A horse handler poses with a horse during a beach parade at Muizenberg beach, in Cape Town, South Africa on January 5, 2024. (Photo by Esa Alexander/Reuters)

Adrienne Yip takes a picture of her Burmese mountain dog named “Walter”, beneath the cherry blossoms in peak bloom at the Tidal Basin with the Washington Monument seen behind, in Washington, DC, USA, 18 March 2024. Peak bloom, as defined when seventy percent of the cherry blossoms are open, is occuring this week. This year's peak bloom, beginning the 17th of March, is tied for the second earliest in history and is seen as a reflection of warming temperatures. (Photo by Michael Reynolds/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Keeper Silvia Salvatierra, 59, is kissed by a chimp named “Jony”, 54, who was rescued from a circus, at the Lujan Zoo from where felines, including tigers and lions, will be transferred to a wildlife sanctuary in India, in Lujan, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina on April 8, 2024. (Photo by Agustin Marcarian/Reuters)

Children eat watermelons to meet the “beginning of autumn” at a kindergarten in Handan, China on August 7, 2015. Chinese tradition to eat watermelons or peaches before that day symbolises “biting away summer”. The solar term ‘beginning of autumn’ falls on 8 August this year. (Photo by Xinhua/REX Shutterstock)

Passengers travel in an overcrowded train in the eastern Indian city of Patna, February 23, 2010. (Photo by Krishna Murari Kishan/Reuters)

In this third of seven sequential photos, Elian Gonzalez is held in a closet by Donato Dalrymple, one of the two men who rescued the boy from the ocean, right, as government officials search the home of Lazaro Gonzalez for the young boy, early morning, April 22, 2000, in Miami, Florida. Armed federal agents seized Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives before dawn, firing tear gas into an angry crowd as they left the scene with the weeping 6-year-old boy. This photo won the Prize in 2001. (Photo by Alan Diaz/AP Photo)

A brown capuchin monkey holds a fruit in the Botanic Garden of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 5, 2013. (Photo by Pablo Porciuncula/AFP Photo)

The National Geographic Photo Ark is a travelling exhibition of photographer Joel Sartore’s quest to create a photo archive of biodiversity around the world. So far, Sartore has captured studio portraits of more than 6,000 species – a number that he hopes to double. On 1 July, the ark will open at Melbourne zoo – the first time it has been exhibited in the southern hemisphere. More than 50 portraits will be on display, including many of Australian endangered animals being protected by programs at the zoo itself. These captions have been edited from text supplied by Melbourne zoo. Here: Barking owl. (Photo by Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark/The Guardian)