Tiny Orange Crab, Panay Island, Philippines, 2002 Photograph by Tim Laman
An orange crab crawls on a leaf on Panay Island in the Philippines. The islands of the Philippines have some 12,000 plant and 1,100 land vertebrate species. But habitat loss threatens to erase much of this ecological diversity.
(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, “Hotspots: The Philippines,” July 2002, National Geographic magazine)
Iceberg With Meltwater Pool, Jakobshavn Fjord, Greenland, 2007 Photograph by James Balog
Icebergs, including one with a sapphire pool of meltwater, clutter Greenland’s Jakobshavn Fjord near the village of Ilulissat. The glacier that produced this flotilla has receded some four miles (six kilometers) since the year 2000.
(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, “The Big Thaw,” June 2007, National Geographic magazine)
Mother Camel and Baby, Sahara, Chad, 1999 Photograph by George Steinmetz
A young dromedary camel peeks underneath its mother as she casually drinks in the Guelta Archeï, a steep canyon in the Chadian Sahara. But camels beware. These isolated waters hold a zoological surprise: Algae, fertilized by camel droppings, are eaten by fish that are preyed upon by a group of crocodiles.
(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, “Journey to the Heart of the Sahara,” March 1999, National Geographic magazine)
Desert Wildlife, Atacama Desert, Chile, 2003 Photograph by Joel Sartore
Birds perch on a cactus as a gray fox warily stands below in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Rain rarely falls on the Atacama’s coastline, but dense fog known as camanchaca is abundant. The fog nourishes plant communities from cactuses to ferns.
(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, “The Driest Place on Earth,” August 2003, National Geographic magazine)
Manoki Indian, Amazon River Basin, Brazil, 2007 Photograph by Alex Webb
A Manoki Indian in a feathered headdress and beads glides down a stream in Brazil’s Amazon River Basin. The Manoki are one of about 170 indigenous Amazonian peoples whose homelands are imperiled by an intense land rush in the Amazon fueled by the timber, agriculture, and cattle industries.
(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, “Last of the Amazon,” January 2007, National Geographic magazine)
