#National Geographic Image Collection

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Svalbard Archipelago, Norway In temperatures that plunged to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, Norwegian research vessel R.V. Lance spent six months tethered to floating sea ice near the Svalbard archipelago to study how it behaves in the Arctic. Unlike most Arctic expeditions, the Lance conducted its study during the winter months. Photograph by Nick Cobbing, Nat Geo Image Collection

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“Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.” ― Ronald D. Laing, The Politics of Experience/The Bird of Paradise

[xtruss]

Brain samples are taken from the Copper-Age Mummy Ötzi, who was encased in ice shortly after death. This Natural Mummification preserved the body for some 5,000 years before its discovery in 1991. Photograph By Robert Clark, National Geographic Image Collection

These Mummies Were Made … By Accident?

Freeze-dried, salted, or buried in a bog: Thousands of years before humans intentionally mummified their dead, nature took care of it for them.

— By Elise Cutts | August 7, 2023

A mummy isn’t exactly something one would expect to make by accident.

Left to nature, a human body would usually be reduced to bones within a few years. Mummy-making cultures like the ancient Egyptians were only able to stave off the inevitable thanks to complex funerary practices involving all manner of specialized tools, chemicals, and procedures.

But there are paths to mummified eternity that don’t involve canopic jars, natron salts, or brain-removing hooks. In fact, some of the oldest Egyptian mummies were likely accidents, says Frank Rühli, director of the University of Zurich’s Institute of Evolutionary Medicine and head of the Paleopathology and Mummy Studies Group.

Buried in shallow graves, bodies can be naturally preserved for thousands of years by the dry heat of the Sahara’s desert air and sand. Rühli says he believes this could have inspired ancient Egyptians to start mummifying their honored dead.

Hot deserts are just one of many environments in which corpses naturally mummify. Scientists explain how environments ranging from bogs to icy mountaintops can stave off decay and—with a bit of luck—mummify bodies.

Deserts

The Egyptians aren’t the only desert culture known for their mummies. The Chinchorro people of northern Chile started to intentionally mummify their dead about 2,000 years before the Egyptians—and thousands of years before that, the Atacama Desert was doing it for them.

“One of the things that's interesting about the Chinchorro mummies is that some of them were intentionally prepared, while other were naturally mummified,” says physical anthropologist Bernardo Arriaza of the University of Tarapacá in Chile, who spent his career studying the Chinchorro mummies.

A bone-dry corpse, perhaps ironically, will likely leave more than bones.

A Landscape of the Desert! The Atacama desert plateau is one of the driest places in the World. Mummies have been found here that predate ancient Egypt’s by 2,000 years. Photograph By Naftali Hilger, Laif/Redux

Decay is a biological process and without water, biology can’t work. This is why deserts preserve bodies so well and why Egyptian and Chinchorro mummification practices involved steps to dry out the body.

The oldest Chinchorro mummy, Acha Man, was naturally preserved by the desert for more than 9,000 years. Natural mummies have been found in deserts around the world. Among the most well-preserved are the Tarim mummies of Xinjiang, China, who were buried in boat-shaped coffins up to 4,000 years ago in the Taklamakan Desert.

Salt

For a handful unfortunate Iranian miners caught in cave-ins at the Chehrabad salt mine, salt did the job just as well as deserts.

"They were working in the salt mine and then it collapsed,” says Rühli, who studied the mummies. This actually happened multiple times—at least twice, says Rühli—over about 1000 years, entombing young men separated from one another by centuries in the salt they’d come to mine. Though the weight of the salt crushed the miners, flattening their corpses, the salty rock drew the water out of their bodies and mummified their squashed remains.

Salts in the dry soils of the Atacama Desert also helped preserve the Chinchorro mummies, says Arriaza. The soils are rich in nitrate compounds, nitrogen, potassium, sodium, calcium. “Mostly salts,” he says. “That's going to help dehydrate the body.”

Ice

Removing the water from a corpse isn’t the only way to stop decay. Low temperatures slow down most biological processes, and freezing a body completely can keep it from rotting for thousands of years.

