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National Geographic
6 days ago
- Health
- National Geographic
The astonishing superpowers of nature's most unloved animals
From their odd appendages to their unsavory hygiene, certain animals suffer an image problem. But their awkward attributes can be their biggest advantages. Found across every continent except Antarctica and Australia, vultures like the lappet-faced species have lived among humans for millennia. But because they feast on the remains of dead animals, they've been saddled with a reputation for carrying disease. Quite the contrary: By devouring rotting flesh, these scavengers prevent the spread of pathogens that cause bubonic plague, anthrax, and other diseases. They even stop carrion from emitting tens of millions of metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year. We owe a lot to this feathered cleanup crew. Photographs and video by Joel Sartore The vulture has to be one of the most reviled creatures on Earth. The very word 'vulture' is an insult—a synonym for a greedy exploiter. In a way, vultures' bad reputation is understandable. For starters, they are neither cute nor cuddly, what with their stooped posture, bare heads, and beady eyes. They spend their days eating dead animals—and they do it in a stomach-churning way, by entering the corpse at its soft parts such as the mouth, nose, or anus. 'Vultures definitely have an image problem,' says National Geographic Explorer Darcy Ogada, Africa program director at the conservation nonprofit Peregrine Fund, who points out that a bald bird sticking its beak up the rear end of a wildebeest wouldn't make for the most appealing magazine cover. The birds' PR problem has real-world consequences. It causes us to overlook the vultures' fascinating behavior and vital role in our ecosystem. Without vultures, bad things happen. These birds act as nature's cleaners, hoovering up rotting carcasses and preventing the spread of disease. (Africa's vultures are disappearing. A series of disasters could follow.) Consider the drastic situation in India. Starting three decades ago, vultures nearly disappeared after millions of them were accidentally poisoned by medicine used on cows, which turned out to be toxic to vultures. As a result, the countryside became littered with rotting, germ-filled animal corpses that infected the rivers and drinking water—and also boosted the population of rabies-carrying feral dogs. According to a recent study in the American Economic Review, the decline in vultures correlated with more than half a million excess human deaths in a population sample in India between 2000 and 2005. In an ideal world, the disappearing vulture population would be a conservation priority. But it isn't. The vast majority of global conservation money goes to a few top species, usually large animals such as rhinos, elephants, and gorillas. 'The rest of conservation gets the scraps,' Ogada says. The animals fighting over those crumbs are what you might call the D-list species. The outcasts. We're talking about the vultures, the naked mole rats, and the proboscis monkeys with their pendulous blobby schnozzes. They're not pretty. They're not colorful. They often do gross things, such as eating feces, a habit of the naked mole rat. They are the polar opposites of the conservation icons: the lions, pandas, penguins, and giraffes that star in nature documentaries, appear on our cereal boxes, and get the lead roles in animated movies. Conservationists call the A-listers charismatic megafauna or flagship species. Several studies show that they get a lopsided share of donations. As one study puts it, 'Animal charisma trumps endangered status.' Just one example: Amphibians account for about 25 percent of threatened vertebrate species, but get only 2.5 percent of funding. No one wants to kiss or donate to a slimy frog. From scuba diving to set-jetting (How does the Endangered Species Act protect animals at risk?) What does it take to be a Very Important Animal? It helps if you're cute, furry, jumbo size, and/or adorned with attention-grabbing outerwear—think the interesting patterns of leopards and zebras. Cuteness is an especially powerful draw, thanks to our brain's programming. 'What we find is cute in animals is often the same things we find cute in human babies, such as big, forward-facing eyes,' says Gabby Salazar, an environmental social scientist and National Geographic Explorer. We're genetically designed to love and nurture babies, and babyish animals such as the panda (which appears on the WWF logo) reap the benefits. Being on the A-list comes with yet another benefit, what psychologists call the halo effect. This means that we mistakenly imbue attractive people and animals with additional positive characteristics, such as moral goodness. It's why so many movie heroes are equipped with gleaming teeth and chiseled jaws and so many villains have scars. But in reality, both with humans and animals, prettiness doesn't equal benevolence or courage, and neither does ugliness equal nastiness or cowardice. Just look at the toucan. 