An orphaned rhesus monkey and white dove that seemed to have lost its mate forged a special bond at the Neilingding Island-Futian National Nature Reserve in China. The monkey was born on the island but had strayed from its mother. Luckily, it was taken in by work staff in the protection center and became friends with the pigeon that had lingered there after possibly losing its mate. (Photo by CNImaging/Photoshot)

The 26th annual National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest is now accepting submissions. Official categories include: “Travel Portraits”, “Outdoor Scenes”, “Sense of Place” and “Spontaneous Moments”. The contest is accepting entries until June 30. Photo: “Forest lights”. Aurora Borealis over the forest of the Pyhae Luosto National Park, Finland. (Photo and caption by Nicholas Roemmelt/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Camera trapper Xavier Hubert-Brierre put this large mirror on the side of a road through the jungle in Gabon and left a camera there to record how the animals would respond to their own reflections. A silverback gorilla thought it was seeing another silverback and responded by trying to scare off the potential challenger… (Photo by Xavier Hubert-Brierre/Johns Hopkins University Press)

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)

An Indian Runner duck searches for food on a snow-covered meadow in Aitrang, southern Germany, Wednesday. April 19, 2017. (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/DPA via AP Photo)

A young tiger tries to get at poultry parts hidden in a pumpkin at Magdeburg Zoo, Germany on October 30, 2025. The zoo is celebrating Halloween from October 31, 2025 to November 1, 2025. In addition to the puppet theater, children's carousel and children's train, visitors can carve their own pumpkins, which are then distributed to the zoo animals and serve as food. (Photo by Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/Avalon)

Pallas' s cat kittens with theit mother in an enclosure at the Novosibirsk Zoo, Novosibirsk, Russia on July 11, 2018. Pallas' s cat, also known as manul, is a small wild cat native to montane steppes of the Central Asia and listed as an endangered species. (Photo by Kirill Kukhmar/TASS)