National Geographic MagazineWallpapers anno 2012[187 foto]

Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann From "Dogsled Patrol," National Geographic, January 2012 Setting out in the middle of winter, a dogsled team patrols northeastern Greenland.

Photograph by David Coventry From "Panama Gold," National Geographic, January 2012 The personal treasures of a chief include a seahorse pendant about three inches tall, ear ornaments, part of a breastplate, a necklace, and plaques. All were buried in a bag studded with the surrounding stone beads, which scattered as the fibers decayed.

Photograph by Lynn Johnson From "Land Mines," National Geographic, January 2012 To reach the schoolyard outhouse in O Khmum, a boy takes a safe path between buildings. Students must take the path because there are suspected minefields around the school in the area where the shrubs and trees start.

Photograph by William Albert Allard From "Northern Montana," National Geographic, January 2012 Two sorrels belonging to Buster and Helen Brown have gone AWOL in the snow.

Photograph by Daniel Selmeczi, Steve Bloom Images From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, January 2012 Indonesia—A flurry of filaments helps camouflage the striated frogfish, a bottom dwelling predator often found in warm, weedy waters. Like its anglerfish relatives, it also employs a dangling lure to seduce fish and other prey into its lair—and gaping mouth.

Photograph by David Coventry From "Panama Gold," National Geographic, January 2012 Near the cemetery at El Caño, stone monoliths rise to more than six feet. War captives may have been lashed to them before being sacrificed and buried with chiefs during funerals that involved days of feasting and dancing.

Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann From "Dogsled Patrol," National Geographic, January 2012 The Danish flag flaps on the sled as the dogs huff across a flat and frozen sea near Station Nord. The patrollers must lead their team, and in whiteout conditions that often means relying on GPS and a compass.

Photograph by William Albert Allard From "Northern Montana," National Geographic, January 2012 Anna Scherlie, from North Dakota, filed a claim on a homestead near Turner in 1913. She lived alone in this one-room shack, without plumbing or electricity, until 1967.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Rhodesian ridgeback

Photograph by Gerd Ludwig From "Astana, Kazakhstan," National Geographic, February 2012 Floral flourishes decorate Nurzhol Boulevard, or "Radiant Path."

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Poodle

Photograph by Richard Barnes From "Vermilion Cliffs," National Geographic, February 2012 A sandstone formation in White Pocket is almost liquid in its coloring.

Photograph by J.L. Klein and M.L.Hubert, Biosphere From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, February 2012 France—On a bright summer morning a captive-bred male harvest mouse perches acrobatically in an Alsace wheat field. This species—the smallest European rodent—boasts a prehensile tail and builds a round nest that resembles a bird's.

Photograph by John Stanmeyer From "Tsunami Science," National Geographic, February 2012 Oregon Offshore lies a fault that in centuries past has triggered large earthquakes—and tsunamis that swamped the coast. These houses at Cannon Beach sit just inside an evacuation zone based on a worst-case scenario. As the world's coasts get more crowded, geologists are finding that tsunamis occur more often than once thought.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Bloodhound (left), German shorthaired pointer (center), and Sussex spaniel

Photograph by Richard Barnes From "Vermilion Cliffs," National Geographic, February 2012 Sinuous lines of color swirl through the Wave, the monument's most famous landform. Flash floods carved this passage through petrified sand dunes, exposing the iron-rich bands.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Afghan hound

Photograph by Gerd Ludwig From "Astana, Kazakhstan," National Geographic, February 2012 The Baiterek, towering over Astana's central promenade, flares green against a dappled evening sky. Intended as a symbol of the new capital, the 318-foot monument evokes a giant tree with a golden egg in its branches. In the Kazakh myth of Samruk, a sacred bird lays a golden egg in the branches of a poplar each year.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Pembroke Welsh corgi (left) and Cardigan Welsh corgi

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Manny, an Afghan hound, is among the more elegant examples of canine diversity. The centuries of breeding that produced such diversity in dogs also created isolated genetic populations that are helping scientists understand human diseases. "We're the people doing the genetics," says one researcher. "But breeders have done all the fieldwork."

Photograph by Richard Barnes From "Vermilion Cliffs," National Geographic, February 2012 Against a twilight sky, a sandstone edifice in White Pocket catches the day's last warmth.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Great Dane

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Originally bred as guard dogs, Tibetan mastiffs like Midas, a Westminster finalist from Lubbock, Texas, can top 150 pounds. They are highly protective of their owners—an impulse that, along with most other dog behaviors, remains a genetic mystery.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Pomeranian

Photograph by Kevin Frayer, AP Images From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, February 2012 Afghanistan—On drought-pocked earth near Marjah, in the restive Helmand Province, a lone shepherd leads his sheep through a mud wall's gap. Scenes of pastoral grace persist in this agriculturally intensive country, despite strife, insecurity, and dire food shortages.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Chinese crested

Photograph by Richard Barnes From "Vermilion Cliffs," National Geographic, February 2012 Miniature lakes reflect the sky in White Pocket, one of the geological spectacles on the Paria Plateau. Over the eons, groundwater has leached the color out of the Navajo sandstone here, and the weather has broken its surface into irregular polygons.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 English setter (left), Irish setter (center), and Gordon setter

Photograph by Richard Barnes From "Vermilion Cliffs," National Geographic, February 2012 Welcome to the so-called Honeymoon Trail. Threading the hem of the Paria Plateau, Highway 89A partly traces a route followed by 18th-century Franciscan explorers, and by Mormons on their way to St. George, Utah, often to be married.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "How to Build a Dog," National Geographic, February 2012 Italian greyhound

Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann From "Glacial Rocks," National Geographic, March 2012 Looking as if it fell from the sky, a 40-ton erratic stands on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State. Such boulders are sometimes called rubbing stones because bison scratched up against them.

Photograph by Thomas P. Peschak From "Arabian Seas," National Geographic, March 2012 In winter young whale sharks come to feed on plankton in the nutrient-rich waters of the Gulf of Tadjoura, off the arid coast of Djibouti. The world's largest fish—weighing more than an elephant—is becoming a symbol of Arabia's bountiful, but largely unprotected, marine heritage.