'I love toucans, but they don't just use that beak to eat fruit,' says Salazar. 'They also use that beak to scoop up baby birds from other birds' nests.' Not something you'd see Toucan Sam from Froot Loops doing. So how do we fix this PR problem? How do we get the animal kingdom's outcasts more attention and the conservation dollars they deserve? Salazar says one key is to tell better stories. For starters, we can highlight the benefits some of these animals provide, such as the vultures' role in garbage disposal. This is actually a centuries-old strategy. In a tongue-in-cheek letter to his daughter, Ben Franklin questioned the candidacy of the bald eagle as a national emblem. He argued the dumpy turkey was 'respectable' and a 'bird of courage' that defended its home turf, just as the American colonists defended theirs. He contrasted this with the bald eagle, which Franklin called a bird of 'bad moral character' and accused of stealing fish from other birds (which it does). Another strategy is to reframe these animals' supposedly bad characteristics. For instance, the vulture's unpleasant-looking bald head is in fact a clever way to help keep the bird from collecting germs in its feathers when it's eating carcasses. The sloth's alleged laziness is really a brilliant evolutionary adaptation. Its slowness is a superefficient way to survive on a low-energy, leaf-filled diet. The naked mole rat may look like a wrinkly bucktoothed hot dog, but this quirky creature has evolved to survive without oxygen for 18 minutes. One other idea is to lean into these animals' freakiness. Salazar says there's some new research on what are being called 'ugly-cute' animals. 'Ugly-cute animals are animals that are so weird or not stereotypically cute that they actually end up being fun and make us smile and laugh,' she says. 'Some species are wacky enough that they can benefit from this ugly-cute phenomenon.' Exhibit A is the blobfish, an internet star with its ugly mug featured next to captions such as 'How I feel on Mondays.' Salazar cites a recent study on proboscis monkeys and how internet memes correlated with an increase in donations to protect these Southeast Asian primates. 'In this attention economy, there's some novelty and humor we could capitalize on,' she says. So let's get the revolution started. It's time to embrace the outcasts. Here's to hoping that one day we see cartoon naked mole rats on cereal boxes, college football teams named the Vultures, and a blobfish getting its own Pixar movie. For now, below, we celebrate the bizarrely brilliant traits and behaviors of these D-list creatures. Three-toed sloth Early depictions of sloths show why the slow-moving animals, native to Central and South America, got a bad rap from the get-go. One 19th-century account labeled them 'imperfect monsters of creation,' adding 'equally remarkable for their disgusting appearance and helpless condition.' Sloths can't help that several species of algae grow in the grooves of their coarse, matted fur, giving it a strange, green sheen. But this odd adaptation is a secret weapon—the algae help camouflage the canopy-dwelling creatures. Inspiring lethargy: Sloths have the slowest metabolic rate of any nonhibernating animal, allowing them to conserve the energy they get from their restricted diet. These sedate creatures descend to the forest floor to defecate as rarely as once a week. Variable vertebrates: While most mammals have seven neck vertebrae, some sloth species have more or fewer. Extra bones in the neck of three-toed sloths provide increased range of motion, helpful for surveying their habitat for predators. Helpful passengers: Sloth fur supports robust communities of insects, such as beetles, cockroaches, and moths. Several moth species spend almost their entire lives nestled in sloths' coats. They lay eggs in the sloths' dung and provide nutrients thought to nourish the algae that grow in sloths' fur. Grappling hooks: All sloth species, which mostly eat leaves, have long claws that help them grasp tree branches in the canopy. The claws are made from bone encased in keratin—the same protein that forms human hair and nails. Leopard slug You can't blame people for having a hard time relating to any animal without a spine. But slimy gastropods like slugs and snails have a surprisingly useful set of adaptations. A crown of four wriggling feelers atop the leopard slugs' head allows them to sense their surroundings, and their gooey ooze helps them mate. Slug mucus, which is made from water, proteins, enzymes, and other compounds, has served as inspiration for surgical adhesive. Specialized sensors: Leopard slugs have two sets of forward-facing tentacles, an optical pair for seeing and smelling and another set for tasting and feeling. Impactful appetites: Slugs play an important role in the ecosystem by consuming decomposing plants and insects, returning vital nutrients to the soil. Asexual reproduction: All terrestrial slugs are hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female