christian Ziegler
A fringe-lipped bat on Panama's Barro Colorado Island holds a Tungara frog in its powerful jaws. This bat's extra-large ears help it detect frogs from the sound of their mating calls, even distinguishing the songs of edible species from those of toxic ones.

Photo of the Day 21 September 2008

View of Pumice Plain and Mount St. Helens, Washington, 2000
Photograph by Jim Richardson
Vegetation has returned to the scenery of Washington’s Pumice Plain, which was stripped of life after Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. Despite the immense pyroclastic flow (a mix of hot gas and ash) that scoured these plains after the eruption, the purple flowers of prairie lupines appeared within a few years and accelerated the landscape’s recovery.

Photo of the Day 20 September 2008

Asian Puppets and Sculptures, Chicago, Illinois, 2002
Photograph by Catherine Karnow
Asian religious sculptures and puppets welcome visitors to the Indochina Company, a specialty shop in Chicago's trendy Wicker Park neighborhood. First incorporated in 1837, Wicker Park's diverse real estate has attracted an eclectic mix of residents, from steel workers to beer barons to artists.

Photo of the Day 19 September 2008

Aerial View of Islands, New Caledonia, France, 2000
Photograph by Peter Essick
This aerial view captures the aquamarine waves gently crashing onto an idyllic tropical island and islet in France's New Caledonia. This archipelago’s main island, Grande Terre, began to break away from Australia (formerly part of the supercontinent Gondwana) approximately 80 million years ago.

Photo of the Day 18 September 2008

Wildfire, Big Sur, California, 2000
Photograph by Frans Lanting
A wildfire encroaches on a tree in California's still wild Big Sur. Strict zoning laws and a limited water supply ensure that the area has not become overly populated, and nature, too, has done her part to keep developers away: In 1997 a fire raged in the Santa Lucia Range for three weeks. Big Sur naturalist John Smiley calls the wildfires simply "another type of weather."

Photo of the Day 17 September 2008

Jellyfish, South Africa, 2003 Photograph by David Doubilet
A Catostylus species jellyfish seems frozen in place in this split-level view off the coast of South Africa.

Marine invertebrates, jellyfish are found in every ocean in the world.

Photo of the Day 16 September 2008

Hippo, Zambezi River, Africa, 1997
Photograph by Chris Johns
The gape-mouthed territorial display of a dominant male hippopotamus, such as this one on the Zambezi River, looks more like a colossal yawn. During mating season, males will claim a length of shoreline and fiercely defend it, occasionally even killing a bachelor rival.

Photo of the Day 15 September 2008

Saint Naum Church, Ohrid, Macedonia, 1983
Photograph by Otis Imboden
The Church of Saint Naum, originally built in A.D. 910, stands illuminated by candlelight on its perch above Macedonia's Lake Ohrid. The nearby town of Ohrid was once the capital of a sprawling Bulgarian empire ruled by Tsar Samuel and later conquered by the Byzantines.

Photo of the Day 14 September 2008

Clouds, Yemen, 1979
Photograph by Steve Raymer
Clouds gather in a dramatic sky over north Yemen, once a crossroads for the frankincense trade. To the Romans this elbow of land along the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden was Arabia Felix—Happy Arabia—perhaps because the abundance of silks, spices, and pearls that came north by camel caravan made it seem a bountiful place.

Photo of the Day 13 September 2008

Buffalo Carcass, Zakouma National Park, Chad, 2007
Photograph by Michael Nichols
Chad's Zakouma National Park, a rare wildlife refuge in tumultuous central Africa, comprises less that 1,200 square miles (3,100 square kilometers), but its permanent water sources attract an abundance of large and small fauna. This buffalo took its last breath near one of Zakouma's rivers.

Photo of the Day 12 September 2008

Vapor Trails, Jordan, 1984
Photograph by Jodi Cobb
Vapor trails stretch behind a Royal Jordanian Falcons plane during an air show over Jordan's Wadi Rum mountains. Formed in 1976, the Falcons have performed throughout the world and have earned a reputation for their precision and professionalism.

Photo of the Day 11 September 2008

Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, New York, 2000
Photograph by Theo Westenberger
May 24, 2008, marked the 125th anniversary of the opening of New York's Brooklyn Bridge. The elegant structure slung over the East River took more than 13 years to build and was at the time the longest suspension bridge in the world. With its stocky towers and delicate webs of steel cables, the bridge is still regarded as an architectural marvel.

