Photograph by Lalith Ekanayake
The progeny, a solitary chick amidst the adult great crested terns, taken from a prone position with a wide-angle lens at a breeding site on a Sri Lankan island in northwestern seas.
(This photo and caption were submitted to the 2012 National Geographic Photo Contest .)
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Photograph by Paolo Pellegrin , National Geographic
A plume of fireworks surrounds a reveler at the Parrandas, a December festival in the colonial town of Remedios, near Cuba 's north coast. Two barrios compete to stage the most impressive display.
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Photograph by Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky
A fantasia of styles, from villa to temple to castle, lines the main street of Buzescu, population 5,000. Men are often away on business; women, wealthy or not, stay to cook, clean, and raise the kids.
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Photograph by Paul Nicklen , National Geographic
Emperor penguins are Olympian swimmers, capable of diving to 1,750 feet and remaining underwater 20 minutes on a single breath. "I was mesmerized by their beautiful bubble trails," says Nicklen, who braved 28 F water to capture these images.
See Paul Nicklen's winning image from the 2012 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition » See pictures from Paul Nicklen's Polar Obsession »
Photograph by Frans Lanting , National Geographic
A male cheetah assumes a lookout pose in a fig tree in Kenya s Masai Mara National Reserve. His prospects are sobering. Shy and aloof by nature, requiring vast spaces to live and hunt, the planet's fastest sprinters are in a race for their very survival.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey , National Geographic
Yachts bob in Botafogo Bay, cradled between the beach and the tall rock known as Sugar Loaf.
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Photograph by Paolo Pellegrin , National Geographic
A window reflects an image of Fidel Castro in a working-class Havana neighborhood few tourists see.
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Photograph by Cory Richards, National Geographic
Dusk falls over the temples and homes of Tsarang, once the region s most important town. In Mustang, where the centuries have not disrupted the traditional rhythm of life, the caves offer clues to a time when the remote Himalayan kingdom was a hub linking Tibet to the rest of the world.
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Photograph by Brian Skerry , National Geographic
Corals build the rampart that shelters the landward provinces of mangrove and sea grass. The reef's calcium carbonate city teems with species, among them this spiny-headed blenny.
Photograph by Randy Olson , National Geographic
Their backs to the Pacific, 15 restored moai stand watch at Ahu Tongariki, the largest of Easter Island 's ceremonial stone platforms. Rapanui artisans carved the moai centuries ago from volcanic rock at a quarry a mile away. By the 19th century all of Easter's moai had been toppled by whom or what is unclear. In 1960 these moai were swept inland by a tsunami, which fractured some (left).
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Photograph by Mark Leong , National Geographic
A neon-soaked district beloved by Hong Kong film directors, Mong Kok blazes with massage parlors and karaoke joints, conjuring visions of gangster shoot-outs. Triads, the local gangs, stay low profile, specializing in extortion and loan-sharking.
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Photograph by Carsten Peter , National Geographic
A mix of ropes and ladders eases access to Warren Cave, a labyrinth of passages melted from the ice by the volcano's heat. Small currents of air probably cause the scalloping around the cave's entrance.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett , National Geographic
Beetles are among the most ancient pollen carriers. This soldier beetle munches a magnolia, which emits both scent and heat as lures. Cantharidae on Magnolia grandiflora, National Arboretum, Washington, D.C.
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Photograph by George Steinmetz , National Geographic
TIMGAD, ALGERIA This triumphal arch awed visitors to the city of Thamugadi, founded by the emperor Trajan around A.D. 100 as a civilian settlement near the fort of Lambaesis. The grooves left by wagon and chariot wheels can still be seen in the stone road.
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Photograph by Randy Olson , National Geographic
Tourists diving on Easter Island 's reef encounter a fake moai, made for a 1994 Hollywood movie and then sunk offshore. The reef is healthy, though it is overfished. Tuna and salmon are imported, primarily for tourists.
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Photograph by Orsolya and Erlend Haarberg
When Hverfjall erupted 2,500 years ago, no one saw it no one lived in Iceland . On a March evening photographer Orsolya Haarberg watched alone as a north wind scoured M vatn lake's thin ice, sweeping snow into a drift that looked like a path to the crater.
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Photograph by Gerd Ludwig , National Geographic
Kazakhstan 's new capital is the opposite of understated. After dark, government buildings change hues as the night progresses, creating a theme park atmosphere.
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Photograph by Michael Melford , National Geographic
A female kestrel brings food to her nestlings on a cliff on Socotra's southern coast. These falcons, along with other raptors like the Socotra buzzard, are the main land predators on the island.
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Photograph by Peter Essick , National Geographic
Late summer thunderheads build above Garnet Lake.
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Photograph by Robert Clark , National Geographic
TRIER, GERMANY The Porta Nigra, or "black gate," still dominates Trier, Germany . A hundred feet tall, it was built in the second century as part of four miles of walls. Trier was a major city in the late Roman Empire, even serving as a regional capital under several emperors.
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Photograph by Jonas Bendiksen , National Geographic
Midsummer Night, known as the festival of Ivan Kupala (St. John the Baptist), is marked by candles and flower garlands in Vladimirskoye. Celebrants walk three times around Svetloyar Lake, which legend says makes wishes come true.
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Photograph by Brian Skerry , National Geographic
A whale shark, biggest of fishes, hangs out with small fry off the northern tip of the Yucat n Peninsula.
Photograph by Brent Stirton , National Geographic
The "red elephants" of Kenya's Tsavo East National Park owe their color to the red soil, which they roll in as a dirt bath. Across Africa, sustained poaching of bulls and large females makes orphans of the young and distorts the gene pool in favor of weaker, smaller animals.
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Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann , National Geographic
A monk seeks shelter from a snow shower in the Shaolin complex, lavishly rebuilt in recent years. Stone tablets throughout the grounds testify to the generosity of patrons from all over the world.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett , National Geographic
A full moon rises over the Diksam Plateau, where dragon's blood trees grow in scattered groves. The limestone of Socotra's interior plains formed when ancient seas covered the land.
Photograph by Michael Melford , National Geographic with aerial support by Lighthawk
Snake River Headwaters Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming 387.5 miles protected since 2009
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Photograph by Cory Richards, National Geographic
To reach a series of caves dug into a cliff 155 feet above the valley floor, Matt Segal scales a rock face so fragile it often breaks off to the touch. Linked by a ledge, the 800-year-old caves, empty now, may once have stored manuscripts.
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Photograph by David Alan Harvey , National Geographic
On sunny days a million people with their sea of umbrellas may crowd Rio s beaches.
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Photograph by Mitch Dobrowner
Near Guymon, Oklahoma Most storms move fast. This one crept over a farming community for more than an hour, bristling with electricity. "No two storms are the same," says James LaDue, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. "No two skies are either."
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Photograph by Brian Skerry , National Geographic
Lighthouse Reef atoll off Belize is one of the most seaward outliers of the Mesoamerican Reef.
Photograph by Andrew Parkinson
Long tied to maritime cultures, gannets are flourishing today in crowded colonies around the North Atlantic.
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