Photograph by Brent Stirton From "Rhino Wars," National Geographic, March 2012 A rhinoceros stands on a hillside in KwaZulu-Natal Province.

Photograph by Ed Kashi From "Marseille," National Geographic, March 2012 Marseille, a port city since 600 B.C., has offered refuge to wave upon wave of immigrants. The Mediterranean metropolis of more than 850,000 is home to 100,000 foreigners from Algeria, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, and beyond.

Photograph by Joel Sartore From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, March 2012 Uganda—On a lodge terrace in Queen Elizabeth National Park, a photographer's butter and roll prove irresistible to the local lunchtime crowd. East Africa is home to many species of weaverbirds, known for their skill in building nests.

Photograph by Thomas P. Peschak From "Arabian Seas," National Geographic, March 2012 Rarely visited, the reefs off Saudi Arabia in the northern Red Sea are some of the most undisturbed in the region. Sunlight penetrates deep into the clear waters, enabling lush gardens of corals to flourish along these wave-washed coasts.

Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann From "Glacial Rocks," National Geographic, March 2012 Yeager Rock (at right), in north central Washington State, helped geologists map how far south the ice sheet pushed—and provided a surface where local graduates could paint important dates.

Photograph by Thomas P. Peschak From "Arabian Seas," National Geographic, March 2012 A relic of the Iran-Iraq war, this oil tanker was scuttled near the Kuwait-Iraq border on Saddam Hussein's orders, to block access by sea to southern Iraq. Kuwaiti authorities are reluctant to remove the vessel for fear of damaging the wetlands of nearby Bubiyan Island, an important fish nursery and seabird breeding ground.

Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann From "Glacial Rocks," National Geographic, March 2012 The erratic in the foreground tumbled from a mountainside onto Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska. Sliding downhill, sometimes two feet a day, the ice will eventually crumble, dumping its rider into Mendenhall Lake.

Photograph by Thomas P. Peschak From "Arabian Seas," National Geographic, March 2012 The ordeal of nesting over for another year, a loggerhead turtle paddles into the surf of Oman's Masira Island. The island is a critical breeding area for this endangered species. As the turtles return to the sea, they must evade a gantlet of fishing nets.

Photograph by Green Renaissance/WWF From "Rhino Wars," National Geographic, March 2012 Blindfolded and tranquilized, a black rhino is airlifted in a ten-minute helicopter ride from South Africa's Eastern Cape Province to a waiting truck that will deliver it to a new home some 900 miles away. Designed to extricate the animals gently from difficult terrain, the airlifts are part of an effort to relocate endangered black rhinos to areas better suited to increasing their numbers as well as their range.

Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann From "Glacial Rocks," National Geographic, March 2012 Glen Rock, New Jersey, is named for its 570-ton erratic. Scientists believe a glacier brought it from about 20 miles north. The Lenape Indians, who inhabited the area, had another idea. Their name for such a rock was pamachapuka—stone from the sky.

Photograph by Bruce Farnsworth From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, March 2012 United States—With aquatic tails plus full sets of legs, western spadefoot tadpoles display the magic of metamorphosis. Just days away from terrestrial life, these pollywogs will not eat until their tails are completely reabsorbed into their bodies.

Photograph by Gary Stubelick From "Top Shots," National Geographic, March 2012 A prolonged exposure let Stubelick, 58, create this July 4 photo in Boston. "I like the irony of a fire hydrant on fire," he says, "and a 'fire source' like sparklers implying water flowing from a fire hydrant."

Photograph by Fritz Hoffmann From "Glacial Rocks," National Geographic, March 2012 A melting iceberg, calved from the snout of Alaska's Mendenhall Glacier, carries a passenger just a bit farther. This rock tumbled onto the glacier back in the mountains and rode the escalator down to Mendenhall Lake.

Photograph by Thomas P. Peschak From "Arabian Seas," National Geographic, March 2012 A huge water-themed resort rises on Dubai's coast.

Photograph by Tommy Heinrich From "Climbing K2," National Geographic, April 2012 A rare view of the epic ridge on the Chinese side of K2—so remote and difficult that most climbers tackle the Karakoram Range peak from the Pakistani side. Here, members of the 2011 expedition ferry equipment to the base of the 28,251-foot summit.

Photograph by Klaus Nigge From "Flamingos," National Geographic, April 2012 Flamingos, fiercely loyal in wild flocks, move in unison when there is a threat. Here, near Sisal, Mexico, a research plane is passing overhead. Several major breeding groups live in estuaries around the Caribbean and beyond.

Photograph by Tyrone Turner From "Maroon People," National Geographic, April 2012 A lone chimney is all that remains of a sugar plantation in Frechal, which was partially deeded to former slaves in 1925. The quilombo applied for, and received, protected status in 1992.

Photograph by Nancie Battaglia, Sports Illustrated/Getty Images From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, April 2012 United States—On Fourth lake in new york's adirondacks, a crush of 1,902 canoes and kayaks attempts to break a "largest raft" world record. Rules dictate that the mega­ structure float freely for at least 30 seconds, held together only by hands.

Photograph by Klaus Nigge From "Flamingos," National Geographic, April 2012 When chicks are a few weeks old, parents leave them in a crèche and go in search of food, taking turns returning day and night to feed them. Though watched by a few adults, babies are vulnerable to predators such as dogs and jaguars.

Photograph by Tommy Heinrich From "Climbing K2," National Geographic, April 2012 A tiny pinprick of light emanates from the tent of the successful summit team (on the peak at center left), signaling their return to the bivouac site at 8,300 meters after 15 hours of climbing. Photographer Tommy Heinrich's 14-minute exposure was made from Advanced Base Camp, more than two miles away.

Photograph by Chris Kotsiopoulos From "Top Shots," National Geographic, April 2012 A severe thunderstorm sparked the imagination of Kotsiopoulos, 39. On Ikaria island, he set his camera on a tripod and took repeated 20-second exposures, then combined 70 of them into a single frame. "After 83 minutes," he says, "I ended up with this wall of lightning!"