Pathologist Andreas Nerlich of the Munich Klinik Bogenhausen studied Ötzi, a 5,300-year-old ice mummy who was found poking out of melting glacier ice in the Ötztal alps near the Austrian-Italian border. “They're preserved as long as the ice is there,” he says of mummies like Ötzi.

While “very rare,” adds Nerlich, ice mummies like Ötzi can be remarkably well-preserved compared to dehydrated mummies. That’s because dehydration shrivels and distorts tissues, but frozen organs mostly keep their shape.

Permafrost, earth that remains frozen year-round, can also mummify. One Siberian mummy, the 2,500 year-old Ice Maiden, was quite literally frozen in a block of ice after her burial chamber flooded and the water quickly froze. Because her burial chamber was constructed from permafrost earth, the ice that formed inside never melted.

Freeze-Drying

Combining cold and dry conditions can mummify bodies even when it’s not consistently chilly enough to keep a body frozen year-round. That’s what happened to a handful of Thule Inuit women and children in Greenland. They were naturally mummified in their graves after their deaths, likely caused by famine or disease, in the 15th and 16th centuries.

It’s a bit like natural freeze-drying, says paleopathologist Niels Lynnerup of the University of Copenhagen, who studied the mummies.

“Even though it's very cold in Greenland, it's not like it's in the high Arctic with permafrost,” he says. The bodies were buried under rocky covers or cairns, so “they still had wind blowing through.” The wind desiccated the bodies and, combined with the bacteria-slowing effect of cold temperatures, mummified them.

Many of the Inca mummies discovered high on Andean mountaintops were preserved by freeze-drying, too. The exceptionally well-preserved Maiden of Llullaillaco, the mummy of a teenage Inca girl left to succumb to cold on an Andean mountaintop as a sacrifice, is a unique case as she was frozen solid.

Even the conditions in cool, dry crypts can sometimes preserve remains in a similar way so long as bodies are either well-ventilated or kept under airtight conditions after being dried out, says Nerlich. Several natural mummies in crypts weren’t entirely accidents. One Upper Austrian mummy known as the Luftg’selchter Pfarrer was intentionally stuffed with water-absorbing materials and treated with salts to delay decay temporarily before he naturally mummified in his crypt.

Bogs

Natural mummification almost always involves somehow getting rid of water, either by removing it entirely or turning it into ice. So may be a bit surprising that wet, swampy bogs can preserve human remains for millennia.

The oldest bog mummy is Cashel Man, who was probably killed in a sacrifice around 2,000 B.C. His body was naturally mummified because of the unusual chemical conditions in bogs.

“There are several factors which cause human remains to be mummified in bogs,” says archaeologist Isabella Mulhall of the National Museum of Ireland. “The lack of oxygen, the cool dark environment… the [acidity] levels of the bog also has a role to play.”

A type of moss often found in bogs also helps mummify bodies, Mulhall adds. Sphagnum moss releases an acidic sugary molecule called sphagnan, which takes up the nutrients that would otherwise nourish microbes that cause decay. This helps mummify corpses—though sphagnan also leaches the calcium out of bones, weakening them.

The acidic fluids in bogs chemically alter the body, not unlike leather tanning or pickling. That’s why most bog bodies, no matter how they looked in life, have dark, leathery skin and bright red hair.

Many bog bodies appear to have met rather violent ends—a fate shared with many other natural mummies. But because luck happened to preserve their bodies, the victims of these ancient tragedies can still tell scientists about themselves and their societies. The same processes that mummify human skin and organs can also sometimes preserve undigested food in the stomach, blood, traces of disease-causing microbes, and even clues about the ecosystems and climates that ancient people lived in.

“In a sense,” says Arriaza, “all these ancient remains are time capsules.”

[shirecorn]

Finding Beyond Nemo

I did a quick search around the internet and collected some blogs and websites to discover unusual fish species for mermay inspiration (and because fish are fun)

Doing a clownfish mermaid is great, but what about doing a fish you only discovered that day? Let's see what we can reel in with these sites.

Tumblr blogs!

@herpsandbirds offers amphibians, reptiles, birds, and a bunch of other unusual and awesome critters including fish!

herps and birds fish tag

for a truly random experience, browse @hellsitegenetics to see what aquatic wonders are hiding in our posts.

You could also browse the entire tag of #ichthyology, the study of fish

Creature Websites!

Now to sail off tumblr to some of the sites I've browsed in the past, designed to introduce you to new species across the planet. I've narrowed these links down to fish sorted entries, but please browse the rest of the sites for fun as well!

My favorite for many years, The Featured Creature! Make sure to open every article to see the fish in question, as the article previews don't always show that each post has many beautiful photos of beautiful fish

Another archive with dozens of pages of fish spotlights! Check out activewild and see what you can sea

A classic! Check out articles and species spotlights of National Geographic

There's also lots of smaller blogs with only a page or so of fish. Coffeeandcreatures, thewildlife.blog and many many many more!

Start a new bookmarks category, pinterest board, or image folder and just start throwing fish in there. Your ocean of ideas will never run dry.

Not an artist but desperately want to see an obscure mermaid? You can ask me to tackle it! Just make sure you've browsed my mermay tag to make sure I haven't done it in years prior.

Request a mermaid here!

If you're an artist and you used this list to discover a new species, let me know! I love seeing what other people find interesting.

Happy mermay!

[whiskersonkittens65]

National Geographic Image Collection/ Paul Nicklen

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Orcas (pictured, a pod in Norway) are likely the most widespread vertebrate on the planet.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL NICKLEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION

[mesetacadre]

hopefully not a weird question with everything that's going on, but do you have any recommendations about what geography toys/resources are best for kids? my little brother's really interested but I don't see him often enough to play globle with him or show him world maps (his favorite games rn) so I thought I'd give him something :} (just wondering if there's a good way to help him learn)

Online resources I'd recommend are sporcle and seterra for quizzes (the no borders blank map ones in sporcle are really fun), and for just looking at maps there's geamap, mapsland, gifex, library of congress, the rumsey historical map collection, the university of cape town, old maps online, the british library, and the national library of australia, there's many more but these are most of the ones in my bookmarks.

If you do want to encourage him to develop an interest in geography as a field of study, I would show him how some online geographical information systems (GIS) work, but I don't think I can link any useful ones because all I know are the GIS managed by the various Spanish institutions and ministries. I'd consider this important because geography is much, much more than memorizing features on a map, even if I've always enjoyed that (and if he's still in primary school/early secondary, it'll definitely be useful to memorize some countries). Those GIS allow you to pick and choose between many layers and a basic set of tools, so even if you're just curious and not in the mood for figuring some connections out, they have a lot more information than the set of printed maps, because not all that information has been actually mapped out and made available on those sites. For example, if you want to see the distribution of land plots where you live, it's simply easier, and probably the only option, to go look at the GIS an administration has made public, like the cadastre or the tax admin, than sleuth through all these sites and Google images for relevant already printed maps.

[aisling-saoirse]

Plant of the day: Black Cherry - Prunus serotina

Today I wanted to recognize a lovely early successional tree species, one of America's showiest "Cherry" species and a vigorous ecological powerhouse

Black cherry has quite the unusual range, commonly found All over the Eastern US but has multiple geographically distinctive subspecies throughout the West and Mexico. North from Minnesota to Nova Scotia south to mid Florida to east Texas, Additionally it can be found in Big Bend National Park, areas of Arizona and New Mexico. South of the border Black Cherry is found throughout the East, West, and South Sierra Madres mountains reaching as far south as Guatemala.

Black Cherry as I've encountered it grows mostly in old fields and disturbed grounds, but apparently in Mexico it occupies mountainous regions. The species is also able to live long enough to be part of some older forests as well. In terms of finding it, If you've ever driven down an Eastern-Midwest highway in May, you'll notice plenty with a stunning display of white flowers (see below). I saw them all the way out to Kansas on Route 70.

