Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Mane flowing, a young competitor clears a jump at the hobby horse racing, eventing and dressage event at Parklands Equestrian Centre near Sheffield, UK on December 30, 2024. (Photo by James Glossop/Times Media Ltd)

An egret in the second decade of April 2025 cools off in the Florida heat by gular fluttering, rapidly vibrating its throat muscles with an open beak. The mechanism helps to dissipate heat through evaporation. (Photo by Ronen Tivony/ZUMA Press Wire/Alamy Live News)

A meerkat stands guard as her pups cuddle at Mountain Zebra National Park, South Africa early November 2025. (Photo by Nadine Leonard/Two Point O Media)

In this handout image provided by the Police of Swiss canton Valais the wreckage of a bus is seen after it crashed inside a motorway tunnel on March 13, 2012 in Sierre, Switzerland. 28 people, including 22 children, returning from a skiing holiday died in this bus accident. (Photo by Police Cantonale Valaisanne via Getty Images)

Christopher Tubbs embraces his wife Sarah after arriving home during the homecoming of the USS Enterprise at the Norfolk Naval Station July 15, 2011 in Norfolk, Virginia. In its 184 days away from Norfolk, the USS Enterprise cruised nearly 60,000 miles while supporting operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Recruits who earned a place in the Motivation Platoon struggle through water and muck on their way to becoming a Marine or going into some other line of work, October 7, 1971. (Photo by Eddie Adams/AP Photo)

Various kinds of pumpkins, out of some 400 on display grown this season, are seen on sale at Franzlbauer farm in Hintersdorf, Austria, October 27, 2015. (Photo by Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters)