From left: Aptenodytes forsteri (Emperor penguin), Inkayacu paracasensis, and Eudyptula minor (Little penguin)

Nothing is black-and-white, it seems. Not even penguins. That’s what University of Texas paleontologist Julia Clarke found after unearthing 36-million- year-old remains in Peru’s Paracas National Reserve—the first penguin fossil ever found with evidence of feathers intact. Like its present-day relatives, Inkayacu paracasensis was a deft swimmer. Unlike them, it weighed more than a hundred pounds and sported a coat with ruddy feathers. Clarke’s team deduced the color last year after comparing tiny pigment packages called melanosomes from the fossilized plumage with those of living species. This part of coastal Peru has recently produced other big penguin finds. Clarke says the area could be key to painting the full picture of the birds’ evolution. For now, a touch of color has been applied. —Catherine Zuckerman

Art: Mauricio Antón. Photo: Julia Clarke, University of Texas at Austin. NGM Maps

The new movie Soul Surfer tells the story of Bethany Hamilton, a competitive surfer whose steady rise to pro took an astonishing turn in 2003 when a shark bit off her left arm. Despite the loss, Hamilton went on to win the NSSA National Championships in 2005.

Though Hamilton’s tenacity is the centerpiece of the film, the plot is set in motion by her encounter with a 14-foot tiger shark while waiting for a wave on the morning of October 31, 2003. The shark makes two appearances: once as a gray blur during the encounter, and again as a pair of jaws that matches the bite on Hamilton’s surfboard.

Despite the great surfing footage, we couldn’t help wondering about shark attacks and their aftermath. To find out, we talked with Marie Levine, executive director of the Shark Research Institute. Here's what we learned.

Shark attacks are uncommon.

In the United States you are twice as likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning than to be attacked by a shark. Worldwide, there are about 70 to 100 shark attacks a year, though the number could be higher. Some shark encounters are not reported. Many shark encounters occur because sharks troll for food on the shore-side of sandbars or between them, spots where surfers and bathers also tend to congregate.

Sharks don’t have hands.

This may seem very obvious, but in explaining why sharks shouldn’t be demonized for biting humans, Levine notes: “All animals explore their environments. Sharks use their mouths to do so where we might use our hands.” Unable to swim backward, some sharks might attack out of fear when they meet a foreign object.

Hunting a shark suspected of involvement in an encounter isn’t wise.

1) You probably won’t catch it. After Bethany Hamilton’s shark encounter, two fishermen heard reports of a tiger shark around the North Shore of the island of Kauai and decided to hunt it. Their motive, according to an article published November 14, 2003 in The Garden Island, was to “protect surfers, fishermen and beachgoers on the North Shore.” The fishermen hauled in a 13-foot, six-inch tiger shark. There was nothing in its stomach except for shark they’d used as bait. Since a tiger shark can travel as far as 10 miles in a day at normal cruising speed, poetic justice would have been nearly impossible to achieve. 2) Even killing one shark adds to the strain on an already endangered population. “Sharks are critical for maintaining the balance of the marine ecosystem,” says Levine. Citing the east coast of the United States as a prime example, Levine explains that where populations of large sharks have declined, the animals they feed off, like rays and skates, have seen marked population growth. In turn, these sea creatures have decimated oysters, clams, and scallops, and strained the bivalve industry, putting people out of work.

Shark surfers in Hawaii have a lot of rules to follow.

Though some shark fishing is allowed, certain species are protected. Furthermore, the state has the most stringent rules on shark finning, in which a shark is captured, its fin removed, and then the animal is returned to the ocean. Hawaii has banned the killing of sharks for their fins (commonly used to make shark fin soup) and the possession of shark fins.

-Margaret Krauss

 
Bald eagle, Tongass National Forest, Alaska; photo by Michael Melford

The Raptor Resource Project in Decorah, Iowa, has mounted an eagle webcam (eagle webcam FAQs), to track the daily life of a nesting bald eagle pair who are hatching eaglets. The sturdy looking nest is high up in a cottonwood tree with large twigs and small branches on the outside, and fluffy material on the inside. There is usually an adult eagle sitting on the nest and if you are patient you will see two fuzzy eaglets pop out from under the eagle, along with an egg that may hatch any minute; the eaglets look like tiny bandits with black markings around their eyes. The two eaglets seem to treat the egg as if it were a coffee table, leaning on it as they get their wobbly bearings. There is an array of "leftovers" scattered about the nest which the nesting eagle chews up and feeds to the babies. Get the facts on bald eagles, check out the webcam and send an eagle ecard to a friend.

• Bald eagle facts on our website, including audio 
• Bald eagle facts and video on our KIDS website 
• Birds of prey photo gallery; includes eagles, hawks, vultures, and more 

Actor Charlie Sheen’s bizarre behavior seems an unlikely source of inspiration for a sober message. But when Sheen proclaimed to the world that he had “tiger blood, man,” it reminded us that in some parts of the world, tigers and other endangered animals are vulnerable to exploitation for the supposed medicinal and spiritual value of their body parts. While tigers’ blood isn’t much in demand, their pelts, whiskers, penises and bones are all commodities, and a whole tiger can fetch $10,000 and up.

For more insight on this issue, we talked to Bryan Christy, author of the book The Lizard King, who wrote a January 2010 National Geographic magazine feature about Asia’s illegal wildlife trade.

What do you think about the current satirical interest surrounding tiger’s blood, thanks to Charlie Sheen?

It was irresponsible of him to refer to drinking tiger blood, but I suspect no one consults Charlie Sheen for health or dietary advice. 

Are other tiger parts in demand by the illegal wildlife trade?

Tigers are among the species most highly prized by illegal wildlife trafficking syndicates. Every part of a tiger has a value, from its pelt to its penis. Even its whiskers are for sale. Its bones are used to make tiger bone wine. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) ascribes certain powers to tiger parts. Fortunately, the Chinese government outlawed use of tiger parts in TCM almost two decades ago, and most people have come to realize that what’s truly valuable about tigers is their role in the ecosystem.

Photograph by Debapratim Saha

The protected pachyderms of West Bengal, India—such as those in the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary (top)—are hardly out of harm's way. In fact, since 2004, 27 have been killed by trains barreling down the hundred miles of track that run where they roam. Now the Ministry of Railways is under pressure from conservationists and the environmental ministry to enforce speed limits, reduce travel at night (when most casualties occur), and prune vegetation to improve the driver's view. —Catherine Zuckerman

Photo: Rescuers pull a dolphin from the too shallow Pailas River in Bolivia. Photograph by Dado Galdieri 

The pink river dolphin of Bolivia is the landlocked country's only cetacean—a colorful but unprotected character known locally as the bufeo. No wonder, then, that scientists and environmentalists scrambled last spring after 20 of these mammals got stuck in a half-mile-long, five-foot-deep part of the drought-stricken Pailas River, a tributary of the Grande River.

Photo: A cactus bee pollinates a barrel cactus in Tucson, Arizona. Photograph by Mark W. Moffett

Pollinators help produce much of the food found in our grocery stores. Bees alone are behind every third bite of food we eat.

Renowned bug and plant wrangler Stephen Buchmann gives a behind-the-scenes look at the busy world of pollinators. He offers gardening tips for planting wildflower gardens to attract colorful pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds.

The new movie Rango, directed by Gore Verbinski of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, stars a gregarious chameleon going through an identity crisis. Stranded in the Mojave Desert at first, Rango soon finds his way to the aptly named town of Dirt with the help of a roadkill oracle. His wild adventures in the lawless town made us wonder if real chameleons’ lives are equally exciting.

We sought out chameleon expert Dr. Jim Murphy, Director of Herpetology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo, and his former colleague Dr. Gary Ferguson, lead author of the book The Panther Chameleon, to separate the fact from the fiction in Rango.

Rango's World: Born in captivity, Rango is the family pet, living his life in a terrarium with a Midwestern family. 

Reality: Chameleons don’t make particularly good pets. They sometimes live just over a year, and do not respond well to the stress of the captive environment. However, there are three types dubbed the “weedy species” for their ability to adapt to a multitude of habitats, including captivity: the veiled chameleon (native to Yemen), the three-horned chameleon (Africa), and the panther chameleon (Madagascar).

In Jackson’s mind there is no such thing as a good person or a bad person. There are only people he desperately wants to meet. Jackson, I should explain, is my Jack Russell terrier. When he meets someone, his short tail wags at warp speed, sending a vibration through his piebald body right up to his floppy ears. He is exuberant, playful, affectionate—everything a dog lover could wish for. He fits the description of an animal domesticated through years of selective breeding.

In this month’s issue we explore animal domestication, which began more than 15,000 years ago with dogs. As humans bred wolves to be our hunting companions and friends, changes in appearance occurred along with changes in behavior. Traits that might otherwise have been weeded out in the wild survived because they were, well, cute. Jackson, with his piebald coloring and floppy ears, is a classic example. But I think there is more to it than that. When my family went shopping for a dog, Jackson confidently trotted over and made it clear he liked us. We immediately responded by picking him up and hugging him. I have to wonder if there is something in human genes that makes our response to a puppy so immediate and positive. Are we genetically predisposed to connect with dogs? Can a case be made that dog lovers had a better chance of survival with the help of man’s best friend—in a violent and uncertain world—to put food on the table and guard against threats? It makes sense to me, but cat lovers may not buy my theory.

Photography by Rebecca Hale, NGM Staff

 
Blue bird of paradise performs a courtship ritual; artwork by Walter A. Weber, 1950

Consider the male bowerbird who builds and decorates intricate bowers that Martha Stewart might envy—some zen-like and some covered with bling—solely to impress the ladies. If you like a snappy dresser, cast your gaze on birds of paradise; they are dazzling and they know it, with elaborate plumage and extreme courtship rituals. Last but not least is the penguin, paragon of dedication and devotion; once mated they work 24/7 taking care of the precious egg and chick. Choose your favorite: handyman, sharp dresser, or devoted mate.

• 2010 July—National Geographic magazine. Bowerbirds photo gallery by Tim Laman.
• 2009 September—National Geographic magazine. King Penguin photo gallery by Stefano Unterthiner.
• 2007 July—National Geographic magazine. Birds of Paradise photo gallery by Tim Laman.

The Green Bay Packers may have garnered the trophy, but it was the critter in Volkswagen’s new “Black Beetle” commercial that scurried away with our attention during Super Bowl XLV. In an effort to promote a new line of its classic “beetle” cars, Volkswagen aired a commercial featuring a lightning-fast insect racing through a forest. Naturally, we called on the experts to find out more about this Super Bowl star.

According to Smithsonian Institution entomologist Gary Hevel, the computer-generated image in the commercial appeared to be based on an African darkling beetle. One of the species in the genus Zophosis, the darkling beetle is most often found in hot, dry regions. It's part of the fifth-largest family of beetles, Tenebrionidae, which includes some 1,200 different species of darklings in North America alone.

Though the commercial features the beetle zooming past other creatures at a car-like speed, none of the species are really quite that fast.

And "the racing stripes are simply artistic license,” says Hevel.

—Kerri Pinchuk

Just like everyone else in America, we’ve been hearing the uproar in recent weeks over the relative merits and disadvantages of the super-strict parenting style espoused by Yale law professor Amy Chua in her new memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Chua, a mother of two, argues that hard-line “tiger mothering” has taught her children discipline, focus, and respect for authority—indeed, that it amounts to a recipe for success in adulthood. To that end, she justifies having called one daughter “garbage” after a show of disrespect, forcing another to go without dinner or bathroom breaks while practicing piano, and forbidding her girls from sleepovers and after-school activities like sports and drama.

There’s plenty of room for reasonable folks to disagree about the best way to raise kids. But is it correct to refer to Chua’s tough love as tiger mothering? How do real tiger moms raise their young? Are they so harsh? For a reality check, we consulted Emma Stokes, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and conservationist with the Tigers Forever program, a major international effort to save Asian tigers. Here’s what we learned:

Snakes are the unbilled stars of the new Coen Brothers’ western, True Grit. They’re talked about, given lots of screen time, and you’d better believe that they bite. We asked snake expert Terry Philip, curator of reptiles at Black Hills Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, South Dakota, to shed light on the movie depiction of the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake.

Spoiler alert: This post reveals the identity of the movie’s snake-bite victim.

