A Buddhist monk salvages a statue of a Buddhist deity from a monastery around the famous Swayambhunath stupa after it was damaged by Saturday's earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Thursday, April 30, 2015. In mere seconds, Saturday's earthquake devastated a swathe of Nepal. Three of the seven World Heritage sites in the Kathmandu Valley have been severely damaged, including Durbar Square with pagodas and temples dating from the 15th to 18th centuries, according to UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

“Tardigrades (commonly known as waterbears or moss piglets) are small, water-dwelling, segmented animals with eight legs. Tardigrades were first discovered in 1773 by Johann August Ephraim Goeze, who called them kleiner Wasserbär, meaning “little water bear” in German. The name Tardigrada means “slow walker” and was given by Lazzaro Spallanzani in 1777. The name water bear comes from the way they walk, reminiscent of a bear's gait. The biggest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 millimetres (0.059 in), the smallest below 0.1 mm. Freshly hatched tardigrades may be smaller than 0.05 mm”. – Wikipedia. Photo: Tardigrades. (Photo by SPL/East News)

People walk past a New Year fir tree made of toys at a park in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia January 2, 2017. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

British professional tennis player Emma Raducanu after she was made a MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) by King Charles III at Windsor Castle on November 29, 2022 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Andrew Matthews – WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Heidi Klum (not pictured) was greeted by half-naked models arriving at Myer Melbourne on January 27, 2016 in Melbourne, Australia. The supermodel continued her tour of the country promoting her new season of lingerie for Heidi Klum intimates, a brand which she took over from Elle Macpherson in 2014. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

A wolverine is pictured during its first public appearance at the Animal Park of Sainte-Croix in Rhodes, eastern France on January 28, 2016. (Photo by Frederick Florin/AFP Photo)

Indonesian mahouts clean their Sumatran elephant in a river near the zoo in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, 12 December 2014. According media reports, the smallest of the Asian elephants, Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatrensis) is facing serious pressures arising from illegal logging and associated habitat loss and fragmentation in Indonesia. The population has come under increasing threat from rapid forest conversion to plantations. (Photo by Dedi Sahputra/EPA)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)