Photograph by Tommy Heinrich From "Climbing K2," National Geographic, April 2012 It took dozens of camels and eight Kyrgyz drivers to haul 2.2 tons of gear across the bed of the Shaksgam River to Chinese Base Camp. The cost: $17,000—plus eight pairs of sunglasses.

Photograph by Klaus Nigge From "Flamingos," National Geographic, April 2012 Flamingos gather to perform a courtship display on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

Photograph by Tommy Heinrich From "Climbing K2," National Geographic, April 2012 A full moon illuminates the north face of K2.

Photograph by Klaus Nigge From "Flamingos," National Geographic, April 2012 Roused before dawn and herded into an enclosure to be banded, young flamingos huddle in Mexico's Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve. Flocks may move hundreds of miles together in search of food.

Photograph by Andrea Gjestvang, Moment From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, April 2012 Greenland—Snow-covered ice saturated with winter twilight sets the stage for recreational soccer in the village of Aappilattoq. Athletic moves in bundles of warm clothing can prove more challenging than maneuvering on the frozen surface.

Photograph by Klaus Nigge From "Flamingos," National Geographic, April 2012 Pigments in brine shrimp, abundant in the Yucatán where these flamingos were photographed, lend the birds' feathers their coral hue.

Photograph by Tyrone Turner From "Maroon People," National Geographic, April 2012 After Brazil's coastal forests were leveled for sugarcane plantations in the 16th century, millions of slaves were imported from Portuguese Africa. Today farms like this one in the northeast near Rio Formoso produce sugarcane for ethanol, a major export.

Photograph by Tommy Heinrich From "Climbing K2," National Geographic, April 2012 Kaltenbrunner (in red), Zaluski (orange), and Zhumayev follow Vassiliy Pivtsov up a snow slope below Camp II.

Photograph by Klaus Nigge From "Flamingos," National Geographic, April 2012 A Caribbean flamingo runs to take off from the shallow backwaters of Ría Lagartos. The birds are adept aviators, whether flying alone or in flocks.

Photograph by José Antonio Martínez From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, April 2012 Spain—A poppy's ardent color provides the perfect complement to a brilliantly hued Psilothrixbeetle. Springtime foraging is common for the insect in the semidesert Bardenas Reales, a UNESCO biosphere reserve.

Photograph by Paul Hennessy From "Top Shots," National Geographic, April 2012 Hennessy, 58, has "a passion for photographing wildlife, and anything strange and unusual." A two-headed albino Honduran milk snake filled both bills. Hennessy photographed the "serpent oddity"—owned by a local university biologist"—on a black T-shirt at a Florida breeding facility.

Photograph by Alvaro Sanchez-Montañes From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, May 2012 Morocco—Practice makes perfect, even for dogs. With a single bound, this one clears the gap in a beach wall in the coastal town of Essaouira. Takeoff was preceded by a running start, a tug of the leash, and several practice jumps.

Photograph by Tim Laman From "Manakins," National Geographic, May 2012 A club-winged manakin lifts its wings to make music. Machaeropterus deliciosus

Photograph by Richard Barnes From "Civil War Reenvisioned," National Geographic, May 2012 Cavalry cede the field to a truck hauling away cannon after a reenactment of the crucial Union victory at the 1864 Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia.

Photograph by Alex Majoli From "Egypt Evolution," National Geographic, May 2012 A man at the Giza Pyramids, eager to sell rides to foreigners on his elaborately adorned camels, shows a photo of better days for his business. The number of visitors to pharaonic tombs and temples has fallen dramatically.

Photograph by Joel Sartore From "Koala Rescue," National Geographic, May 2012 Two joeys cling to each other at an animal hospital before being placed with human caregivers. Later on, they'll be released into the wild.

Photograph by Orsolya and Erlend Haarberg From "Iceland," National Geographic, May 2012 The volcano Eyjafjallajökull, in Iceland, just before dawn on April 23, 2010: The worst is over. Lava flows freely. Earlier, as it punched through the ice cap, it triggered a meltwater flood that destroyed roads and farms, and a steam explosion that hurled ash into the stratosphere, stopping air traffic for a week.

Photograph by Alex Majoli From "Egypt Evolution," National Geographic, May 2012 At a camel market northwest of Cairo, minders beat the groaning animals with sticks to keep them in line. The camels shown here, however, have managed to surround a Mercedes.

Photograph by Tim Laman From "Manakins," National Geographic, May 2012 The manakins featured in this and the following three photos, photographed in a tropical Ecuadorian forest, aren't capable of their club-winged cousin's musicality. These close relatives are being studied by ornithologist Kim Bostwick in the hope that they may reveal intermediate evolutionary steps that led to the club-winged's virtuosity. Above, the wire-tailed manakin—note the spiky tail feathers—courts a female. Pipra filicauda

Photograph by Orsolya and Erlend Haarberg From "Iceland," National Geographic, May 2012 At Hveravellir—literally "hot springs in the plain"—thin terraces of geyserite precipitate from the water as it cools. A notorious 18th-century outlaw, Fjalla-Eyvindur, stayed warm here for years, stealing sheep from summer pastures.

Photograph by Michael Milicia From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, May 2012 United States—On Massachusetts's Plum Island, a piper plover plumps for one of its primary roles following the hatching of its chicks: warm cover. Though able to feed on their own within a few hours, the fledglings need help maintaining their body temperature.

Photograph by Richard Barnes From "Civil War Reenvisioned," National Geographic, May 2012 In this summer 2011 reenactment of the First Battle of Bull Run, smoke from cannon suggests an explosive encounter.

Photograph by Orsolya and Erlend Haarberg From "Iceland," National Geographic, May 2012 Winter surf pours through arches it has carved in the basalt at Arnarstapi, on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. In a few months the place will be a carnival of kittiwakes, seabirds that breed here. The large arch is roughly 40 feet high.

