“Thunderstruck”. Summer stom. A super cell formed off the coast of New Zealand, intensified and swept across Christchurch and North Canterbury, February 23, 2014. Photo location: Christchurch, New Zealand. (Photo and caption by David Hardy/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A dog rests on a buffalo near Ravi River in Lahore, Pakistan, on Febuary 4, 2013. (Photo by Mohsin Raza/Reuters)

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A five-week-old orphaned Southern Sea Otter pup rests on a rubber mat after arriving at the Shedd Aquarium's Abbott Oceanarium in Chicago, Illinois October 28, 2014 in this handout photo provided to Reuters on November 5, 2014. The stranded pup was found on September 30 on Coastways Beach in California and was rescued the next day to be brought back to health at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Southern sea otters were listed as “threatened” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1977. (Photo by Brenna Hernandez/Reuters/Shedd Aquarium)

The eruption of Cordon Caulle began on June 4, 2011, located in the Region of Los Rios in Chile. For about 12 months, people and animals became accustomed to living with the daily fall of ash, which also caused problems in the air traffic in South America. The explosions and lightning during first days of the eruption could be seen from hundreds of miles around. This photograph was taken on the second night of eruption from the town of Lago Ranco. (Photo and caption by Francisco Negroni/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

“Fly cap for a vine snake”. A fly lands on the head of a vine snake in the Choco of Colombia. (Photo and caption by Robin Moore/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

People walk past debris on May 3, 2015 in Bhaktapur, Nepal. A major 7.8 earthquake hit Kathmandu mid-day on Saturday, and was followed by multiple aftershocks that triggered avalanches on Mt. Everest that buried mountain climbers in their base camps. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

A new species of monkey found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and identified as Lesula (Cercopithecus lomamiensis) is seen in this undated photograph from an article published September 12, 2012 in the science journal PLOS One. The monkey was first seen in 2007 by researchers John and Terese Hart of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale Research Project. The finding of C. lomamiensis represents only the second new species of African monkey to be discovered in the past 28 years, according to the research article. (Photo by Hart J. A., Detwiler K. M., Gilbert C. C./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)