Andrea Rossato, Italy. Professional; Candid. Children enjoy the simple pleasures of a seaside holiday. (Photo by Andrea Rossato/Sony World Photography Awards)

Chad Rowley and his wife Susan race during the 22nd North American Wife Carrying Championship at Sunday River Resort in Newry, Maine, on October 9, 2021. Couples compete on a 278-yard (254-meter) obstacle course for a prize of wife's weight in beer and five times her weight in money. Winners are invited to the world championship in Finland where the sport originated. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso/AFP Photo)

England fans show their support during the FIFA Women's World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 Quarter Final match between England and Colombia at Stadium Australia on August 12, 2023 in Sydney / Gadigal, Australia. (Photo by Alex Pantling – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

An Afghan burqa-clad woman with children ride a donkey in Kishim district of Badakhshan province on October 12, 2023. (Photo by Omer Abrar/AFP Photo)

Devotees perform religious rituals by splashing holy water during the Madhav Narayan Festival, a month-long event dedicated to Lord Madhav Narayan, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu in Thacho, Lalitpur, Nepal on February 10, 2025. Devotees also carry butter lamps and blow conch shells (shankha) as part of the sacred observance. (Photo by Safal Prakash Shrestha/ZUMA Press Wire)

“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)

“A Mothers Tail”. A baby cub pulls on his mother's tail to get attention. Photo location: Masai Mara, Kenya. (Photo and caption by Tori Marsh/National Geographic Photo Contest)