Photograph by Orsolya and Erlend Haarberg From "Iceland," National Geographic, May 2012 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 Mývatn lake's thin ice, sweeping snow into a drift that looked like a path to the crater.

Photograph by Alex Majoli From "Egypt Evolution," National Geographic, May 2012 Herodotus called Egypt the "gift of the river" because the country would be a sandy wasteland without the Nile's nourishing waters.

Photograph by Orsolya and Erlend Haarberg From "Iceland," National Geographic, May 2012 A glacial torrent pours over a 40-foot-high ledge at Gođafoss, "waterfall of the gods." After the Icelandic assembly adopted Christianity in 1000, its leader threw his pagan idols into the falls. The mossy island, notes geographer Guđrún Gísladóttir, "is protected from sheep."

Photograph by Tim Laman From "Manakins," National Geographic, May 2012 The golden-headed manakin moves its wings like the club-winged manakin but does so silently. Pipra erythrocephala

Photograph by Alex Majoli From "Egypt Evolution," National Geographic, May 2012 At a museum devoted to the 1973 war with Israel, teenagers view a giant panorama of the fighting. Early victories restored a sense of national pride.

Photograph by Jim Lo Scalzo From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, May 2012 United States—A dead athel tree, bathed in moonlight in a long night exposure, attests to former fertility on what is now a salt pan at the edge of the Salton Sea. Salinity at the California lake, 231 feet below sea level, is some 50 percent greater than the Pacific Ocean's.

Photograph by Orsolya and Erlend Haarberg From "Iceland," National Geographic, May 2012 Hraunfossar waterfall in September looks much as it would have in Viking days: birch trees, bog bilberries, and the Hvítá River, white with silt. The waterfall is a series of springs that plunge into the river on the far bank.

Photograph by Mark W. Moffett From "Socotra," National Geographic, June 2012 Dragon's blood forests are nearly devoid of seedlings and young trees. Some scientists blame a lack of water caused by a decrease in seasonal cloud cover—and predict that many stands could disappear within a century.

Photograph by NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) From "Solar Storms," National Geographic, June 2012 July 21, 2011 The seething turmoil in our sun's atmosphere is captured in extreme ultraviolet light by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), launched in 2010 to better understand solar activity and its impact on Earth. In this colorized view (NASA color-codes SDO images to represent different wavelengths of light), bright coronal loops arc between regions of intense magnetic activity, while cooler, darker filaments hang suspended in the sun's magnetic field.

Photograph by Sven Začek From "Ural Owls," National Geographic, June 2012 Concave faces help channel sound into supersensitive ears.

Photograph by Mark Leong From "Hong Kong," National Geographic, June 2012 A forest of high-rises, many of them public housing projects, covers central Kowloon, one of the world's most crowded pieces of real estate. Despite Hong Kong's glittery reputation, almost half of its seven million residents live in subsidized housing.

Photograph by Harry Katzjaeger From "Top Shots," National Geographic, June 2012 "The deeper the silence, the higher the inspiration," says Katzjaeger, 55, whose interest in Greece took hold in childhood. He drank strong coffee to combat the cold while taking long exposures of the night sky above Helmos Observatory in northern Peloponnesus.

Photograph by David Alan Harvey From "Outer Banks," National Geographic, June 2012 Skippy learned to surf as a puppy and can hang with the OBX's best surfing dogs.

Photograph by Michael Melford From "Socotra," National Geographic, June 2012 A brown booby lands on the western coast. At least ten kinds of seabirds breed on Socotra or the small islands around it, making the archipelago a regionally significant home for them.

Photograph by Michael Melford From "Socotra," National Geographic, June 2012 Dazzling white sand dunes stretch for miles in places along Socotra's southern coastline, here at Aomak beach. Extremely high winds during the monsoon season constantly reshape the dunes.

Photograph by David Alan Harvey From "Outer Banks," National Geographic, June 2012 Sometimes I sit for hours just admiring waves: the aesthetics of each curl, the way the wind shapes a break, the colors morphing and shifting as a swell rises. Ultimately the waves will transform OBX. In that way each is both a harbinger of the end and a work of art.

Photograph by Martin Stojanovski From "Solar Storms," National Geographic, June 2012 A direct hit by a massive CME could shut down power lines, like these in Macedonia.

Photograph by David Alan Harvey From "Outer Banks," National Geographic, June 2012 A pompano (soon to be released) is reeled in near my home in Nags Head on this ribbon of fragile barrier islands. The wild beauty and weather of this place have beguiled me since I was a kid, but now along with other inhabitants I wonder how long the islands will remain.

Photograph by Michael Melford From "Socotra," National Geographic, June 2012 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 From "Socotra," National Geographic, June 2012 Ancient periods of volcanic activity built the Hajhir Mountains, where rugged granite peaks rise to nearly 5,000 feet. Nightly clouds provide moisture for plant life that's among the most diverse in Asia.

Photograph by Sven Začek From "Ural Owls," National Geographic, June 2012 Heightened vision and specialized feathers let owls fly under a cloak of darkness and silence. "I'm in awe of them," says photographer Začek.

Photograph by Michael Melford From "Socotra," National Geographic, June 2012 Socotra's varied coastline comprises sandy beach, boulders, mudflats, and both living and fossil coral reefs. Marine resources remain vital: Many islanders make their living from fishing at least part of the year.

Photograph by Bjørn Jørgenson From "Solar Storms," National Geographic, June 2012 January 24, 2012 An aurora flutters above the Sommarøy bridge on the island of Kvaløy in northern Norway during a week of intense solar activity. Auroras appear when charged solar particles strike atmospheric gases, lighting them up like neon in a tube. Most common near the Poles, auroras also occur in lower latitudes during strong solar storms.

Photograph by Mark W. Moffett From "Socotra," National Geographic, June 2012 A desert rose anchors itself on the Maalah cliffs, in the company of more than 300 other rare plant species on Socotra. In the distance lies Qulansiyah, one of the island's largest towns.

Photograph by Randy Olson From "Easter Island," National Geographic, July 2012 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).