The new movie Black Swan is a tale about human ballet dancers, but it does raise an interesting bird question: What’s the deal with nature’s black swans? To find out, I interviewed two experts: former National Geographic grantee Bill Sladen, who now lives in Virginia, and New Zealander Murray Williams. The first thing I learned is that experts do not know why some swans are black. Here’s what they do know:

Tiger eye, Madhav National Park, India, 1997; photograph by Michael Nichols

To mark Big Cat Week on the Nat Geo Wild channel, meet the people who are fighting to save the big cats in ways that may sometimes seem fanatical. In India a man risks life and limb in a battle against armed poachers. In the Americas another man is spearheading one of the largest conservation projects ever known to provide safe passage for the jaguar. And in the remote mountainous regions of Asia see what creative means have been undertaken to save the elusive snow leopard. Take a Big Cats Quiz and find out more about the National Geographic Society's Big Cats Initiative.

• 2009 June/July -- National Geographic Adventure magazine. Cat Fight: The War on India's Tigers. 60-68, 81-83. Dharmendra Kandal had been researching spiders when he happened to get a job surveying tigers in Ranthambhore National Park and wound up capturing poachers and tracking down rifle purveyors because no one else would. Author Paul Kvinta follows Kandal on the job and Tom Pietrasik photographs him in action.
• 2009 March -- National Geographic magazine. Path of the Jaguar. 122-133. From Mexico to Argentina the jaguar migrates, sometimes venturing into populated areas with tragic results. Mel White describes the ambitious effort led by the Panthera Foundation's Alan Rabinowitz to provide a network of corridors and refuges as a safe path, the Paseo de Jaguar. Photos show Alan Rabinowitz, and the jaguars, in motion.
• 2008 June -- National Geographic magazine. Out of the Shadows: Snow Leopards. 106-129. Douglas H. Chadwick reports on local conservation efforts to help this secretive animal who faces the challenges of a prized pelt, overgrazed lands and angry livestock owners. Photos by Steve Winter, who won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 award for one of the photos in this article.

It’s no secret that turkeys aren’t considered the geniuses of the animal world. Many people say the birds are so stupid that they'll stand in the rain, look up with their beaks wide open, and drown. Do they deserve this sorry reputation?

Jesse Grimes, professor of nutrition and poultry sciences at North Carolina State University, was happy to explain a few things about turkey behavior.

Media outlets have been atwitter over the recent death of TV sitcom Wild at Heart’s biggest— literally— star: Hamley the giraffe was struck and killed by a wayward lightning bolt on Monday, November 8 on the South African game reserve where the series is filmed.

This tragedy begs the question: Is Hamley’s death a freak occurrence, or are giraffes at increased risk for death by lightning because their long necks act as a lightning rod?

Halloween is the time when humans can get a taste of what it is like to roam the streets as an animal. And this Halloween, the newest way to assume the guise of a beast is by climbing into an animal-print full-body “morphsuit.”

To see what it is like to straddle the line between human and animal, I took up my editor’s invitation to put on a $65 zebra suit and gallop around our nation’s capital. (On one excursion, I was joined by a colleague in a leopard suit.)

My conclusion is that even in this odd suit, I became a player in what scientist E.O. Wilson calls “biophilia” – an innate love that humans have for animals. (Either that, or people just love weird stuff). Aside from an unfortunate episode at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, in which my head-to-toe mask caused guards to call me aside and insist that I remove the head mask, I was met with outpourings of love from tourists and residents. It is unclear how zebras would respond: I made an attempt to find one at the National Zoo but did not succeed.

The following photos offer the high points from my walk (and pedicab ride) on the wild side. —William Shubert

TOUCHDOWN ZEBRA! In an ode to his black-and-white striped cousins on the football field, the zebra signals score during a pedicab ride by the Washington Monument.

Forgive us for bragging, but we're number one and number two. National Geographic photographers placed first and second in this year’s Wildlife Photojournalist of the Year competition Congratulations to Mark Leong and Brian Skerry!

The award is a brand new one for the 46-year-old Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which is sponsored by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine. The category calls for a sequence of six pictures that tell a memorable story about animal behavior or about an issue affecting animals.

Mark Leong’s photos from our story, "Asia's Wildlife Trade," took first place. The story, published in January, covers the illegal international animal trade and its victims. The article has been credited with helping to prompt changes in enforcement of anti-smuggling laws in Malaysia.

Runner-up was Brian Skerry, for a portfolio based on several stories he did for the magazine, including one on global fisheries.

The photo editor for both stories was Kathy Moran.

