A baby elephant eats in a swamp in Amboseli national park, Kenya, March 19, 2017. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

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)

In this February 19, 2017 photo, a couple dances during the “If you don't give me....then you lend me” Carnival street party on Ipanema beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The typical view of Carnival in Brazil is anything goes, with no headdress too big, no outfit too small, no song too ribald, but this year some organizers of the world's best known party are drawing the line at lyrics that are sexist, homophobic or racist. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

People wait on a taxi line near Madison Square Garden, Wednesday, September 23, 2015, as a 225-foot-tall hand-painted billboard of Pope Francis stands out at Eighth Avenue in New York. The billboard, designed by Israel Ochoa of DeSales Media, including a photo by photographer Giulio Napolitano, marks the arrival of the pope Thursday. (Photo by Craig Ruttle/AP Photo)

Behaviour: Mammals category. Giant Gathering by Tony Wu, USA. Dozens of sperm whales mingled noisily off Sri Lanka’s northeast coast, stacked as far down as Tony could see. This was a congregation of dozens of social units, like a gathering of the clans. Aggregations like this could be a critical part of the whales’ rich social lives but are rarely reported. Some two thirds of the population was wiped out before commercial whaling was banned in 1986. This kind of major gathering could be “a sign that populations are recovering”, says Tony. (Photo by Tony Wu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017)

In this 2017 photo provided by Simon Pierce, Jonathan Green checks on a fin-mounted satellite tag on a whale shark in the Galapagos Islands area of Ecuador. Despite typically being bigger than a double-decker bus, the elusive whale shark has only tiny, almost useless teeth. It's also one of the least understood animals in the ocean. (Photo by Simonjpierce.com via AP Photo)

An Oriental Garden Lizard sits on a tree in Gauhati, India, Tuesday, April 16, 2019. During the breeding season, the male lizard's head and throat turn a bright color. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)

A Kashmiri man cover his head with plastic bag as it snows in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Thursday, November 7, 2019. The region received its first snow on Wednesday, bringing temperatures down drastically and affecting air and vehicular traffic. (Photo by Mukhtar Khan/AP Photo)