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Antarctica's Mount Erebus," National Geographic, July 2012 Steam swirls out of the Erebus crater, bringing with it a stench of sulfur. The inside of the crater looks like an exotic cheese, layers of ice alternating with layers of dark volcanic rocks, soils, and clays. The power of nature is strong here: thin air and fierce cold plus the elemental force of an active volcano.

Photograph by Randy Olson From "Easter Island," National Geographic, July 2012 Three volcanoes, quiet now, formed Easter Island half a million years ago. It has three crater lakes but no streams; fresh water is scarce. Chile, the island's source of fuel and most food, is 2,150 miles away.

Photograph by Nathan Goshgarian, Boston, Massachusetts From "Top Shots," National Geographic, July 2012 While completing his master's degree in conservation biology in New Zealand, Goshgarian, 32, and a friend explored South Island in a camper van. At Milford Sound, "one of the most breathtaking places on Earth," he waited several hours for winds calm enough to shoot.

Photograph by Randy Olson From "Easter Island," National Geographic, July 2012 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.

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Antarctica's Mount Erebus," National Geographic, July 2012 On a clear evening the main crater of the volcano is quiet, exuding just a few puffs of steam. Abutting it is another crater, now extinct. Beyond, a dreamscape of sea ice and ocean stretches to the mountains and dry valleys of the Antarctic mainland.

Photograph by Jonas Bendiksen From "Russian Summer," National Geographic, July 2012 At the lavish end of the dacha spectrum are faux châteaux like these at Zelenyy Mys. Roughly half are permanent residences. A helicopter landing pad and yacht club are among the amenities for well-heeled owners.

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Antarctica's Mount Erebus," National Geographic, July 2012 It's midnight, but with the light so bright, it's hard to stop exploring the ice towers. This is one of the biggest on Erebus, but the flux of heat and moisture from below has collapsed its side. In the distance, beyond another ice tower, the Hut Point Peninsula extends like a finger toward Mount Discovery.

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Antarctica's Mount Erebus," National Geographic, July 2012 A study in contrasts: ice and snow in the foreground, the lava lake of Mount Erebus below. Erebus is one of just a handful of volcanoes to boast a permanent lava lake. At the moment this picture was taken, the volcano was quiet, but it frequently erupts, hurling lava bombs high in the air.

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Antarctica's Mount Erebus," National Geographic, July 2012 Inside the ice caves the volcano's warm, wet air freezes into frost crystals that grow into different shapes, depending on how the air currents flow. Here, a team member investigates the passages of Hut Cave.

Photograph by Joel Sartore From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, July 2012 United States—Though more than a century old, these bird eggs retain a fresh palette at the University of Nebraska State Museum. The specimens, whose contents were emptied via shell holes, include a large one from a white-necked raven (far right) and five blue wood thrush eggs (far left).

Photograph by Liz Andersen, Fredikstad, Norway From "Top Shots," National Geographic, July 2012 As a child in the sixties, Andersen dreamed of being a fashion designer. "These Barbie dolls were my guinea pigs—I made clothes for them," she says. Today she's a post office manager, and her friends' kids enjoy playing with the dolls, dressed here in vintage clothing for a beach excursion.

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Antarctica's Mount Erebus," National Geographic, July 2012 An unearthly landscape. On the upper slopes of Mount Erebus, the ice has been polished and textured by the wind. In the distance, sea ice, open ocean, and the mountains and dry valleys of the Antarctic mainland. Three figures—tiny in this vast place—prepare to return to camp after a cold day's work.

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Chasing Lightning," National Geographic, August 2012 Back on the highway with his 1,600-pound camera in tow, Tim Samaras hunts for the elusive shot. This summer he's on the chase again, with new, nimbler equipment.

Photograph by Chinafotopress/Getty Images From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, August 2012 China—On his way to second place in a bee-wearing contest in Hunan Province, a contestant disappears beneath a carpet of insects lured by a queen bee in a cage. A scale he was standing upon tallied his total take: about 50 pounds of bees.

Photograph by Aaron Huey From "Pine Ridge Indian Reservation," National Geographic, August 2012 Spiritual Ways With the reverence afforded a sacred being, Oglala men fell a specially chosen cottonwood tree and carry it to the center of a Sun Dance circle. Erected in the earth, the tree will become the focus of a days-long spiritual ceremony. Sun Dances and other traditional ceremonies have undergone a resurgence since the 1970s.

Photograph by Marie-Pier Couture From "Top Shots," National Geographic, August 2012 During a break from her job working with aerial photographs of cities, mining facilities, and forests around Canada, Couture, 30, visited one of her favorite animals at the zoo in St.-Félicien. She watched this polar bear drift lazily up and down in the water several times.

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Chasing Lightning," National Geographic, August 2012 Horizontal, cloud-to-cloud lightning bolts—called anvil crawlers, for their tendency to “crawl” along the bottom of anvil-shaped storm clouds—light up the sky near Greensburg, Kansas.

Photograph by Alex Webb From "East London," National Geographic, August 2012 “The East End of London is a world in itself,” wrote Charles Dickens. The constellation of skyscrapers in Canary Wharf's financial district is a world within that world, built from docklands abandoned in the 1960s, when shipping moved downriver to deeper water.

Photograph by Michael Yamashita From "Tibetan Gold," National Geographic, August 2012 Faces shielded from the sun, digging tools in hand, Tibetan families can search all day for the larvae, called yartsa gunbu. Some stalks poke barely a quarter inch out of the ground.

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Chasing Lightning," National Geographic, August 2012 Guided by the laptop weather map reflected in his window, Tim Samaras rushes to catch up to a dying thunderstorm. He hopes to be the first to photograph the split-second event that triggers a lightning strike.

Photograph by Jody MacDonald From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, August 2012 India—Trees infused with sunlight dwarf an early morning visitor to the rain forest on Havelock Island. Rajan, an Asian elephant retired from logging, takes the stroll as part of his daily routine and occasionally swims in the Andaman Sea.

