These handcrafted vessels, hewn from a single log and often in excess of 50 feet (15 meters) in length, likely carried the first Polynesians to the Hawaiian Islands more than 1,200 years ago.
A close-up of a mounted blue morpho butterfly shows its unique iridescent sheen. These mesmerizing insects, indigenous to the rain forests of Central and South America, get their cobalt hue not from pigment but from the thousands of semitransparent scales that filter blue from the visible spectrum and radiate it out from the wings.
Originally an Indian path, Broadway runs about 17 miles (26 kilometers), from the tip of Manhattan Island to the Bronx, intersecting some of New York City's most famed avenues.
This stark landscape between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains is considered the driest place on Earth, and some areas here have not received a drop of rain in hundreds of years. The terrain is so arid and forbidding, scientists came here to test the prototype for a rover destined for Mars.
The leopard seal, dubbed a "fierce, handsome brute" by a member of the famed 1914 Shackleton expedition, is a top Antarctic predator: fast, agile, voracious, and large, reaching some 12 feet (4 meters) in length and weighing more than a thousand pounds (450 kilograms).
In the foreground sits a cairn of red-brown volcanic stones, likely built by tourists. Locals usually dismantle the visitors' handiwork though.
European languages did not have a word for the color orange until the fruit of the same name arrived from Asia. The word "orange" comes form the Sanskrit naranga, which means orange tree.
Intricate both above and below ground, mangrove roots hold the plants upright in sodden soil, supply them with air when the tide rises, and, in some species, even remove salt from seawater.
A blind, albino crayfish swims through the inky depths of Sims Sink in northern Florida. These colorless crustaceans are among the few creatures that have adapted to the lightless world at the bottom of the region's aquifers, springs, and sinkholes. Many species who make their homes in these freshwater labyrinths are endemic to only a handful of aquifers and are found nowhere else in the world.
Locked in deep ice from February to April, the Gulf of Finland is alternately daunting and delightful. Passing ships are frequently trapped in the waters' notorious ice, but outdoor-loving Finns fish and swim under the gulf's icy crust.
Aswan was an important city in ancient times, linking the pharaonic centers in Egypt's north with the empire's southern territories.
More than half of the city's buildings were destroyed by the bomb, which packed the equivalent of 15,000 tons (13,600 metric tons) of TNT. About 70,000 to 80,000 of Hiroshima's 350,000 residents were killed by the blast, and many suffered long-term illnesses from the radiation.