This cherry occupies weedy environments very well, usually ending up with twisted bent forms and has an incredibly high germination rate. This vigorous tree can dominate a seed bank for years (I've pulled probably thousands from my garden beds). In Europe-East Asia it is considered a problematic invasive...but here where it's native it can outcompete the worst competition.

Identifying black cherry is rather easy, it has a dark flakey semi-plated bark (below), while the stems are notably cherry like (horizontal fissures) at the stems and intact portions of bark. The heart wood is notably orangish in color and the leaves give off the cherry-like odor when crushed. Leaves are typically longish symmetrical semi-shiny, darkish green with one very visible vein and shallow serated edges. Flowers are white clusters reminiscent of horns present around late May to early June. The ripe fruit is blackish red and present around August, on a good year it's quite plentiful (and delicious).

Black cherry is a wild edible in a few forms. I personally like to snack on the sour ripe fruit and spit out the large seeds, in Mexico these fruits are referred to as cupelines! The most fruitful useage is probably making jelly from collected fruit (something I do not know how to do). Cough syrups were historically derived from the bark and are still present in popular tea flavors such as "throat coats" (awful name).

While marginally edible to us the black cherry is ecologically the most important native cherry species for wildlife. Not only is there plentiful fruit for birds and large mammals the tree is rated number three amoung supported lepidoptera species. Per Doug Tallamy and Kim Shropshire's research the Prunus genus supports [at least] 465 species of invertebrates.

In this vein a common species which inhabits these trees are eastern tent caterpillars (image from inaturalist). I bring them up only because people commonly confuse them for the spongy moth (formerly g*psy moth). But tent caterpillars live in groups and only really eat prunus species whereas spongy moths are devastating and solitary. Interestingly enough the leaves of black cherry contain enough cyanide to make these caterpillars toxic to most predators! Don't break up the tent, tent caterpillars won't kill your tree.

In terms of modern relationships with the tree, people mostly use it as a higher quality cabinetry wood. I believe this species is one of the more common cherry woods to recieve, it has a strong orange hue to its wood which lasts. People also refer this species as an aromatic wood...however having cut down multiple of these trees I hate the smell, fresh cuts are like a chemical cyanide scent...

Lastly I'll bring up causes for decline, lately I've seen a reduction in black cherry due to an introduced fungus called the black knot. This affects many cherry species and isn't always fatal but can kill a tree (hence why I cut down multiple). You can treat individuals if you spot them early by cutting infected branches and burning/burying them before they spore in spring.

Ultimately the Black Cherry is the less famous cousin to the showy Asian cherry cultivars, but still holds a punch of beauty and provides incredibly high ecological value compared to most other American trees. Happy hunting!

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this National Geographic story:

In 2006, a hunter in Canada’s Northwest Territories shot a bear that had white fur with brown patches, long claws, and a grizzly-like hump. The strange-looking bear turned out to be a hybrid: a cross between a polar bear and a grizzly bear.

Over the following years, scientists identified a total of eight polar-grizzly hybrids, and found all the animals  were descendants of the same female polar bear. Sometimes called “grolars” when the father is a grizzly bear or a “pizzlies” when the father is a polar bear, these bears made headlines, and some researchers warned that the Arctic could become prime territory for hybrids due to climate change.

“We're interested in assessing the hybridization rate because we know that as the climate is warming in the Arctic, grizzly bears and polar bears are coming more and more into contact with one another,” says Ruth Rivkin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Manitoba. Using genetic tools, Rivkin and her colleagues recently found that hybridization remains rare among polar bears—for now.

Bears aren’t the only Arctic species that have intermingled, and many of these hybrids are virtually indistinguishable by sight. That’s why genetic analyses have become incredibly important. Scientists are looking deep into animals’ DNA to identify and learn more about potential hybrids, often raising more questions than answers. 

Typically, animals don’t mate outside their species, due to a variety of barriers, including geography. But hybrids can arise when species or subspecies that would not normally overlap run into each other when searching for a mate. 

Beluga whales and narwhals split on the evolutionary tree around five million years ago, but sometimes the species cross paths in western Greenland’s Disko Bay. In the 1980s, a hunter collected an unusual skull that researchers later hypothesized belonged to a beluga-narwhal hybrid. 