Photograph by Michael Yamashita From "Tibetan Gold," National Geographic, August 2012 A ten-year-old girl's gloved hand holds the tiny, dirt-covered biological curiosity: Yartsa gunbu is a combination of moth larva (caterpillar) and parasitic fungus. The high-priced “worms,” as the infected larvae are called, are believed to cure everything from hair loss to hepatitis.

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Chasing Lightning," National Geographic, August 2012 A cloud-to-ground lightning strike severs the sky near Los Lunas, New Mexico. Tim Samaras and his crew chased the slow-moving storm cell until they ran out of road, and now can only watch as it moves on. New Mexico's sparse road system makes lightning chasing difficult. Far easier to navigate are the tight grids of farm roads crisscrossing the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles.

Photograph by Carsten Peter From "Chasing Lightning," National Geographic, August 2012 A ground fire ignited by a lightning storm near Elephant Butte, New Mexico, paints the horizon with brown smoke. At right, another cloud-to-ground strike flashes through a shaft of rain.

Photograph by Aaron Huey From "Pine Ridge Indian Reservation," National Geographic, August 2012 Nine-year-old Wakinyan Two Bulls places prayer flags in a tree near Mato Tipila (“bear lodge”), or Devils Tower, in Wyoming. The story of the Oglala—their spirituality and their fight to remedy old wrongs—goes well beyond the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Seamounts," National Geographic, September 2012 A diver explores a shallow, coral-encrusted seamount slope near Raja Ampat, Indonesia; the remotely operated vehicle can descend to survey deeper reaches.

Photograph by Anup Shah, Nature Picture Library From "Visions of Earth," National Geographic, September 2012 Indonesia—Empty-handed after a trip to a feeding area, Doyok the orangutan hangs out in Borneo's Tanjung Puting National Park. The rehabilitated primate was released into the wild some 20 years ago but occasionally returns for a bit of banana and milk.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "Roman Walls," National Geographic, September 2012 HADRIAN’S WALL, ENGLAND Barbarians would have stared up at this section, which runs along a cliff near the northern town of Once Brewed. In its heyday, the wall was 14 feet high and stretched 73 miles, from coast to coast. A deep ditch reinforced parts of it. Today a walking trail runs alongside it.

Photograph by Robb Kendrick From "West Texas Drought," National Geographic, September 2012 PEP Gusting winds fling dirt from barren cotton fields onto Farm to Market Road 303, near a small community called Pep. Parts of West Texas saw next to no rainfall in 2011.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Seamounts," National Geographic, September 2012 An abandoned trawl net blankets part of the El Bajo Seamount in Mexico’s Gulf of California, destroying corals. Overfishing has depleted the once vibrant ecosystem here and at seamounts worldwide.

Photograph by Stephanie Sinclair From "Yemen," National Geographic, September 2012 Lights atop the 300-foot minarets at four-year-old al Saleh Mosque glow during a storm in Sanaa. The $60 million house of worship is Yemen’s largest and most extravagant, named for Ali Abdullah Saleh, who stepped down in February after 33 years as president. It opened with claims of promoting moderate Islam. But militant groups have only gained strength.

Photograph by Blerta Zabërgja From "Top Shots," National Geographic, September 2012 Zabërgja was 22 when she watched this sunset from a rooftop. "I was feeling like Alice in Wonderland, all grown up and facing the chaos of the real world!" says the painter and photographer, now 28. "I love heights and took this self-portrait to capture the feeling it gives me."

Photograph by Jeff Berkes From "Top Shots," National Geographic, September 2012 Storm chaser Berkes, 32, spent 36 hours in below-zero windchills and up to 70-mph gusts to make this self-portrait in Barnegat Light, New Jersey. "Every storm, big or small, summer or winter, draws me to it. I picked this location because it was where the worst weather was expected," he says.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Seamounts," National Geographic, September 2012 An expanse of cabbage coral attached to the slope of a seamount near Raja Ampat provides shelter for crabs, shrimps, and other animals. Passing schools of fish may feed on these invertebrates as well as on plankton brought up by strong currents.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "Roman Walls," National Geographic, September 2012 QASR BSHIR, JORDAN Built around A.D. 300, this cavalry outpost on the edge of the desert is one of the world’s best preserved Roman forts. With between 70 and 160 horsemen, the fort kept Arab nomads from attacking caravans carrying frankincense and myrrh.

Photograph by Stephanie Sinclair From "Yemen," National Geographic, September 2012 Generators keep the lights blazing at a wedding in Sanaa’s Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where power cuts are frequent.

Photograph by Robert Clark From "Roman Walls," National Geographic, September 2012 AMMAN, JORDAN Imposing architecture and art followed Roman armies to the farthest flung corners of the empire. The curled fingers were part of a statue that may have stood over 40 feet tall at the Temple of Hercules, in Amman, Jordan, around A.D. 160. Romans knew the city as Philadelphia.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Seamounts," National Geographic, September 2012 An orange sheephead, slender wrasses, and other fish swim through a forest of coralline algae and kelp stalks swaying in the current around Cortes Bank. "The communities you find on seamounts are like oases in otherwise deep water," says Bruce Robison, senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Seamounts," National Geographic, September 2012 A harbor seal peers from a kelp forest on Cortes Bank, a series of undersea peaks and plateaus off the coast of San Diego. This shallow, light-filled summit supports a wide variety of animals and plants.

Photograph by Robb Kendrick From "Extreme Weather," National Geographic, September 2012 TEXAS Tumbleweeds catch in the furrows of an unplanted cotton field near Brownfield, southwest of Lubbock. High winds and a record-breaking heat wave led to damaging erosion, says Buzz Cooper, who runs a cotton gin nearby. “It was just like a hot fan in an oven," he says.

Photograph by Robb Kendrick From "West Texas Drought," National Geographic, September 2012 SAN ANGELO Well drillers Clark Abel (top) and his son, Justin, install the head of a windmill that will pump water from a new and deeper well. Drought is good for their business—but in the long run could drive people away from West Texas.