reproductive organs and can reproduce independently if they aren't able to find a mate. Male proboscis monkeys are adorned with an oversize, fleshy snout that drapes across their face. The protrusion may seem comical and impractical to humans, but it has an important purpose. These caramel-colored primates, native to the lush jungles of Borneo in Southeast Asia, live in large communities broken down into smaller roving groups of males and then harems, or groups of females and their offspring, that are dominated by a single male. Competition for female attention—which earns one a larger harem—can be fierce among males. Female proboscis monkeys gravitate toward males with the largest sniffer. Built-in bullhorn: Nearly four inches long, the males' fleshy nose doesn't just attract mates. It's also thought to amplify the monkeys' raucous vocalizations, a chorus of honks, howls, and roars. African bullfrog Often overlooked, slimy amphibians like frogs and salamanders are the focus of meager conservation funding, considering how many species are threatened or endangered. The bulbous African bullfrog is the world's second largest frog species—males can be 10 inches long and weigh as much as four pounds. And they can look even bigger: When the frogs feel threatened, they puff up their lumpy bodies to intimidate predators. Sturdy kickers: Muscular hind legs help bullfrogs dig burrows to better surprise prey like lizards and birds. Super spit: Frog saliva changes consistency when force is applied to it. While bullfrogs rest, their spit is thick, sticky, and gloopy, but when the tongue shoots out and latches on to prey, the spit transforms into a watery substance that coats the target. Skin cocoon: During the dry season, African bullfrogs can go dormant and grow a paperlike shell, made of layers of dead skin, that helps trap moisture. When the rain comes, the cocoon washes away. Honey badgers Found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in the Middle East and western Asia, these scrappy predators have a fearsome reputation, thanks to a set of impressive adaptations. For one, honey badgers have developed a resistance to venomous snakes' neurotoxins, and approximately a quarter of their diet consists of snakes. But a love of honey also compels these aptly named animals to raid beehives. Fortunately, their thick skin safeguards them against the hundreds of ensuing stings. The honey badgers' hunting prowess pays off even for other species: Jackals and goshawks in search of a tasty morsel may follow a honey badger as it looks for a meal. Venom-resistant receptors: Adaptations in the honey badgers' nervous system block the effects of neurotoxins delivered by snakes like the Cape cobra and black mamba that the animals snack on. Mighty mitts: Honey badgers' claws, more than an inch long, can rip open beehives, dead animals, and prey such as lizards. The creatures also use their keratin talons to dig dens and carve out space in abandoned burrows. Rubbery skin: Beneath their fur, honey badgers' skin is thick and loose, able to withstand snakebites and bee stings and difficult for predators, like African wild dogs and hyenas, to hang on to. Natural musk: The formidable mammals release a mustard-like substance from their anal glands, which can be used in self-defense and to mark their home range. Scrub fowl The gargantuan feet of birds in the megapode family like the Tongan scrub fowl may look clumsy, but they're actually a superpower. These stocky, chicken-size birds, found throughout Australasia, typically roost in forests, on sun-drenched beaches, or near geothermal areas, and they use their feet to build sandy burrows or mound nests from rotting vegetation. After they hatch, Tongan scrub fowl chicks use their feet to claw themselves from their burrows, which can reach depths of five and a half feet. Substantial footprint: Megapode literally translates to 'large foot.' The birds have evolved sharp claws to help them dig through mud and vegetation. Aye-aye Madagascar has its share of charismatic primates, like the rambunctious ring-tailed lemur, but the island's most captivating characters may be the eerie aye-ayes. The scraggly animals, including this 16-day-old baby, have piercing eyes, a long tail, and coarse fur. Aye-ayes, Earth's largest nocturnal primates, are so visually off-putting that some people consider them bad luck and kill them on sight, which has put the animals' population in jeopardy. Fortunately, efforts to rehabilitate their image are under way, with conservationists and farmers helping local communities recognize that aye-ayes are effective predators of leaf miner larvae that are ravaging clove trees along the east coast. Enormous ears: Massive, batlike ears can pick up the sounds of grubs and other insects wriggling deep inside tree trunks. Keen peepers: Unlike other nocturnal primates, aye-ayes are genetically adapted to see a wider spectrum of the color blue, which helps them spot appetizing blue flowers in twilight conditions. Tricky fingers: Aye-ayes' slender middle fingers are equipped