National Geographic BlogWild

By now, you’ve likely seen Monica Szczupider’s photograph of grieving chimpanzees at Cameroon’s Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center. The image—which Monica submitted to Your Shot, and which appeared in the November issue of National Geographic magazine—is resonating with people everywhere. Over the last few days, it’s turned up in newspapers, on television, and on blogs worldwide.

National Geographic Emerging Explorer, aquatic ecologist, and megafish-finder Zeb Hogan has traveled to lakes and rivers the world over to document and protect the planet’s largest freshwater fish. Tonight, the National Geographic Channel premieres a new episode of Hooked that follows Zeb into the Australian outback in search of one of the most critically endangered—and peculiar-looking—fish on Earth, the giant freshwater sawfish.

“These mosquitoes really love me! Why aren't they biting you?" The reason why pests bother you, but not the person sitting next to you—or vice versa—probably comes down to a matter of scent.

Dereck and Beverly Joubert, National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence, have spent nearly three decades living alongside Africa’s lions and leopards. Working out of a tent or truck, they spend months at a time observing and learning about these top predators. With a collaborative storytelling style that weaves together Beverly’s photography and sound recordings with Dereck’s film footage and writing, they have created dozens of award-winning films, books, and magazine articles. They also now are helping National Geographic with the Big Cats Initiative, which was announced yesterday on the Today Show (and on this blog!).

Because of Beverly and Dereck's patience and love for these animals, we are lucky to have this beautiful slide show of images to share with you.

Wildlife filmmakers, conservationists, and National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert appeared with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show this morning to announce the Big Cats Initiative—a campaign to rally public support and bolster conservation efforts for lions, leopards, and other large feline species in the wild worldwide.

From afar, the primeval mountainsides of the Monteverde Cloud Forest of Costa Rica appear both majestic and mysterious. Venture within with National Geographic Young Explorers Greg Goldsmith and Drew Fulton and you will discover that this mist-enshrouded tropical evergreen forest is teeming with life. This astounding biodiversity owes much of its existence to the extra water bestowed by clouds, which condenses onto leaves and drips to the forest floor. This extra moisture supports the world's most diverse collection of orchid species and a thriving array of amphibians, reptiles, and birds.

Photojournalist and National Geographic Young Explorer Joe Riis hopes to inspire people to protect the Path of the Pronghorn by documenting their epic migration—from the pronghorn's perspective. “[I] wanted to view the landscape through the eyes of the pronghorn and see the obstacles that the pronghorn see,” explains Joe. Outfitted with a collection of infrared-triggered camera traps and a life-size cutout of a pronghorn that he uses as a cover, Joe is the first person to take close-up photographs of the pronghorn during migration. Walking alongside the animals on foot, he chronicles the hazards faced on their journey—as well as the spectacular beauty of the Wyoming landscape—in intimate detail.

Greetings from Costa Rica, faithful BlogWild followers. For the next three weeks, I’m headed to sea.

National Geographic Fellow Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle, and a team of leading marine scientists from Central America and across the globe have gathered here. Destination: Cocos Island—Isla del Coco, ringed by some of the most shark-rich waters anywhere—and the submerged and all-but-unexplored summits of Las Gemelas (“The Twin Sisters”) seamounts.

Our latest book, long overdue, is to be released by Rizzoli in New York in September. We have just received copies of Eye of the Leopard, and we are delighted with the printing and the way it has turned out. Most of all we hope that the book does justice, in its small way, to the delights of sharing the world with animals such as this—and in particular like Legadema, the leopard character of the book.

Even if you somehow managed to miss my recent blog post on "Crasher Squirrel," by now you've likely seen the famous image of the photogenic fur ball, or one of the thousands of Photoshopped, squirrel-enhanced images sprouting like acorns across the Web. Now Boyd Matson, host of National Geographic Weekend, has gotten a one-on-one interview with squirrel-crashed photographer Melissa Brandts.

Yesterday afternoon at around 2:30, the headwaters of the Okavango met up with the river flow down the Selinda, joining up the Selinda Spillway for the first time in 30 years!

When Melissa Brandts positioned her camera for a timed self-portrait with her husband on the banks of Canada's stunning Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park, she didn't expect a squirrel to steal the scene. "This curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intrigued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into our shot," she writes. "We were laughing about this little guy for days!"

In my last post, I began the story of my trip up Guyana's Wokomung Massif to the summit of Mt. Kopinang in search of new frog species. In particular, I was on the hunt for frogs with funky odors that repel would-be predators. I literally had my eye on the one above, a red and black Pristimantis that Bruce Means discovered and described as a new species, prompting us to visit the Wokomung Massif together. In general, bright coloration and bold patterns indicate that a frog might be toxic, and on Wokomung, there were more colorful frogs to discover...

As I mentioned not long ago, National Geographic Weekend radio host Boyd Matson (at right above) and producer Ben Shaw invited me to join them on a trip across town to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

When last I wrote about the 2009 National Geographic Student Expedition to Iceland, we were clambering up the margin of the world's third-largest glacier. Our next stop: Ingólfshöfthi, where Ingólfur Arnarson—the Viking who founded Reykjavik—wintered over in the year 874 (give or take a few) before heading west to settle what would become Iceland's capital city.

WildlifeDirect shares news on the Great Apes Blog of Kwita Izina, Rwanda's annual celebration in which gorillas born during the previous 12 months receive their names.

Stefan Caiafa writes for Intelligent Travel of coming face to face with one of the last Bengal tigers in India's Panna National Park—a popular tourist destination and tiger reserve—and of a report from the BBC that no tigers remain in the park.

My friends managing the My Wonderful World blog posted an interview today with ecologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer, and all-around great guy Luke Dollar. He describes his decision to pursue a career in conservation science after finding a forest he wandered in as a child abruptly clear-cut, his work with Madagascar's fossa (the island's largest endemic predator—it's pronounced "FOO-sa"), grassroots efforts to engage the Malagasy people in wildlife conservation, and citizen science with EarthWatch volunteers.

Biologist, conservationist, and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Zeb Hogan heads to Thailand and lands a giant freshwater stingray, possibly the largest ever caught. See the fish and follow the adventure tonight on the National Geographic Channel.