Bison once played a similar role on the North American prairie. In 1806 William Clark wrote: “I assended to the high Country and from an eminance I had a view of...a greater number of buffalow than I had ever seen before at one time. I must have seen near 20,000 of those animals feeding on this plain.” When Clark journeyed west with Meriwether Lewis, tens of millions of bison lived on the grasslands, shaping vegetation, dispersing seeds, coexisting with burrowing owls and prairie dogs. By the late 1800s bison had been hunted nearly to extinction.

Fortunately, many other migratory spectacles survive. This month the world of migrations comes to life on the pages of our magazine, on the National Geographic Channel, and at nationalgeographic.com. Our photographers and writers spent two years on the project. They were astonished and inspired by the determination and grace of these animals. I am sure you will be too.

Photo: Joel Sartore

Bugs are things we normally try to keep OUT of our soups and salads.

Maybe that’s the wrong attitude.

In many parts of the world, insects and worms have long been a cheap source of protein. North American and European cultures are really the only ones that have abstained. ”Insects are a vast and varied food resource,” says professor emeritus Gene DeFoliart of the University of Wisconsin, who for years kept up a website on entomophagy –the art of insect eating. With our planet packed with people, and limited land space for agriculture, he says, “we in the West should stop laughing at the idea of consuming termites and mealworms and crickets.”

So I decided it was time to try some insect edibles. A small brave group of writers and editors, all curious but admittedly icked-out, reserved a table at a favorite Mexican joint, Oyamel in Washington, D.C. The chef whipped us up a batch of grasshopper tacos (and a pitcher of something with triple sec and lime to wash them down, just in case).

Psychologist Shannon Kundey of Hood College in Pennsylvania and colleagues just published a study in Applied Animal Behaviour Science that confirms it: Dogs know when you’re watching/listening and when you’re not, and act accordingly. If they think you aren’t paying attention, they may try to tiptoe by and get away with bad behavior, like a kid silently snagging a snack right before dinner.

“Wolves are incredibly charismatic and very powerful creatures, and you can’t create a version … as good as the real thing,” executive producer Alan Ball has said. So he turned to Steve Martin’s Working Wildlife, whose trained wolves are descended from rescued wolves.

Lucy is part bonobo.

A great hammerhead shark prowls the waters of the northern Bahamas. Photo by: Brian Skerry, National Geographic Stock.

A Shark’s-eye View Why are hammerhead sharks’ eyes so widely separated on their bizarrely shaped heads? Whatever the evolutionary reason for the placement, scientists have debated whether it was to provide good vision. Florida Atlantic University marine biologist Michelle McComb has settled that vision question by studying three of the eight types of hammerheads. She found that hammerheads see not only directly ahead with binocular vision similar to that of humans; they also see up, down, and behind themselves simultaneously. “Their eyes are canted forward, and that is the key,” McComb says. Their eye separation gives hammerheads great binocular vision and depth perception—a bonus when pursuing fast-moving prey.

Although hammerheads do have a particularly big blind spot in front of their widely spaced eyes, other senses compensate for this hole in their visual field. Sensors on the sharks’ heads help them detect electrical fields emitted by fish, and the placement of nostrils near their eyes could mean they use what McComb calls “enhanced stereo smell” to monitor the blind spot. —Jim Dawson

E. chlorotica’s leafy, two-inch-long body lets it efficiently capture sunlight for photosynthesis. The chlorophyll in its cells makes the slug green. Photo by: Nicholas Curtis and Raymond Martinez

Sun-Loving Slugs Plants, you aren’t so special. That’s the message from the marine mollusk Elysia chlorotica (above), which not only looks like a leaf but acts like one too. The slug can live on sunlight its entire life, up to a year; all it needs is a little yellow-green algae.

Capturing energy from the sun by photosynthesis is best known as a plant thing. But decades ago marine biologists realized that sea slugs steal cellular bits called chloroplasts from the algae they eat and use them to turn CO2 into sugar. In 2007 the slugs were shown to incorporate algal genes into their own DNA. This lets them make the plant proteins needed to keep chloroplasts in their cells long-term.

Now University of South Florida biologist Sidney Pierce and colleagues report that the Atlantic-dwelling E. chlorotica filches enough plant genetics that it can churn out its own chlorophyll, the pigment that chloroplasts exhaust during photosynthesis. That means the green slug can use the sun to refuel without ever eating again.

Pierce says it’s an intriguing evolutionary shortcut: “Movement of genes between species can make big and rapid changes. Evolution doesn’t always need to wait for a mutation.” —Jennifer S. Holland

Learn more about wildlife on the new TV network Nat Geo WILD.

