Nature Photographer of the Year Contest at National Geographic

Follow this link to see all the 1st weeks favorite submissions:

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/nature-photographer-of-the-year-2017/gallery/week-1-all/3

Rare white giraffes spotted in Kenya

from Boing Boing:

In early June, conservation rangers with the Hirola Conservation Program in Kenya first spotted a white female and baby giraffe. In early August, they were able to capture this footage of the elusive pair.

Like that translucent-shelled lobster that was recently pulled in, these giraffes are not albino but have a genetic condition called Leucism. That means they a partial loss of pigmentation in their skin cells. If you look closely, you can see a familiar, though faded, reticulation on the calf's neck.

A blogger for Hirola writes:

In this very sighting, in Ishaqbini, there was a mother and a juvenile The communities within Ishaqbini have mixed reactions to the sighting of this leucistic giraffe and most of the elders report that they have never seen this before. ‘This is new to us” says bashir one of the community rangers who alerted us when they sighted the white giraffe. “I remember when I was a kid, we never saw them” he added. “It must be very recent and we are not sure what is causing it” he said.

(National Geographic)

National Geographic – Skateboarding changing lives in rural South Africa

via Sidewalkmag.com

Skateboarding becomes the focus of none other than National Geographic, as a short documentary by Jess Colquhoun looks at the impact that the South Africa’s Indigo Skate Camp is having on the upbringing of local Zulu villagers. A solid reminder to the rest of the world of why skateboarding is the best…

Within the Valley of a Thousand Hills in rural Durban, South Africa, there's a group of young skateboarders practicing on a half-pipe and a bowl. They're all part of the Indigo Skate Camp, a movement that looks to nurture sustainable skateboarding environments for rural and vulnerable youths, and Andile Msomi is one of them. The camp looks to empower local Zulu villagers to learn and grow through the language of skateboarding—and that they do. This short documentary by Jess Colquhoun follows Andile and his friends to their first competition, where the most important thing is not to win but to enjoy the ride.

National Geographic: The Last Roll of Kodachrome

National Geographic Photo Contest 2011

National Geographic is currently holding its annual photo contest, with the deadline for submissions coming up on November 30. For the past nine weeks, the society has been gathering and presenting galleries of submissions, encouraging readers to vote for them as well. National Geographic was kind enough to let me choose among its entries from 2011 for display here on In Focus. Gathered below are 45 images from the three categories of People, Places, and Nature, with captions written by the individual photographers. [check out all the images and captions HERE.]

some more favorites below:

Best Rare Bird Photos of 2011: National Geographic

A picture of an endangered Asian crested ibis soaring over China is a first-prize winner in the first annual World's Rarest Birds international photo competition, organizers announced in January.

Red-Crowned Crane

Kakapo

Great Indian Bustard

Marvellous Spatuletail

Read all the details and view the entire gallery HERE.

thanks to Xeni at BoingBoing

Ten Weirdest New Animals of 2010: National Geographic Editors' Picks

from National Geographic Daily News:

This tube-nosed fruit bat—which became a Web sensation as "Yoda bat"—is just one of the roughly 200 species encountered during two scientific expeditions to Papua New Guinea in 2009, scientists announced in October.

Though seen on previous expeditions, the bat has yet to be formally documented as a new species, or even named. Like other fruit bats, though, it disperses seeds from the fruit in its diet, perhaps making the flying mammal crucial to its tropical rain forest ecosystem.

This unidentified purple octopus is one of 11 potentially new species found during a July deep-sea expedition off Canada's Atlantic coast.

The 20-day expedition aimed to uncover relationships between cold-water coral and other bottom-dwelling creatures in a pristine yet "alien" environment, according to the researchers' blog.

A new leech king of the jungle, Tyrannobdella rex—or "tyrant leech king"—was discovered in the remote Peruvian Amazon, National Geographic News reported in April.

The up-to-three-inch-long (about seven-centimeter-long) leech has large teeth, like its dinosaur namesake Tyrannosaurus rex. What's more, the newfound critter's "naughty bits are rather small," noted study co-author Mark Siddall, curator of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

For these reasons and more, the bizarre bloodsucker is an editors' pick for one of the oddest new species of 2010.

Using its fins to walk, rather than swim, along the ocean floor in an undated picture, the pink handfish is one of nine newly named species described in a scientific review of the handfish family released in May.

Only four specimens of the elusive four-inch (ten-centimeter) pink handfish have ever been found, and all of those were collected from areas around the city of Hobart (map), on the Australian island of Tasmania.

Squid? Worm? Initially, this new species—with bristle-based "paddles" for swimming and tentacles on its head—so perplexed Census of Marine Life researchers that they threw in the towel and simply called it squidworm, National Geographic News reported in November.

Found via remotely operated vehicle about 1.7 miles (2.8 kilometers) under the Celebes Sea (see map) in 2007, the four-inch-long (ten-centimeter-long) creature turned out to be the first member of a new family in the Polychaeta class of segmented worms.

Boasting a tail three times the length of its head, the newly described long-tailed slug is found only in the high mountains of the Malaysian part of Borneo, scientists said in April.

The new species shoots its mate with "love darts" made of calcium carbonate and spiked with hormones—hence its nickname: ninja slug. Scientists believe this Cupid-like behavior may increase reproductive success.

new monkey species in Myanmar is so snub-nosed that rainfall is said to makes it sneeze—but that's apparently the least of its problems, conservationists announced in October.

The only scientifically observed specimen (pictured) had been killed by local hunters the time researchers found it—and was eaten soon after.

A new species of armored, wood-eating catfish (pictured underwater) found in the Amazon rain forest feeds on a fallen tree in the Santa Ana River in Peru in 2006.

Other so-called suckermouth armored catfish species use their unique teeth to scrape organic material from the surfaces of submerged wood. But the new, as yet unnamed, species is among the dozen or so catfish species known to actually ingest wood, National Geographic News reported in September.

Nosing around for "lost" amphibian species in western Colombia in September, scientists stumbled across three entirely new species—including this beaked toad.

"Its long, pointy, snoutlike nose reminds me of the nefarious villain Mr. Burns from The Simpsons television series," expedition leader Robin Moore said in a November statement.

You could call it the surprise du jour: A popular food on Vietnamese menus has turned out to be a lizard previously unknown to science, scientists said in November.

What's more, the newfound Leiolepis ngovantrii is no run-of-the-mill reptile—the all-female species reproduces via cloning, without the need for male lizards.

Read more: "New Self-Cloning Lizard Found in Vietnam Restaurant."

The original article with more links and info is HERE. Thanks BoingBoing

Amazing Images From 'National Geographic' Photo Contest

National Geographic is holding its annual Photo Contest, with the deadline for submissions on 30th November. Alan Taylor over at Boston.com has published an excellent selection of some of the entries so far, on his always wonderful The Big Picture.

National Geographic is gathering entries in categories of People, Place and Nature, and is showing some of these on their website  for readers to rate them. Below is a small selection of this year’s entries.

If you would like to submit a photograph for the National Geographic Photo Contest, please check details here.



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 

Via DangerousMinds from Boston.com