Photo of the Day 10 September 2008

Prayer Candles, Lhasa, Tibet, 2003
Photograph by Galen Rowell
Built in 1416, the Drepung Monastery outside Lhasa, Tibet, was once the largest monastery in the world, housing up to 10,000 monks. Here, candles illuminate one of the giant building's chanting halls.

Photo of the Day 9 September 2008

Gulliver's Travels Theme Park, Japan, 2002
Photograph by Karen Kasmauski
A Lilliputian-like worker scrubs the giant head of Gulliver at Japan's now defunct Gulliver's Travels theme park in the shadow of Mount Fuji. Surrounded by the amusing and the mundane, Fuji—Japan's most sacred summit—manages to rise above it all.

Photo of the Day 8 September 2008

Farm and Floodwaters, Bangladesh, 1993
Photograph by James P. Blair
Raging rivers in Bangladesh create arable islands of silt, called chars, then slowly scrape away at their shorelines until eventually they disappear. More than 60 percent of Bangladeshis work in the agriculture sector.

Photo of the Day 7 September 2008

Bug on Ripening Fig, Borneo, Indonesia, 1997
Photograph by Tim Laman
A bug feeds on a ripening tropical fig in Borneo’s Gunung Palung National Park. The rain forest contains many varieties of these strangler fig trees, and their fruit is a critical food source for numerous rain forest dwellers, including monkeys, civets, butterflies, and ants.

Photo of the Day 6 September 2008

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska, 2003
Photograph by Frans Lanting
Seen from above, a network of countless tributaries gleams like molten metal in Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Larger than Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts combined, the park protects more than 13 million acres (5 million hectares) of mountains, tundra, forests, ice fields—and solitude.

Photo of the Day 5 September 2008

Bernina Express Train, Europe, 2000
Photograph by Joe Patronite
The Bernina Express crosses a stone bridge during its rapid yet stunning journey from the Alps of Switzerland to the meadows of Italy. This train’s roller-coaster route through scenic canyons and forests includes a freestanding loop, mountain switchbacks, and curving bridges.

Photo of the Day 4 September 2008

Stonehenge, Wiltshire Plain, England, 2006
Photograph by Jodi Cobb
Stonehenge on England's Wiltshire Plain is the most famous relic of prehistory in Europe and one of the best known, most contemplated monuments in the world.

Photo of the Day 3 September 2008

Lynx Trap, British Columbia, Canada, 2005
Photograph by Amy Toensing
A bird's wing waves above a trap set for lynx in British Columbia, Canada. Captured for conservation, trapped cats are set free in the Colorado Rockies—part of a project to restore the lynx to their historic range after decades of absence.

Photo of the Day 2 September 2008

Inca Child Sacrifice, Cerro Llullaillaco, Argentina, 1999
Photograph by Maria Stenzel
Five centuries after Inca priests sacrificed this boy and two other children on a peak called Cerro Llullaillaco in Argentina, archaeologists found them frozen to near perfection, accompanied by breathtaking artifacts and textiles.

Richly wrapped Inca child sacrifices were more than just gifts to the gods. They were ambassadors, sometimes volunteered by their families, sometimes taken from them. This boy, perhaps eight years old, wore a tunic big enough to grow into and carried extra sandals for his journey into the next world.

Photo of the Day 1 September 2008

Fishing Boats, Hebei, China, 2003
Photograph by Michael Yamashita
Fishermen prepare their nets on Panjakou Reservoir in Hebei, China. This tranquil lake, formed when the Luan River was dammed in the late 1970s, hides a stretch of China's Great Wall. The submerged structure now serves as an artificial reef, which attracts the carp these fishermen seek.

Photo of the Day 31 August 2008

Luther-Translated Bible, Eisenach, Germany, 1983
Photograph by James L. Amos
A copy of the Bible translated from Greek to German by religious reformer Martin Luther in 1521 lies open to the New Testament in a dimly lit room in Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, Germany. Luther lived incognito at the castle for nearly a year after he was declared an outlaw by the Roman emperor for refusing to recant his Reformation writings.

Photo of the Day 30 August 2008 - 1 YEAR CELEBRATION!

Temple Ruins, Near Marib, Yemen, 1979
Photograph by Steve Raymer
Pillars of a Sabaean moon-god temple jut from the desert near Marib, Yemen, offering clues to a powerful kingdom that may have been ruled by the legendary Queen of Sheba, mentioned in both the Koran and the Bible.