Scottish Highland cattle, such as this bull in the Netherlands, will be used in early efforts to bring back aurochs. Photo: Ardi Hoogendijk, Foto Natura/Minden Pictures.

For centuries they roamed Europe’s forests—massive bovines called aurochs that were depicted on cave walls by Paleolithic artists (inset) and prized as hunting trophies. They died out nearly 400 years ago. Now genetics may bring them back to life.

Sound like a Jurassic Park sequel? It’s actually the real-life plan of Project Tauros, a consortium of European scientists using DNA sequenced from aurochs teeth to steer a novel breeding program. Project researchers are currently identifying living cattle—including Spanish Limiana and Italian Maremmana—that still carry aurochs genes. Then breeders will cross those cattle to retain the pertinent DNA, jettison the rest, and make bovines that, in about a decade, are expected to look and act just like their extinct ancestors.

Ernie’s eyes, though his oversize square glasses, spotted whoopers in the wild during early surveys. His hands first carried whooper eggs out of Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park to seed captive programs aimed at saving the birds from extinction (see “Counting Cranes” in our June issue). As a young biologist he’d contemplated a life studying wolves and caribou, but witnessing the grandeur of a whooper in flight turned his focus to the sky. Crane conservation would be many strides behind if the birds hadn’t won Ernie over at such a critical time.

Photograph courtesy Klaus Nigge

To photograph whooping cranes on the swampy breeding grounds in Wood Buffalo National Park, photographer Klaus Nigge sat in his one-meter-square blind for six days and nights. He hardly moved and barely slept—but the payoff was worth the cramped muscles and exhaustion. He caught on film a predatory interaction that few have ever witnessed. “It was one of my best photographic sessions ever,” he says.

Writer Jenny S. Holland interviews Klaus to get the story behind his photographs. 

It may be the strangest mammal in the world—spiky hairs, pointy beak, no nipples, four-headed penis. The long-beaked echidna, found in the rain forest of New Guinea’s Foja mountains, has adapted in remarkable ways. A monotreme, from a group of egg-laying mammals that have been around since the time of the dinosaurs, this primitive animal serves as a living link between mammals and reptiles. 

Short-beaked echidnas and platypuses are the only other living monotremes. Weighing up to 36 pounds, echidnas have powerful bodies that allow them to dig easily. Muscular shoulders, strong arms, and five-clawed feet enable them to dig straight down into the ground, disappearing from sight within minutes.

Silhouetted in the Andaman Sea, an elephant takes a morning dip in the warm waters. Photo: Cesare Naldi

Rajan, a 60-year-old elephant born in captivity on the mainland of India, learned to swim nearly 40 years ago, when he arrived in the Andaman Islands—a remote archipelago in the Bay of Bengal—to work for logging companies. For three decades, he and about 200 other elephants hauled felled trees through the jungle. To get from island to island, they were taught to swim—that’s how Rajan developed his love of the sea. During this time he developed another love: Rani, a female elephant and co-worker, was his “wife” until about 15 years ago, when she died of snakebite.

Majesty alone can’t save them. The world’s top felines—including lions, cheetahs, and leopards—are slipping toward extinction. But an emergency effort to fund on-the-ground conservation projects may help put them back on their feet.

For starters, the plot is great: When a scapegrace fox runs afoul of three mean farmers, he endangers his family and friends. To save them, he hatches an elaborate plan that relies on interspecies cooperation.

The look and sound of the movie are even greater: Tactile sets and puppets, deadpan voiceovers, and a winsome score let you lose yourself in the quaint, handcrafted world.

But greatest of all—at least to us here at Pop Omnivore—are the assortment of dubious animal “facts” sprinkled throughout the movie. Just for the fun of it, we decided to ask some experts to weigh in on our three favorite whoppers.

The antlered animals weren’t made for this—to stumble onto a boat in the middle of an autumn night and bump and sway on the water for six hours until they attain solid ground again and resume their overland migration to a winter refuge. In Norway, both reindeer and their seminomadic herders, members of the indigenous Sami, are struggling to find their balance as development intrudes on traditional grazing lands, changing the way humans and animals move.

Why are some loons acting so, well, loony? Mercury. Long-term studies of common loons in the United States and Canada reveal that the toxic stuff is invading birds’ brains and bodies in dangerous concentrations. It’s disrupting behavior and physiology—and could put loon populations in peril.

