Mangrove in Walakiri Beach after Sunset in East Sumba, Indonesia in 2018. (Photo by Sarubabel Malau/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

The strength of a weaver ant carrying fruit in Indonesia in the last decade of August 2024 is equivalent to the average man or woman picking up a minibus. (Photo by Ridho Arifuddin/Solent News)

A serviceman of the 148th Separate Artillery Zhytomyr Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine sits near shells as he and a soldier await command to fire a M777 Howitzer towards Russian troops at a position in a front line, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on February 8, 2025. (Photo by Anatolii Stepanov/Reuters)

A sun bear reacts to triple-digit temperatures at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, where the temperature reached 103 degrees Fahrenheit on July 6, 2012. (Photo by Nati Harnik/Associated Press)

A female black lemur (Eulemur macaco), looks at a camera in its enclosure at Bioparc Fuengirola in Fuengirola, near Malaga, southern Spain, February 8, 2017. (Photo by Jon Nazca/Reuters)

A man carries schoolchildren on his bicycle on a road in Srinagar, March 28, 2017. (Photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters)

“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)