Long ears and an almost giraffe-like neck identify this gerenuk, or Waller's gazelle, standing in a clearing in Marsabit National Reserve in northern Kenya. The 579-square-mile (1,500-square-kilometer) park opened in 1967 and provides protection to some of Africa's most iconic animals, including elephants, kudu, leopards, and ostriches.
A peacock, perhaps competing with the surrounding flora, struts in full regalia amid the roses and manicured hedges of an English garden. A peacock’s brilliant tail feathers, or coverts, make up more than 60 percent of the bird’s total body length and are usually deployed during courtship displays.
Lacy tree branches cast their shadows on the Five Raths, seventh century Dravidian shrines to Hindu gods each carved from a single, massive granite boulder. The temples, located in Mahabalipuram in southern India, are, from left to right: The Ganesha Rath, the Durga cell, the Arjana Rath, the Bhima Rath, and the Dharmaraja Rath. The monuments were named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1984
蔢娑的树荫投影在Five Raths上。这些神庙建于公元七世纪,每座神庙里供奉一位印度教的神,每一座神像都是由一块独立的花岗岩巨石雕刻而成的。这些神庙位于南印度的Mahabalipuram,从左到右依次是:The Ganesha Rath, the Durga cell, the Arjana Rath, the Bhima Rath, and the Dharmaraja Rath. 。1984年,这些神庙被联合国教科文组织收录入世界遗产名录。
March 24, 2007
Gulf of Alaska, Alaska, USA, 1998
阿拉斯加湾 美国阿拉斯加
Photograph by Karen Kasmauski
A sea otter shares the waters of Alaska’s foggy Prince William Sound with a spill-containment vessel nearly a decade after the Exxon Valdez ran aground and fouled these pristine waters with 11 million gallons (40 million liters) of crude oil. Intense clean-up efforts after the disaster lasted more than four years.
Now, evidence of the spill is hard to detect. But some beaches still have Valdez oil buried just below the surface. And scientists say some animal species, including sea otters, harbor seals, harlequin ducks, and herring, have yet to recover from the spill’s negative effects.
Antarctica’s perennially ice-covered Lake Hoare bears the scars of sand and dirt that have worked their way from the surface down into the ice. Soil blows onto the lake from a nearby dry valley, warms in the sun, and melts downward, leaving a bubble column in its trail.
Cows graze amid a blanket of flowers in a pasture in the mountainous central European principality of Liechtenstein. The small huts that dot the landscape store hay and provide shelter for cattle during the winter. The Rhine River is visible in the distant valley.
A honeybee forages for pollen among cineraria flowers in Alpes-Maritimes in southeastern France. Alpes-Maritimes is home to Grasse, a flower-strewn medieval town known for the past two centuries as the perfume capital of France.
English cavalry soldiers in ceremonial capes and white-cockaded helmets sit their mounts before the Horse Guards building in central London. Until 1841, when Trafalgar Square was opened, the only way to access St. James and Buckingham Palace, home of the British royals, was through the Horse Guards building.
Rental rowboats crowd a shoreline of Beijing抯 Kunming Lake. The Temple of Buddhist Incense, with its multi-tiered roof, rises from the famed Summer Palace on Longevity Hill in the background. The opulent Summer Palace complex, located on the western edge of Beijing, was built in the mid-1700s as a retreat for Qing Dynasty imperial rulers.
A margay cat balances on a seemingly undersized tree branch on Barro Colorado Island. Though only 3,865 acres (1,564 hectares), the island, located in the Panama Canal waterway, is home to an amazing array of flora and fauna, including 1,369 plant species, 93 mammal species, and 366 bird species.
Waves from the Bay of Bengal lap at the 40-foot-wide (12-meter-wide) stone embankment surrounding the Shore Temples in Mahabalipuram, a seaside town in Tamil Nadu, India. These seventh and eighth century Dravidian relics with Buddhist elements are temples to the Hindu gods Vishnu and Shiva. The monuments in Mahabalipuram were named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1984