Photograph by Ray Yeager From "Top Shots," National Geographic, September 2012 After searching the bird feeders in Yeager's yard, this squirrel stopped on the back deck to pick up fallen seeds. "It seemed to be using its tail as an umbrella, as a shield from the falling snow," says Yeager, 62. "After several minutes the snow began to build up on its tail, but the little guy kept eating."

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Seamounts," National Geographic, September 2012 Dusk falls as the DeepSee returns to the surface and to its support ship, the Argo, at the end of a day of mapping and exploring Las Gemelas.

Photograph by Cory Richards From "Sky Caves of Nepal," National Geographic, October 2012 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.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Mesoamerican Reef," National Geographic, October 2012 A loggerhead turtle grazes. Sea grass is not the typical meal for the primarily carnivorous species, which feeds on jellyfish, crabs, and conchs.

Photograph by Zhang Xuan From "Top Shots," National Geographic, October 2012 On the shore of Canada's Lake Ontario, Zhang enjoyed watching the elegant feathers of mute swans. While feeding, this one opened its wings and gave the photographer the shot he'd hoped for. "My original aim was to capture the swan facing me," he says, "but this angle was good."

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Mesoamerican Reef," National Geographic, October 2012 Mangroves contribute to the system by trapping reef-bound sediment, filtering out pollution, and serving as nursery for many reef fish and invertebrates. The arched roots of mangroves like these form gateways through which multitudes of juveniles swim toward adulthood on the reef.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Mesoamerican Reef," National Geographic, October 2012 A view from 12,000 feet, off the coast of Belize, shows the parts of the system that make the whole. The outer reef breaks the force of the ocean swells. Next comes the white line of coral rubble along the reef crest, then the sandy back reef, and, finally, the lagoon: a maze of sand islets, mangrove cays, and sea grass beds.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Mesoamerican Reef," National Geographic, October 2012 Whale sharks gather at the surface off the northern tip of the Yucatán Peninsula. Here, at the upper end of the Mesoamerican Reef, convene the largest known assemblies of whale sharks. The giant fish seem to come for the eggs of spawning bonito. Farther south, off the coast of Belize, whale sharks are drawn to the white clouds of eggs released by huge aggregations of spawning dog snappers, mutton snappers, and cubera snappers.

Photograph by Cory Richards From "Sky Caves of Nepal," National Geographic, October 2012 Climbers and scientists follow a trail above the Kali Gandaki River in Nepal’s remote Mustang region. More than 60 feet above are rows of unexplored man-made caves dug centuries ago. There may be thousands in the region.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Mesoamerican Reef," National Geographic, October 2012 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 David Alan Harvey From "Playing Rio," National Geographic, October 2012 Yachts bob in Botafogo Bay, cradled between the beach and the tall rock known as Sugar Loaf.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Mesoamerican Reef," National Geographic, October 2012 A school of chubs swims over the coral reef of Cordelia Banks near the island of Roatán in Honduras. Cordelia Banks, at the southeastern end of the Mesoamerican Reef, has the greatest abundance of corals known in the Caribbean. Researchers believe the banks, not fully protected, are a crucial nursery from which larval coral-reef organisms seed other regions of the Caribbean.

Photograph by Ko Cheng From "Top Shots," National Geographic, October 2012 As a medical student in Taichung, Cheng visited Gaomei wetland, a protected habitat where water sculpts the mud. The 27-year-old reflects, "Taking off one's shoes and walking on the tidal flat is the most direct way for people who live in the concrete jungle to contact nature."

Photograph by David Alan Harvey From "Playing Rio," National Geographic, October 2012 In the late afternoon on Ipanema, beachgoers play the popular game of altinho, or keep it up, using soccer moves to pass the ball in the air from person to person. Many people come here straight from work at the end of their shift.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Mesoamerican Reef," National Geographic, October 2012 A male rainbow parrotfish patrols a bed of turtle grass in Hol Chan Marine Reserve. Scarus guacamaia, the largest herbivorous fish in the Atlantic, uses all three provinces of the Mesoamerican Reef in the course of its life. As a juvenile it seeks the protection of the submerged roots at the fringe of the mangrove forest, from which it makes foraging runs to adjacent sea grass beds. As an adult it makes a home on the reef, with occasional visits to its old haunts.

Photograph by Brian Skerry From "Mesoamerican Reef," National Geographic, October 2012 A Caribbean reef shark samples a Pacific lionfish at Cordelia Banks in Honduras. A few spiny lionfish escaped from an aquarium 20 years ago, and today they’re a plague, preying on the reef’s fish population. Scientists are helping sharks acquire a taste for the invaders by feeding them speared lionfish.

Photograph by Cory Richards From "Sky Caves of Nepal," National Geographic, October 2012 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.

Photograph by Frans Lanting From "Cheetahs," National Geographic, November 2012 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.

Photograph by Paul Nicklen From "Emperor Penguins," National Geographic, November 2012 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.

Photograph by Paolo Pellegrin From "New Cuba," National Geographic, November 2012 The century-old stone wall of the Malecón, Havana’s famous oceanside esplanade, shields the city—imperfectly—from the battering of roiling seas. On calmer nights people come out to stroll on the street.

Photograph by Colleen Pinski From "Top Shots," National Geographic, November 2012 Pinski, 28, and her husband drove several hundred miles to Albuquerque just to get a better view of an annular solar eclipse. “We’re avid adventurists, so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity,” she says. A supertelephoto lens helped secure a larger-than-life image.

Photograph by Paul Nicklen From "Emperor Penguins," National Geographic, November 2012 Life is safer at the colony, where predators are few and company is close.

Photograph by Frans Lanting From "Cheetahs," National Geographic, November 2012 Rescued as a cub from the hands of a poacher, five-year-old Koshki grew up in a reserve in northeast Iran. He’s one of only two Asiatic cheetahs living in captivity. A thick tuft of fur on his shoulders, needed for bitter winters on the high steppes of central Iran, sets him apart from African cheetahs.

Photograph by David Coventry, Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde, Denmark From "Vikings and Native Americans," National Geographic, November 2012 Daring Viking seafarers used ships like this modern replica to reach the New World in their search for furs, walrus ivory, and trading partners—which they may have found in the native Dorset people.