The November issue of National Geographic magazine features a moving photograph of chimpanzees watching as one of their own is wheeled to her burial. Since it was published, the picture and story have gone viral, turning up on websites and TV shows and in newspapers around the world. For readers who’d like to know more, here’s what I learned when I interviewed the photographer, Monica Szczupider.

On September 23, 2008, Dorothy, a female chimpanzee in her late 40s, died of congestive heart failure. A maternal and beloved figure, Dorothy had spent eight years at Cameroon’s Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, which houses and rehabilitates chimps victimized by habitat loss and the illegal African bushmeat trade.

To find out, we asked the folks at sortprice.com, a price-comparison site that covers merchants who sell Halloween costumes—and that has seen 1.2 million costume searches this month.

Here are the top animal costumes this year. And then for the heck of it, here are seven popular costumes for animals.

Angel the schnauzer strolled to the coffee table, stood up on his back legs, and pushed a nose toward the fruit platter. As dogs are known to do when food is left unattended. But this wasn’t just any dog—and his owner wasn’t just any owner. From across the room a sound rose, crisp and familiar to any fan of the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan. PSSHHT. A hand, tensed into a claw, rose in the air. The dog froze. Again: PSSHHT. (A commanding sound! Grabs attention and shows who's the boss!) Slowly, Angel backed down to the floor, walked away from the table, and curled up silently near his master's feet.

Rivers Cuomo, lead singer for the alt-rock group Weezer, was leafing through the August issue of National Geographic when he found it—the picture he wanted on the cover of the band’s new release, Raditude. The jumping dog was one of the “Your Shot” selections—those are photos submitted by our readers. His name is Sidney and he is a three-year-old mutt whose mom was a Labrador mix.

We spoke with the dog’s owner, 34-year-old Connecticut librarian Jason Neely, about America’s newest canine star. Sadly, Sidney himself was unavailable for comment. “He’s passed out on the floor right now,” Neely said. “We were up in Maine and just picked him up at the boarders. He’s been partying with his doggie friends.”

To paraphrase Heidi Klum of Project Runway, in the world of dog breeds, one day you’re in, the next day you’re out. Or vice versa. In the sixth edition of the World Atlas of Dog Breeds, a three-years-in-the-making revision of the original 1989 volume, some canines are added to the mix. Some are still waiting for a spot, like the winsome labradoodle, pictured above. And others, sadly, get an arf wiedersehen.

Heather Russell-Revesz, a senior editor at TFH Publications and one of the book's three primary authors, gave us the rundown on four changes.

A Dog of Flanders tells the moving story of a boy in a funny hat and his faithful pooch, played by the star of Old Yeller.

Almost 50 years after it debuted in theaters, the 1960 version of A Dog of Flanders, starring Spike (of Old Yeller fame) as the rescued pet "Patrasche," is back as a digitally restored and remastered DVD. The question I asked myself as I began to watch with my five-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son: Would my 21st-century kids, who had just been watching a Malcolm in the Middle rerun, sit still for an earnest, heart-warming tale of a boy with a funny-looking cap (not the baseball kind) in a part of Europe they've never heard of? Answer: They would.

And to think that I saw it on 17th Street!

With apologies to Dr. Seuss, I will say that nothing in his Mulberry Street children’s book can top the sight outside National Geographic’s windows last Friday afternoon in downtown Washington, D.C.

A groom was riding an elephant—in rush hour, yet!—to his wedding at the Mayflower Hotel. Indian music filled the air. Wedding guests and curious onlookers filled the streets. Commuters looked unhappy. A couple of government sharpshooters stood on the periphery, rifles at the ready.

Elephants stir strong emotions. I remember standing in the roof hatch of a Land Rover to photograph a bull elephant in Tanzania. The animal turned, headed toward me, and laid his tusks on the hood. I slid down and froze as his trunk slipped through the hatch and paused, inches from my face. Gently, the tip tapped my left shoulder and snuffled my neck. His warm breath filled the Rover. Then he retracted his trunk and ambled off. The contact took my breath away.

A bull elephant browses trees in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater. He later investigated the Editor’s Land Rover.

