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Visions of Earth 2008
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Visions of Earth
Each month,
National Geographic
magazine features breathtaking photographs in Visions of Earth. Browse through visions of the world as seen through a photographer's eye.
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Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia—Though tipped with nightmare claws, the limbs of American alligators—this one photographed at a local park—are more often used to excavate wallowing holes than to slash at prey.]]>
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Medellín, Colombia—Wasting no time between bullfights, attendants tidy the trampled sand at the center of the 12,429-seat La Macarena arena as the carcass of the last bull slain is dragged from the ring.]]>
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Uch Sharif, Pakistan—A man kneels by a humble mud tomb, shadowed by ruins of Sufi shrines. Wracked by floods nearly 200 years ago, the shrines were once the heart of a famed center of Islamic learning. ]]>
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Namib-Naukluft Par, Namibia—Late afternoon sun silhouettes dead acacia trees against a backdrop of sand dunes. In this park on southern Africa's west coast, the dunes rise as high as a thousand feet (305 meters) from the desert floor. ]]>
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Ningaloo Marine Park, Western Australia—A banded toadfish hides among the coral on 185-mile-long (298 kilometers) Ningaloo Reef. Branching skin growths help camouflage the foot-long (0.3 meter) fish from both predator and prey. ]]>
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Catalonia, Spain—Young people in oversize papier-mâché heads pause in a blooming field on the way to a summer festival in the town of Banyoles. Called
capgrossos
in Catalan, the big heads are often worn on feast days. ]]>
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Pike National Forest, Colorado—A constellation of blazes dots Grouse Mountain. The fire, which scorched more than 2,300 acres (931 hectares) in a week in April, was the first major fire of Colorado's 2002 season, the state's worst on record. ]]>
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Tehran, Iran—A target labels the building where students train with firearms at the Kowsar Female Police Academy. Female police officers in Iran deal mostly with crimes involving women.]]>
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South Georgia Island—An elephant seal relaxes in a shallow pool along the shores of Stromness Bay, 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) east of Tierra del Fuego in the South Atlantic Ocean. ]]>
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Kasanka National Park, Zambia—Dawn lights the wings of straw-colored fruit bats heading home from a night's foraging. Each November, some eight million of the animals return to the same square mile of swampy forest to roost.]]>
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Jilin Province, China—Pink-smocked workers move the meat along at the Deda poultry plant in Dehui. Hundreds of thousands of chickens are processed here each day for domestic consumption and export.]]>
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Gombe National Park, Tanzania—A termite swarm looks like candy on the wing to five-year-old Goldi, who gobbles as many as she can grab. She is one of a hundred wild chimpanzees at Tanzania’s Gombe National Park. ]]>
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Namib Desert, Namibia—A tenebrionid beetle faces downhill to help fog droplets roll toward its mouth. The insect may have evolved the behavior because rain is rare but fog abundant in this coastal desert. ]]>
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Mikzue Game Reserve, South Africa—A speckled emperor moth diverts predators with an illusion. Patterns on its hind wings resemble a mammal's face, complete with glinting "pupils." ]]>
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Tarai Region, Nepal—Mahouts, or elephant handlers, guide their animals on an early morning ride through tall grass in Royal Chitwan National Park.]]>
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Namib Desert, Namibia—Camouflaged by sand and scales, a Péringuey’s adder hunts in almost total stillness, twitching only its black tail to attract prey. When it does move, this viper slips sideways across the dunes. ]]>
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Crystal River, Florida—Bubba, a smooth fox terrier, cools his heels during a game of swimming-pool fetch. Light shining into the pool creates a mirror on the underside of the water's surface, giving the dog his all-legs look. ]]>
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Manhattan, New York—The solar system meets West 81st Street in the reflective skin of the Rose Center for Earth and Space. Behind the glass, steel beams resembling fingers hold up a model of the sun, orbited by its planets.]]>
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San Mateo County, California—Artist Jim Denevan stands in his sand swirl. The design, which he spent hours creating with thousands of sweeps of a rake, will be erased by the incoming tide. ]]>
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Havana, Cuba—Children climb, swing, and hang upside down at a city park. Photographer Alex Webb often wanders by the park when he's in Havana. "There's an intense energy to the children's play," he says.]]>
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Pusztaszer, Hungary—Two herons fight over a fish snatched from a hole in an ice-covered lake. Neither bird won. During the quarrel the fish fell to the ice, and another hungry heron snagged the catch. >]]>
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Mindanao, Philippines—A dockworker in Zamboanga City hoists an Indian threadfish, part of the day’s catch. Found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the fish is a member of the jack family and can grow to 55 pounds (25 kilograms).]]>
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Jessore, Bangladesh—Behind a window at a Koranic school, children show off their henna-stained hands. Girls and women decorate their hands for religious holidays, weddings, and other celebrations.]]>
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Rift Valley, Tanzania—A camera’s long nighttime exposure reveals the red glow of lava spilling from Mount Ol Doinyo Lengai. The volcano’s lava, which appears brown to the naked eye, has the consistency of olive oil. ]]>
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil—Blankets of clouds soften a sunset over Guanabara Bay and suspend beachgoers and surrounding mountains in a moment of ethereal light. ]]>
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Yakutsk, Russia—Swaddled in furs against the minus 43°F (minus 42°C) cold, three women glow in headlights that beam through morning fog in Sakha, an autonomous republic in eastern Siberia.]]>
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Danco Island, Antarctica—Gentoo penguins waddle through a web of icy paths on the slope between their hilltop rookery and the open water where they feed. ]]>
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Kaihalulu Beach, Hawaii—Sea foam washes a rocky lava wall on eastern Maui. The sands are tinted cinnamon by the erosion of cinder cliffs surrounding the area. ]]>
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West Atlantic, Bahamas—A maze of yellow and blue scales flashes at the base of the tail of a reef-dwelling queen angelfish. ]]>
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Ahraura, India—Beneath bright saris, shining silver jewelry and red painted toes decorate the feet of women in this northern Indian town. ]]>
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Aripuanã River, Brazil—Nature's forces mingle as thousands of great dusky swifts dart in and out of Dardanelos Falls in the Amazon Basin. The birds nest on rocky ledges behind the wall of water. ]]>
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McMurdo Sound, Antarctica—Leaving ice-cold bubbles in their wake, emperor penguins accelerate during a high-speed swim in the Antarctic summer ice melt. ]]>