“This was the early days of genetics, and getting DNA from a skull that had been sitting for three to five years outside just wasn’t really an option in the early part of the ‘90s,” says Mikkel Skovrind, a researcher at Lund University in Sweden who helped evaluate the skull with modern genetic techniques in 2019. The study confirmed the identity of the “narluga” hybrid and pegged its birth to the 1970s or earlier.

As temperatures warm, grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis, female shown with a cub) may move further north, bringing them closer to polar bear territory. PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN EASTCOTT AND YVA MOMATIUK, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION. Similarly, melting sea ice in the Arctic could drive polar bears (Ursus maritimus, female shown with cubs) further south in search of food. PHOTOGRAPH BY FLORIAN SCHULZ, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION

[thepastisalreadywritten]

While they may not look alike, did you know that seals are thought to be most closely related to bears, weasels, and otters? 🦭

📸 1/4: Barking elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris, bask in a huge pile on a beach.

(National Geographic Image Collection / Bates Littlehales)

📸 2/4: Seals sleep in a tight group on the beach.

(National Geographic Image Collection / Joseph J. Scherschel)

📸 3/4: A colony of Steller's sea lions (Eumetopias jubata, also called northern sea lions) on a rocky islet in Hecate Strait.

(National Geographic Image Collection / Sam Abell)

📸 4/4: California sea lions, Zalophus californianus, lounge on a rock in British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest.

(National Geographic Image Collection / Anne Farrar)

[honkifyourelonely]

bug like an angel collage zine. images from the bug like an angel music video, my pinterest board, 1970s national geographic magazines, and my sticker collection.

[usafphantom2]

IMAGES: B-2s land in Iceland for the first Bomber Task Force in months

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 08/14/2023 - 19:31 in Military

Three B-2 bombers from the 509ª Bomber Wing at Whiteman Air Base, Missouri, landed in Keflavik, Iceland, on August 13 to begin the first outward deployment of the stealth bomber since the B-2 fleet's six-month security pause ended in May.

More than 150 aviators along with the three B-2 Spirit aircraft arrived at Keflavik Air Base with the aim of participating in Bomber Task Force (BTF) missions, a vital component of the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) collaborative training efforts with U.S. Allies, partners and joint forces.

The B-2 is the only operational stealth bomber of the Air Force, with a global range, and the continuous rotations of the Bomber Task Force in Europe are seen as an element of NATO's high alert level since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. The planned duration of the recent deployment has not been disclosed, but BTFs usually last from 2 to 6 weeks.

Around the world, the U.S. Strategic Command routinely orchestrates BTF operations not only to show the United States' commitment to collective defense, but also to integrate seamlessly with the operations conducted by the Geographic Combat Commands of America. This BTF initiative is designed to strengthen USEUCOM's comprehensive security mandates across the European continent, while offering crews the opportunity to acclimatize to the complexities of joint and coalition operations in foreign locations.

"Each mission of the bomber task force highlights the feat of our armed forces in navigating today's intricate and unpredictable terrain of global security, focusing on promoting stability, security and freedom throughout Europe," said General James Hecker, commander of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe; U.S. Air Forces in Africa and NATO Allied Command. "In resolute unity, the U.S. maintains our nation's commitment to promoting peace and stability in Europe, collaborating unwaveringly with allies and partners to prevent challenges against the sovereignty of nations throughout the region."

Leading the crew of the expeditionary bomber in its deployment is Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Kousgaard, commander of the 393º Bombing Squadron. He emphasized the essence of the dynamic use of the force, describing it as a strategy that combines strategic unpredictability with operational adaptability. Lieutenant Colonel Kousgaard said: “The B-2 bomber is arguably the most strategically significant aircraft in the world, but that does not mean it is unftably; dynamically deploying bombers is a unique and important capability.”

The presence of the B-2 at Keflavik Air Base serves as a tangible link between U.S. Air Force personnel and their colleagues in the theater of operations. This connection facilitates collaborative training, increasing interoperability and highlighting the unwavering dedication of the United States to the region.