with a unique ball-and-socket joint for increased range of motion. They tap these fingers on tree trunks to locate insect tunnels and scoop out beetle larvae, a method called percussive foraging. Hairy frogfish Since the late 1600s, when a Dutch sea captain and his crew discovered a frogfish among a shipwreck's debris, the vaguely toadlike creatures have earned their place among the ocean's oddities. One 19th-century naturalist described them as 'the most grotesque' of all fishes. Found in tropical and subtropical waters around the world, most frogfish are covered in a web of stringy spinules that help them blend in among algae-coated rocks and coral while hunting prey. What may seem like a quick bite to the frogfish can be a win for the ecosystem. In the Caribbean, they eat lionfish, introduced species whose ravenous appetites threaten the health of economically important ecosystems like coral reefs. Bewitching lure: An appendage on the head twitches and twirls like a worm or small fish in the water to draw in unsuspecting prey—a behavior known as aggressive mimicry. Color-changing skin: Pigment cells in frogfish can adjust their coloration to match their surroundings, camouflaging the fish from predators and prey. Fins made for walking: Frogfish are clumsy swimmers and often clamber over rocks and coral using their bulky fins, which consist of specialized muscle arrangements. This behavior caused some early naturalists to misclassify the animals as amphibians. Indian flying foxes Bats can thank author Bram Stoker and various tales of vampire folklore for their reputation as bloodsucking monsters. The Indian flying foxes' intimidating size—they're one of the biggest bat species—dark eyes, sharp teeth, and propensity to congregate in large numbers don't help their image. Found in forests and marshes throughout South Asia, extending into Myanmar, these bats roost in huge colonies, some exceeding a thousand individuals. With a diet of mostly fruits and nectar, they're also one of the world's largest natural pollinators. Goliath wingspan: Fully spread, the wings of Indian flying foxes can stretch over five feet. By comparison, common vampire bats in Central and South America have a wingspan that can reach 15 inches. Heightened senses: As fruit-eaters, these bats rely on sight and smell, sharpened over years of evolution, rather than echolocation, which tends to be used by insectivores. "Underdogs" will premiere on National Geographic June 15th and stream the next day on Disney+ and Hulu. Please check local listings. A version of this story appears in the July 2025 issue of National Geographic magazine. The National Geographic Society funds Explorer Joel Sartore's Photo Ark project, which aims to document every species living in the world's zoos, aquariums, and wildlife sanctuaries.
National Geographic
22-05-2025
- Science
- National Geographic
Shades of dark: the story of night photography
Joel Sartore takes you behind the scenes of wildlife sanctuaries that help protect the most endangered animals on Earth National Geographic CreativeWorks Today's camera technology enables almost anyone to take impressive photographs even in the lowest light. But the art of night photography has been driven by a few key personalities in a story that stretches back to the origins of photography itself. In 1895, when English photographer Paul Martin began making photographs of London at night, passers-by ridiculed him saying it was impossible to use a camera at night—he should stop wasting his time and go home to his wife. Martin's celebrated book, London by Gaslight, proved them wrong but it did epitomize the problem: cameras work by capturing light, so making pictures at night was the photographic final frontier. Today however, technological innovations in cameras and even some smartphones make it possible for anyone to capture strikingly clear images in low light. And people pushing the boundaries of night photography is a story almost as old as the camera itself. Nicéphore Niépce produced the first permanent photograph in around 1822, using a process later perfected by the artist and inventor Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. Daguerre gave his name to the daguerreotype, the first fully-fledged form of photography, that he revealed in January 1839. Just a few days earlier, Daguerre is credited with pointing a telescope into the night sky and making the first ever photographic image of night's brightest feature—the moon. Unfortunately, his historic lunar image was blurred and existed for only a few months before being destroyed in a fire. Not too dissimilar from this camera, the first established form of photography was the daguerreotype, which made images by exposing photosensitive copper plates to light. Photograph from Shutterstock The first verified daguerreotype of the moon was made a year later by John William Draper. His notes describe exposing a prepared plate (a highly polished, silver-plated sheet of copper sensitized with iodine and bromine) to moonbeams focused through a double convex