Years later, I had an encounter that left me with a different emotion. I was in a helicopter chasing a large bull in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. As the pilot brought us in behind the frantic elephant, a ranger, Douw Grobler, leaned out and fired a bullet into the animal’s head. He collapsed, driving his tusks deep into the dust. “A perfect brain shot,” Grobler said, adding that he did it “only to protect the park’s biodiversity. I wish there were a better way.” Sadly, sometimes there are too many elephants, even in the vastness of Kruger. The ranger was simply doing his job as part of a culling operation. 

A passionate advocate of African elephants is zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton. For more than a year, he worked with photographer Michael Nichols and writer David Quammen to bring you this issue’s coverage of the elephants of Samburu National Reserve area in Kenya. It’s a heartening story, but elsewhere the situation is more complicated. After 13 years, South Africa has lifted its moratorium on culling. This month we also examine that decision and the debate it provokes.

Photograph by Chris Johns, National Geographic Image Collection

The hand singed by the blowtorch looks human. Close inspection reveals that it belongs to a drill, a baboonlike primate, for sale in the bush-meat market in Malabo, the Bioko Island capital of Equatorial Guinea. Scorching flesh brings a higher price for monkey meat, a delicacy in this part of the world. Photographer Joel Sartore captured this alarming scene, hoping to provoke change. He was part of an International League of Conservation Photographers project called a RAVE (Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition) to document wildlife on Bioko. 

Bioko’s bush-meat trade threatens animals like this young drill.

There, primates are hunted and sold through a growing trade fueled by money earned in nearby oil fields. The commitment to make a difference motivated three other National Geographic photographers—Tim Laman, Ian Nichols, and Christian Ziegler—to accompany Joel. National Geographic and Conservation International sponsored the expedition. Along with writer Virginia Morell, Joel, Tim, Ian, and Christian have produced a startling story for this issue. We hope their work will raise awareness of the need for conservation on the island, to help ensure Bioko remains what one biologist calls a “monkey paradise.”

Photograph by Joel Sartore                                                                              

In the photograph, a snow leopard emerges from the shadows of the rugged Himalaya. Its thick, soft coat is lovely, but even more enchanting is its tail. It is nearly the length of its body. This is my first opportunity to really study a snow leopard; I can see the rosette spots, penetrating yellow eyes, and broad, delicate paws. I’ve photographed leopards throughout Africa, but never one to match this creature’s beauty.

In a darkened room, Steve Winter shows his next photograph—another snow leopard, this one with a dusting of snow on its back.

The snow leopard’s long tail helps stabilize the cat on rough terrain.

I read George Schaller’s Stones of Silence 20 years ago and ever since have wanted to make a photograph like this. Schaller’s book transported me to the Himalaya; I dreamed of seeing snow leopards at those heights. The dream remains unfulfilled, but for now Steve is there for all of us. His commitment to this beautiful animal has produced the finest images of snow leopards I’ve seen. But reality casts a shadow on these pictures. As few as 3,500 snow leopards may survive. If I want to photograph them, I should move quickly. Schaller’s words still hold the same urgency they had nearly three decades ago: “The snow leopard,” he wrote, “might well serve as symbol of man’s commitment to the future of the mountain world.”

Photograph by Steve Winter

View Steve Winters stunning photography from the June 2008 "Snow Leopards" story.

Chaos reigns in the elephant herd. African wild dogs are everywhere—darting between gigantic legs, spinning in circles, leaping to nip tails. The dogs clearly enjoy the moment of play.

It seemed like a normal hunt in search of an impala dinner when the wild dogs in Botswana’s Okavango Delta started out that afternoon. Then they bumped into the herd. I understand why the elephants were upset, but why would the dogs behave in a way that has nothing to do with feeding the pack? Their behavior probably scared away every impala in the area. What were they thinking?

This month’s cover story, “Minds of Their Own,” explores what animals—wild and domesticated—are thinking. Virginia Morell writes about a border collie with a vocabulary of over 300 words. I’m not surprised. My own border collie, Millie, opens doors, gets into cabinets, herds the family, and when she feels like it, follows my commands. Then there’s our cockatiel, Minnie Pearl, who imitates the telephone (we frantically run to answer it) and sings an alert when visitors turn into our driveway, a quarter mile away.

Our article is not a prescription for getting your pets to behave, but it does offer insight into animal intelligence. The more we learn about how animals think, the more we learn about ourselves. If you don’t believe me, ask Millie.

Photograph by Chris Johns