Ants carry a leaf with a slogan reading “Merkel, Help!”, a reference of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at the zoo in Cologne, Germany August 18, 2015. Some of the zoo's 500,000 leaf-cutting ants carry laser-cut leaves with slogans during a campaign to protect the Amazon rain forest, organised by the German branch of World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) and Cologne Zoo. Picture taken through the glass of the display case. (Photo by Ina Fassbender/Reuters)

“Atheris is a genus of venomous vipers found only in tropical subsaharan Africa, excluding southern Africa. Confined to rain forest areas, many members have isolated and fragmented distributions. In an interesting example of convergent evolution, they show many similarities to the arboreal pit vipers of Asia and South America”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Atheris squamigera. (Photo by David Williams)

Francisco da Silva Vale, 61, cools off fish with ice produced on solar-powered ice machines at Vila Nova do Amana community in the Sustainable Development Reserve, in Amazonas state, Brazil, September 23, 2015. Three solar-powered machines, are producing about ninety kilos of ice per day, in a region with poor access to electric energy, which used to be produced only with diesel oil, in the Amazon rain forest. (Photo by Bruno Kelly/Reuters)

A wild monkey has stunned animal lovers after it adopted an abandoned kitten and cared for it as his own. The young long-tailed macaque monkey was spotted in a forest protectively nuzzling and grooming the ginger kitten, making sure no harm came to it.

People stand around a leopard with its head stuck in a vessel in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan state, India, Wednesday, September 30, 2015. The leopard's head got stuck when it attempted to drink water from the pot, according to news reports. Forest officials tranquilized the animal and sawed off the vessel later in the day. (Photo by Kabir Jethi/AP Photo)

A man driving a vintage car reacts as he passes by crabs crossing a highway on their way to spawn in the sea in Playa Giron, Cuba on April 25, 2017. Each year, after the first spring rains, millions of red, yellow and black landcrabs march for days from the surrounding forests to the bay on Cuba's southern coast to spawn in the sea. (Photo by Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

Tim Laman is a field biologist and wildlife photojournalist. His pioneering research in the rain forest canopy in Borneo led to a PhD from Harvard and his first National Geographic article in 1997. Since then, he has pursued his passion for exploring wild places and documenting little-known and endangered wildlife by becoming a regular contributor to National Geographic. He has eighteen articles to his credit to date, all of which have had a conservation message. Some have focused on endangered species such as Orangutans or Hornbills, while others, such as a series of articles on Conservation International’s Biodiversity Hotspots, have highlighted regions under intense pressure.

If you were to meet this guy in the woods, especially if it’s nighttime, you’d probably think that it’s a local troll or a yeti. However, in reality, he’s no yeti. His name is Mick Dodge, and before deciding to live in the woods, he was a marine for six years at Fort Lewis. It is hard to tell what moved him to leave the busy life of the city and start living in the Hoh Rain Forest. It could have been that he decided the leave the stressful life of the city, or maybe he simply loves the solitary life of a hermit. Another thing that is peculiar about Mick Dodge is that most of the time he walks barefoot, hence the nickname “The Barefoot Sensei”.