It has not been disclosed whether B-2s will operate from any advanced area in Europe, but BTFs usually include unannounced secondary deployments.

Elaborating on the importance of joint training exercises with the Allies, Lieutenant Colonel Kousgaard highlighted the role of his unit in improving collective military capabilities and increasing the likelihood of successfully achieving the shared goals. He emphasized: "There is simply no substitute for practical integration with our allies and partners that we can carry out during a BTF deployment like this."

In addition to strengthening combat readiness, the BTF initiative allows aviators to engage in a wide spectrum of military operations, covering everything from combat missions to humanitarian aid and disaster relief efforts.

The Bomber Task Force Europe offers U.S. and NATO leaders strategic options to secure, stop and defend against opposing aggression against the Alliance, throughout Europe and around the world. Regular and routine deployments of U.S. strategic bombers provide our critical touchpoints to train and operate alongside our allies and partners, reinforcing our collective response to any global conflict.

Tags: Military AviationB-2 SpiritBTFUSAF - United States Air Force / U.S. Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Daytona Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work around the world of aviation.

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Cavok Brazil - Digital Tchê Web Creation

[mariacallous]

Among the many victims of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine are some of the most important ecosystems in Eastern Europe: Ukraine’s forests and protected areas.

The full extent of the damage, however, is unknown. That’s why we are launching a new tool that will help open source researchers track destruction from afar.

In September 2022, Ukrainian environmental researchers visited national parks — which are more resilient to climate change than artificial plantings and support crucial biodiversity—to assess damage to forests and wildlife. Initial findings revealed broken trees, damaged root systems due to trench digging and unexploded munitions scattered across protected lands.

“Forests have suffered a lot on the frontline… huge areas of forests are being mined”, Yehor Hrynyk, an environmental campaigner at the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, told Bellingcat. But large parts of Ukraine’s vast national parks, mountainous regions and woodlands are inaccessible for on-the-ground environmental monitoring.

That’s where open source techniques come in.

The OSINT Forest Area Tracker

We’ve launched the “OSINT Forest Area Tracker”, hosted on Google Earth Engine. Our tool compares data collected by Sentinel-2, a satellite which detects changes in infrared wavelengths and can be used to study the health of forests. 

The tool reveals the scale and intensity of anomalous changes on land. This narrows down search areas for researchers working on environmental damage in Ukraine. 

Importantly, the map does not attribute the cause of these changes, meaning that it is crucial to find corroborating evidence from other sources before concluding that they were the result of military activity. 

The tool uses the Normalised Burn Ratio (NBR) index to estimate burn severity.

Researchers can also use the tool to select custom date ranges for geographic locations of interest. 

As Ukraine’s official database of protected areas includes over 7,500 sites, we chose not to study them all — among their number are botanical gardens, city parks and archaeological sites. That list also includes many areas in the far west of the country which have not seen intense conflict. 

Therefore, we selected 16 areas which featured the highest number of detected fires over the first year of the war, based on Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. MODIS is a sensor which allows satellites to detect thermal anomalies, including fires in active war zones (Along with VIIRS, MODIS data can be accessed on the FIRMS system; you can read more about its use to open source researchers here). We also added Svyati Hory National Park because of its proximity to fighting. The tool includes a drop down list preset areas from across the country, including those near military activity. These preset areas are referred to by their acronyms, for example SHNP for Svyati Hory National Park. A full list of these acronyms can be found on the tool’s GitHub page. If researchers are interested in areas of the country not included in the dropdown menu, the coordinates can be entered manually.

While the new tool focuses on Ukraine by default, the methods it employs could be used to analyse areas elsewhere in the world.

...

Future Development

In the case of Svyati Hory, the tool identified damage to a protected area which deserved further investigation. In the case of the Kinburn Spit, it allowed us to further verify existing open source claims about an attack which had caused damage to a forest – also enriching our knowledge about the extent of the damage, which was less easily visible on real colour satellite imagery. However, both cases demonstrate the importance of corroborating the tool’s findings with other sources before drawing any conclusions about the causes of such damage. The author will continue refining and improving this tool in order to better understand the scale of damage to Ukraine’s many protected areas. Feedback or suggestions for improvements are welcomed. For further technical details on this tool and updates following the publication of this article, please read the description on the author’s GitHub page.