lens. The haunting image, framed by a bright halo, captures both the light and dark shading of the moon. In 1850, John Adams Whipple and William Bond of the Harvard Observatory went on to make the first successful daguerreotype of a distant star—Vega. Their collaboration kick-started astrophotography: barely a decade after photography began, it was probing the night sky for the secrets of the universe. While astrophotography pointed cameras to the cosmos, George Shiras swapped a hunting rifle for a camera to pioneer wildlife photography—notably at night. In 1893, Shiras captured the first known night-time photograph of animals, a striking image of three deer leaping away from the burst of his flash. Over the following decades Shiras' night photography lifted the veil on the nocturnal activities of animals with National Geographic magazine dedicating almost an entire issue to his photographs in 1906 and President Theodore Roosevelt imploring him to publish them as a book. For his earliest photographs, Shiras would simply float quietly in his canoe and point the camera towards promising sounds in the darkness, but over time he devised innovative techniques still used today. As well as his ground-breaking use of flash (an explosion of magnesium powder) Shiras adapted a native American hunting technique called 'jacklighting': Locating animals in the dark by looking for his lanturn's glow reflecting in their eyes before triggering the flash and camera. Shiras also invented camera traps, setting bait, and using tripwires to remotely trigger both flash and camera. A lion lit up in the wild. Illuminating wildlife for night photography like this was pioneered by ex-hunter George Shiras, who located animals using the light of his lantern before setting off a flash. Photograph from Shutterstock Naturally, technological advances drove the art form forward and in the 1880s it was the invention of the gelatin dry plate that allowed for the longer exposures and greater light sensitivity night photography needed. From the 1890s, photographers including Paul Martin in England and Alfred Stieglitz in New York experimented with this, Stieglitz cutting exposure time from 30 minutes to less than a minute enabling him to capture moving objects at night. But it was the Hungarian photographer Brassai who popularized night photography. In the early 1930s, Brassai's Paris de Nuit documented the seedy side of the city's nightlife, sometimes using nature to enhance the urban images and relishing the rain and fog that he felt made the city more photogenic. His work was an immediate hit and night photography was accepted by the art scene. However, by the 1940's interest waned and wasn't really revived until the 1970s when a new wave of night photographers emerged focused in California. Among the leaders of the revival was Richard Misrach whose stark night-time images of cacti, trees, rocks, and the desert floor helped turn him into one of the most influential photographers of his generation. Around the same time, Steve Harper began to capture the passage of time by using 20-minute exposures to track the movement of the stars across the night sky. A pioneer in the field he painstakingly explored, researched, and taught the art of using different lighting techniques, film types, and developing protocols to perfect night photography for a new generation of enthusiasts. The arrival of digital cameras has taken night photography to a new level, where lenses can cut through the blackness to see what even the eye cannot. Improved sensors capture light ever more efficiently while software reduces the grainy quality associated with low light photography. The next leap forward is to make such technology accessible to everyone, something that leading global smart device brand OPPO has realized with its flagship OPPO Find X5 Pro smartphone. Cameras are now synonymous with cell phones, enabling more people to capture more sights and special moments than ever—and at ever improving quality. But taking good low-light photographs on a smartphone has long been a challenge. Shot on OPPO Find X5 Pro, additional hardware and software used. A pigmy hippo, photographed at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. Photograph by Joel Sartore The OPPO Find X5 Pro has been specially designed to master the low light photograph and capture night scenes with unprecedented clarity. Its 4K ultra-night video and ultra HDR capabilities are powered by OPPO's self-developed imaging NPU, capturing videos at night that are bright, rich in detail, and awash in captivating colours. Together with its incomparable dual flagship IMX766 camera system and incredible SUPERVOOC™ Flash Charging technology, the Find X5 Pro opens up new levels of authenticity to photographs taken in the dark. Now, like Paul Martin, we can brush off the cynicism that a night photograph is impossible and even instantly show that a crystal-clear night image can be achieved on a smartphone—flawless night photography has come to the masses. For more on 'Endangered color after dark', click here.