Photograph by Paul Nicklen From "Emperor Penguins," National Geographic, November 2012 Preparing to launch from the sea to the sea ice, an emperor penguin reaches maximum speed.

Photograph by Frans Lanting From "Cheetahs," National Geographic, November 2012 A young cheetah mother named Etta by researchers scans the Serengeti for signs of danger while her four 12-week-old cubs wrestle. A long-running study has found that the majority of cubs here are raised by a small group of cheetah supermoms.

Photograph by Paul Nicklen From "Emperor Penguins," National Geographic, November 2012 An airborne penguin shows why it has a need for speed: To get out of the water, it may have to clear several feet of ice. A fast exit also helps it elude leopard seals, which often lurk at the ice edge.

Photograph by Frans Lanting From "Cheetahs," National Geographic, November 2012 A hidden camera captures a fleeting glimpse of an Asiatic cheetah. Only a few dozen survive in a remote corner of Iran. Worldwide cheetah numbers have plunged from an estimated 100,000 in 1900 to fewer than 10,000 today.

Photograph by Paul Nicklen From "Emperor Penguins," National Geographic, November 2012 At a colony on the frozen Ross Sea, emperor parents and chicks bask in the brief summer sun. The distance to open water varies with the season; in midwinter birds may have to cross many miles of ice to feed.

Photograph by Cesar Aristeiguieta From "Top Shots," National Geographic, November 2012 Watching captive wolves on a ranch in Kalispell, Montana, Aristeiguieta witnessed a young male (left) challenge the alpha male. “Despite tense and dangerous moments, the handlers were able to separate them,” reports the photographer, 51, who’s also a physician.

Photograph by Paul Nicklen From "Emperor Penguins," National Geographic, November 2012 Emperor penguins mill in the depths as they prepare for their swift ascent to the sea ice. “Once they start to launch,” says Nicklen, “within 30 seconds they’re all standing on the ice.”

Photograph by Tim Laman From "Birds of Paradise," National Geographic, December 2012 The rising sun spotlights the courtship display of a greater bird of paradise on Wokam Island, south of New Guinea. Males strip leaves from treetop branches to clear the stage for mating rituals.

Photograph by Mark Thiessen From "Methane," National Geographic, December 2012 The first clear ice of fall on an Alaskan lake captures methane that all summer long has bubbled from the bottom mud. In spring it will be released into the air. As permafrost melts, new lakes are forming all around the Arctic.

Photograph by Michael Nichols From "Giant Sequoias," National Geographic, December 2012 The living crown (this one atop the General Sherman, at center) was once a distant mystery. Scientist Steve Sillett’s new arboreal studies have yielded revelations, including this: These old trees are still growing fast.

Photograph by Robert Clark, at the Toulouse Museum, France From "Doggerland," National Geographic, December 2012 Murdered, then buried together in a grave festooned with antlers, two women from a Mesolithic cemetery on Téviec Island in Brittany, France, pay witness to a violent age. The shrinking of territories due to sea-level rise may have brought neighboring populations into conflict.

Photograph by Tim Laman From "Birds of Paradise," National Geographic, December 2012 Special muscles let the King of Saxony bird of paradise swing each antenna-like head feather through a 180-degree arc during courtship. Rows of miniature pennants decorate plumes that can grow to 20 inches.

Photograph by Li Xin From "Top Shots," National Geographic, December 2012 One summer evening Li was snapping shots of clouds from his Beijing rooftop when lightning (at center left) lit up this towering thunderhead. The effect, says the 31-year-old photojournalist, reminded him of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion.

Photograph by Mark Thiessen From "Methane," National Geographic, December 2012 No gassy belch goes unrecorded at the Teagasc Food Research Centre in Ireland. “Cows are walking fermentation chambers,” says researcher Matthew Deighton. But adding fat to their diet might reduce their copious methane emissions.

Photograph by Michael Nichols From "Giant Sequoias," National Geographic, December 2012 Resolute and anchored in their remote habitat, the giant sequoias withstand the weight of winter snow and many other stresses. They have seen times and trends and peoples come and go; we are merely the latest.

Photograph by Tim Laman From "Birds of Paradise," National Geographic, December 2012 A Western parotia struts his stuff. Known for their six head wires and ballerina-like “tutu” of stiff feathers, male parotias flash their iridescent breast feathers as they display for females. Each male clears a patch of forest floor several feet across, creating a stage where he performs a bizarre dance: hopping, prancing sideways, curtsying, and bobbing his head.

Photograph by Carolyn Drake From "Shamans," National Geographic, December 2012 The peaks of Burkhan Rock rise like twin spires from Siberia’s Lake Baikal, the world’s largest body of fresh water. People across Asia believe that spirits associated with Baikal live in this rocky outcropping on Olkhon Island, destination of a steady stream of pilgrims.

Photograph by Lisa Franceski From "Top Shots," National Geographic, December 2012 Ever mindful not to disturb baby birds, Franceski crawled through goose poop to photograph this flapping gosling at a pond on Long Island, New York. "I couldn't stop laughing," says the registered nurse, 48. "It looked like a football referee calling, Touchdown!"

Photograph by Mark Thiessen From "Methane," National Geographic, December 2012 Brittle shale expands and cracks when brought up in a drill core from thousands of feet below. This sample is about two inches across. The white specks are salt crystals—residue from the ancient sea where the shale formed. To fracture shale underground and collect the gas trapped in its pores, gas companies pump millions of gallons of fracking fluids down a well.

Photograph by Carolyn Drake From "Shamans," National Geographic, December 2012 A stone mound, or ovoo, in Mongolia marks a place where spirits are said to have appeared; respectful travelers circle it three times.

Photograph by Tim Laman From "Birds of Paradise," National Geographic, December 2012 A twelve-wired bird of paradise calls in a New Guinea swamp. Males brush the dozen stiff feather shafts on their lower torsos against females’ faces before mating. Scientists aren’t sure why—perhaps it tickles.