[xtruss]

Flipper? A Dusky Dolphin (Lagenorhynchus Obscurus) leaps out of the water off New Zealand. Photograph By Flip Nicklin, National Geographic Image Collection

Bounding Buddies! Two Eastern Gray Kangaroos (Macropus Giganteus) jump through Australia’s Murramarang National Park. Photograph By Frans Lanting, National Geographic Image Collection

Nine Weather Up Here! A Manta Ray (Manta) Soars Over the Ocean’s Surface. Photograph By Brian J. Skerry, National Geographic Image Collection

Got Ya! An Arctic Fox (Vulpes Lagopus) Pounces on Potential Dinner Under the Snow in Alaska’s North Slope. Photograph By Design Pics Inc., National Geographic Image Collection

Leaping Through The Fields! A Springbok (Antidorcas Marsupialis) springs into the air while running in Africa. Photograph By Ralph Lee Hopkins, National Geographic Image Collection

Out of Our Way! Blue Wildebeest (Connochaetes Taurinus) bound into the Mara River as they migrate through Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. Photograph By Suzie Eszterhas, National Geographic Image Collection

There It Is! A Red Fox (Vulpes Vulpes) pounces on prey burrowed under the snow. Photograph By Robbie George, National Geographic Image Collection

Ice, Ice, Baby! An Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis Adeliae) jumps on an iceberg in Antarctica. Photograph By Ralph Lee Hopkins, National Geographic image collection

Snowy Goat! A Mountain Goat (Oreamnos Americanus) leaps through snow at Glacier National Park in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. Photograph By Sumio Harada, National Geographic Image Collection

[nature-godsgardenofeden]

An African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) peruses his territory from a perch atop a large termite mound. (Credit: National Geographic Image Collection/Chris Johns) - Nat Geo Wild

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Sea Otter

PHOTOGRAPH BY TIM LAMAN / NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION

[nerteragranadensis]

I was born in the vacant / Wasteland of the faithful / You say prayers when you're scared / To be careless and found ungrateful / I was born a defender / Of a hell made for sinners / And never did ever forget / That it's still well equipped for quitters

— Mutemath, "Achilles Heel"

An amateur orchid grower works in the window of his greenhouse in Silver Spring, Maryland. April 1971. Photograph by Gordon Gahan, National Geographic.

If anyone remembers my name / If I'm ever known for anything / Let it be I ran into the night / Running with a firelight, firelight

— Matt Maher, "Firelight"

A bonfire on the bank of a river in British Columbia, with snowy mountains in the background. August 2018. Photograph by Courtnie Tosana.

Look! The LORD is coming from his dwelling place; he comes down and treads on the heights of the earth. The mountains melt beneath him and the valleys split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope.

— Micah 1:3-4, New International Version

The old cooling towers from the decomissioned Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Station, on the other side of a lake. February 2007. Photograph by Tom Spaulding.

Ain't nothing come easy / No, nothing comes quick / It's gonna hurt like hell to become well / But if we set the bone straight / It'll mend / It'll fix / And we'll be well

— The Oh Hellos, "Theseus"

Trash clogs a waterway in Zunil, Guatemala. November 2020. Photograph by Alexander Schimmeck.

No, I am not afraid to die / It's every breath that comes before

— The Oh Hellos, "This Will End"

Alexey Akindinov, "Dance of Death." 105.5x130 cm, oil on canvas, 2009. p. Collection of the Museum of World Funeral Culture, Novosibirsk. "This is the retinue of death, which plays along with her, playing the violin. The image of death is impartial and friendly. It is illuminated by warm reflections from the burning flame of the fire, which symbolizes the energy of life. People dancing around the fire personify human action in earthly life. How to keep warm by the fire of life and not get burned? This question is asked by everyone who comes into this world."