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)

A woman poses for a picture during Lunar New Year's Eve on Yaowarat Road in Bangkok's Chinatown, Thailand, February 9, 2024. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

A bee and a red squirrel eyeball each other in the winning entry of the Mammal Society’s annual photography contest, taken by Gary Watson from Dingwall in the Scottish Highlands. (Photo by Gary Watson/Mammal Society/Bav Media)

Pfc. Esmeralda Calderon stands and salutes the flag on the 15th green during the first round of the LPGA golf tournament at Kingsmill Resort and Golf Course in Williamsburg, Va., Thursday May 23, 2019. Pfc. Calderon, from San Antonio, Texas, is a Marine assigned to Naval Weapons Station Yorktown. (Photo by John Sudbrink/The Daily Press via AP Photo)

Patience paid off for the photographer who waited for hours to catch a crocodile on Java, the largest Indonesian island in March 2023. (Photo by Tanto Yensen/Solent News)

A seagull who turned bright orange after he plunged into a vat of chicken tikka masala in Beckford, England on June 9, 2016. The bird fell into a container of the food while trying to scavenge a piece of meat from a food factory bin in Wales. (Photo by Vale Wildlife Hospital/PA Wire)

Five-year-old sniffing dog “Vine” wears protection goggles against the sun and dust as he poses together with Giulia Gausemann for photographers, at the sniffing dogs school of the German Army (Bundeswehr) in Daun, Germany, July 24, 2020. The Bundeswehr sniffing dogs school and the veterinarian university of Hanover are developing a training programme to sniff out the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) with dogs at airports, border crossings and other highly frequented places. (Photo by Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters)

Dhruva Aliman does a back somersault as he dismounts from a slackline on the beach at Santa Monica, California on October 19, 2014. Slackline is a balance sport where a line of webbing is adjusted at different levels of tension between two anchor points and participants (called slackers) perform tricks and stunts including somersaults. (Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP Photo)