National Geographic
22-05-2025
- Science
- National Geographic
Nightlife: animals after dark
From a burrow hidden in the ground, a mouse cautiously pokes its head out into the cool night air. As it emerges into the darkness, it uses its heightened sense of smell to sniff for food but catches a sense of something else. It stops still, listening intently for danger; the night provides good cover, but not good enough. A fox leaps out of the shadowy blackness and in a moment the animal's evolutionary gamble to shun daylight for darkness has failed. But for the nocturnal hunter, it has paid off. While most birds are active during the day, many insects and around 70 percent of mammals are nocturnal, coming out at night to forage for food and to find a mate. The night attracts many species, from Indian crested porcupines to pygmy hippos, and from coyotes to the Hoffman's two-toed sloth. As well as these nocturnes there are cathemeral animals that are active by both day and night, and an even smaller number of crepuscular animals that come out in the twilight of dusk and dawn. That most mammals have adapted to the dimness of night over the brightness of day suggests strong evolutionary advantages for their behaviour—and there can be big benefits to living life by moonlight. First, there is an obvious intrinsic advantage in the darkness itself, with the absence of light helping both hunter and hunted to avoid detection. Similarly, for a predator the night-time may be when its preferred prey is more active and therefore easier to find: many small mammals evolved to be nocturnal, and predators match their schedule. Indeed, with many different animals foraging for the same foods, whether fruits, insects, or animals, if everything hunted during daylight hours then watering holes and hunting grounds would be overcrowded—leading to competition and conflict that some species may not survive. For other animals living in hot and dry environments, moving around in the cool of night makes sense because it stops them from overheating and wasting precious water. Like this fennec fox, nocturnal behavior makes sense for animals living in blistering desert heat—cooler night temperatures stop them from overheating when exerting themselves. Photograph by Joel Sartore Fennec foxes spend most of the day keeping cool in their burrows, emerging at night to hunt. Photograph by Joel Sartore There might be no single reason for an animal's nocturnality, however there is a popular theory that mammals are intrinsically nocturnal because there were fewer predators at night—specifically reptiles. Early mammals emerged during the Jurassic period, at a time when the world was dominated by cold-blooded dinosaurs with metabolisms that relied on the warmth of the sun. Dinosaurs had to hunt by day, and so many mammals chose to live largely nocturnal lives. To do so successfully, they and their descendants developed some expedient evolutionary traits that heightened certain senses to help them survive. To see in a world of darkness, some nocturnal animals have developed a reflective surface behind their retinas that enables their eyes to take in more light: the photons pass through the retina where the mirrorlike layer reflects them back through the retina again, effectively using the light twice. Other nocturnal animals have developed extra-large eyes to maximize the amount of light they capture. The tarsier, a tree-living primate of southeast Asia, has the largest eyes of any animal in relation to its body size (proportionately human eyes would be the size of grapefruits) and they are packed with photoreceptive cells specialized for seeing in dim light. Ring-tailed lemurs' oversized eyes are a prime example of adaptive evolution. Because a reflective surface behind their retinas lets them take in more light, lemurs can see better in less. Photograph by Joel Sartore The difficulty of seeing in the dark has led some nocturnal animals to rely on sound. The large ears of a nocturnal fennec fox help it hear prey underground while leopards can manoeuvre their ears to pinpoint precisely which direction a noise is coming from; they can also hear five times as many sounds as humans. Taking hearing even further, bats have developed echolocation, releasing a high-pitched noise that bounces off objects and allows it to map its surroundings. Some animals can literally sniff out a situation, with primates like the ring-tailed lemur possessing a patch of nasal sensory cells called a Jacobson's organ that can smell chemicals including pheromones. Other nocturnal animals rely on taste and touch, including sensory receptors on their whiskers and body hair. But like the passage of day to night, life moves on and studies show that some animals are changing their behaviour because of human activity. Foxes are believed to have been day hunters driven to nocturnality by human persecution, but now the threat has diminished they are giving up the night life. In contrast, grizzly bears are becoming more nocturnal because of growing numbers of hikers encroaching on their habitats, while some African primates have begun staying up late and raiding farms at night when fields are unattended. However, the concern is that these new night hunters are not adapted to the dark so their survival prospects may suffer. The key to nocturnal success is evolution—having the right tools to navigate life at night. Nocturnal animals have evolved to survive in darkness. Hoffman's two-toed sloths seldom need to come to the ground, instead feeding silently in trees, camouflaged by algae that grows in their fur. Photograph by Joel Sartore Indian crested porcupines have sharp quills that they can splay out if they feel threatened by night-time predators. Photograph by Joel Sartore Having the right tools to make the most of the night is something that leading global smart device brand OPPO understands and is working to perfect. Low light photography has always been one of the most challenging aspects of taking photos, especially on a smartphone, but OPPO's flagship Find X5 Pro has been designed to cut through the darkness and empower everyone to capture night life with unprecedented clarity. The Find X5 Pro's 4K ultra-night video and ultra HDR capabilities are powered by OPPO's self-developed Imaging NPU that redefines the concept of authentic night-time recording and photography. It is complemented by an incomparable dual flagship IMX766 camera system and incredible SUPERVOOC™ Flash Charging technology. As nocturnal animals have evolved to manage the dark, the Find X5 Pro is an evolution of technology that opens up night photography to all: while for us penetrating the darkness may not be a matter of survival, the OPPO Find X5 Pro can make the sights we see at night appear a lot less dark, making them much more memorable. For more on endangered color after dark, click here.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
National Geographic photographer event coming to Topeka
TOPEKA (KSNT) – A National Geographic photographer who's on a mission to photograph every species in human care will be holding an event at Washburn University next month. Joel Sartore, known for his contributions to National Geographic, will be coming to Washburn University for a fundraising event in partnership with the Topeka Zoo in June. Sartore founded the National Geographic Photo Ark, according to the Topeka Zoo. The project aims to document every species in zoos, aquariums and wildlife sanctuaries. Sartore has authored several books such as 'RARE: Portraits of America's Endangered Species,' 'Photographing Your Family,' 'Nebraska: Under a Big Red Sky,' 'The Photo Ark, and Insects.' Evergy to pay shareholders after favorable earnings report Sartore has also been featured on various TV shows including '60 Minutes,' 'The Today Show,' 'CBS Sunday Morning,' 'NBC Nightly News' and more. The one-afternoon-only event will be focused on conversation storytelling. The event will start at 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 14 at the White Concert Hall at Washburn University. Tickets range in price from $25 to $35. You can buy tickets to see Sartore by clicking here. For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Want to see baby animals cuddling with their moms? We've got you covered.
Photo Ark Babies is Joel Sartore's sixth book exploring the marvels of the animal world through his ongoing National Geographic Photo Ark project, a multi-year mission to photograph animals in human care around the world, emphasizing those liable to be lost forever due to species extinction. What is family to a seabird who soars alone over the open ocean, or to a primate who clings to its mother for years? Do animals have siblings, aunties, or cousins? Can they survive without any family at all? Bearing and rearing young are central to the life cycle of nearly all creatures, whether done the way of the giant clam—by releasing half a billion eggs into the vast sea, full stop—or the koala, who provides long stretches of intense care. Parents of the animal kingdom are endlessly imaginative in how they feed, shelter, and teach their youngsters. There is no one way, they might counsel us, to raise a tadpole or an owlet. Females often assume the primary parenting duties, but there are exceptions. The male Darwin's rhea, a large, flightless bird of South America, for instance, is a do-it-all dad. He builds a nest and incubates up to 30 eggs laid by different females, then raises the chicks to adulthood, teaching them survival skills and protecting them from predators. (How much do you really know about baby animals?) At the other end of the caregiving spectrum are young Komodo dragons. They spend their first year of life in trees to avoid their massive landbound parents, who have a nasty inclination to eat their young. Siblings, other relatives, and adults in the community are sometimes on the scene for companionship or care. They fill a need for babysitting or socialization and, like the pelagic cormorants who help arrange nest material for their future siblings, provide a hand (or beak). A collaborative behavior known as alloparenting allows some adult animals to leave their little ones in the care of other grown-ups while they set out to find food: Some penguin species form nursery systems for their chicks because both parents often go to sea together for a day or more to catch fish. But other families, like that of the solitary clouded leopard, make it work without any help at all. Family can be loving and sweet. Our hearts flip at a flotilla of ducklings paddling furiously behind their mom, or orphaned orangutans in a tight embrace, holding fast to the only family they know. Family ties are the key to survival—not just for the babies, but also for the species. With so much at stake, many adult animals muster their fiercest behavior to defend their young. When a wolf or bear draws near a muskox herd, the adult oxen turn head-on to show their sharp horns to the intruders. There on the Arctic tundra, they form a defensive circle around their babies, who huddle together inside the furry fortress, safe for another day. (When elephant moms need help, nannies step in.)
