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The National Geographic has been showcasing world's best photography for years and 2016 is no exception. The magazine has just announced its Best Photos of 2016 list which is packed with remarkable visual stories from around the globe.
There are 52 images in the collection, produced by 91 photographers and curated from almost 2,300,000 photos and 107 stories. From a space suit test at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, to a baby pangolin riding on its mother's back - these powerful photos take us to places that we've never seen before and connect with us emotionally.
More info: National Geographic
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
A pet saddleback tamarin hangs on to Yoina Mameria Nontsotega as the Matsigenka girl takes a dip in the Yomibato River, deep inside Peru’s Manú National Park.
Melissa Nunya 9 years ago
Beautiful girl, beautiful monkey and beautiful picture
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azraee mamat 9 years ago
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/06/editors-note-manu-protecting-parks-peru/
RELATED:
#2
As an evening storm lights up the sky near Wood River, Nebraska, about 413,000 sandhill cranes arrive to roost in the shallows of the Platte River.
Kristine Wolf 9 years ago
Beautiful colors in the sky and reflected in the water. Not the typical lightning pic!
Yvonne Bernal 8 years ago
I got sidetracked by the description. 413,000?? How do they know the extra 13,000 were there and not just 402,000? Sorry, but I felt it was a bit over technical. It detracted from the beauty of the photo
Stacey Weaver 9 years ago
That is absolutely amazing!! I am awed by the cranes in flight... the way the ones on the upper left blend in with the clouds is magical.
Nicole Rosandich 9 years ago
as I was making a cross country trip a few years back, I was able to see the cranes like this on the Platte River. this with the weather behind makes for a beautiful image.
#3
Tempted by the fruit of a strangler fig, a Bornean orangutan climbs 100 feet into the canopy. With males weighing as much as 200 pounds, orangutans are the world’s largest tree-dwelling animals.
Debbie McCairn 9 years ago
NOPE, IT'S NOT JUST YOU... That tree looks like a dragon to me too.
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Isaac Joe (Joe) 9 years ago
That's a man busting his guts putting bread on the table ;)
Load More Replies... Yvonne Bernal 8 years ago
Orangutans are being pushed out of our world. They are becoming endangered. I feel so bad for this majestic animal
Stacey Weaver 9 years ago
How do you even SEE fruit up that high?? I can't see an apple in the grocery store without my glasses...
Steven Holmes 9 years ago
It's been a long year. I can't even look at a Orangutan climbing to dangerous heights without thinking of the election.
#4
On a mountainside in Yosemite National Park, photographer Stephen Wilkes took 1,036 images over 26 hours to create this day-to-night composite.
Kathleen Dixon 9 years ago
Absolutely stunning of a day to night view of Yosemite. I love this National Park, began being taken when it when I was 5ish. Now have visited it dozens of times throughout my life.
Rowan Healy 9 years ago
"Stephen Wilkes took 1,036 images over 26 hours to create this day-to-night composite."
Load More Replies... #5
Ye Ye, a 16-year-old giant panda, lounges in a wild enclosure at a conservation center in China’s Wolong Nature Reserve.
#6
Silversides swirl through mangroves in the coral reefs off Cuba. The finger-size fish form large schools to try to confuse predators.
Kristine Wolf 9 years ago
The way the surface of the water disappears makes it seem as though air and water worlds are the same! Fantastic framing, color. Great pic!
Kathleen Dixon 9 years ago
Very true. I did not see it until I read your comment. I wonder how that is done? Are they swimming or flying, that is the question. Gorgeous colors and light.
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Leslie Allan 8 years ago
Until you read the description, you don't know that these fish are indeed under water!
Richard Ranney 8 years ago
Why would it be considered good photography, when the picture is hard to understnd?
#7
Lounging in inches of warm water, blacktip reef sharks wait for the tide to refill the lagoon at Seychelles’ Aldabra Atoll.
Dario Zlokic 8 years ago
Opposite, they need to breathe to keep swimming LOL
Load More Replies... Susanna Vesna 9 years ago
"Just tanning with me gals!" Imagine running in the shallow water for the fun of it, to see if they will charge! :P
Denise Stark 9 years ago
Back in the day when I was a travel agent, the Seychelles were the ultimate trip.
#8
A baby African white-bellied tree pangolin hitches a ride on its mother at Pangolin Conservation, a nonprofit organization in St. Augustine, Florida.
Leah Prewitt 9 years ago
My favorite line in the new "Jungle Book" is Baboo telling the pangolin, "you've never been more endangered than you are right now."
#9
The nervous system of this common octopus is larger and more complex than most invertebrates’. Can it think? Is it conscious? Researchers wonder if we’ll ever know.
Ashlyn Taylor 9 years ago
Me too love love animals and octopi are amazing
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Erica Lopez 9 years ago
It's OCTOPUSES because the word is Greek in origin. If it were Latin in its origin, it would be OCTOPI.
Melody Lanzatella 9 years ago
Can they think??? I think if you will look into all of the research you will plainly see that scientists have PROVEN what intelligent animals they are!!!
#10
Tortoises jockey for shelter from the sun. They will cook in their shells if they remain in the heat for too long.
#11
Blood drips from a Rüppell’s vulture’s beak. The neck and head are sparsely feathered, which helps keep gore, guts, and fecal matter from clinging in a deep carcass dive.
Yvonne Bernal 8 years ago
I never knew this about the vulture. They live in abundance in the south-west
#12
In Alaska, a mother grizzly and her cubs cause a “bear jam” on Denali’s 92-mile-long Park Road, open to private vehicles only five days each summer.
Ashlyn Taylor 9 years ago
So that's were the three bears in goldilocks went for there walk while there porridge cooled
MISS BROWN 6 years ago
look it took me 3 weeks to get these two just to come shopping with me....wanna be on my food shopping list ... then you just stay there and....WAIT !!!
Linda Leigh Johnson 9 years ago
"How many times have I told you not to eat off the filthy road where the humans have been?"
Cody Eriksen 9 years ago
Ever been on one of those roads when they grate it like that one? You'll need a Back-iotomy afterwards.
Archie Moore 9 years ago
Shouldn't that be "grrreat'? There are people who insist the washboarding is caused by speeding, some say it's because people drive too slowly.
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Marc Tullis 7 years ago
I'm all for protecting nature, but what's the point in spending money to create a road that's only open for five days out of the year? Why in the **** did you build the road in the first place? If you're going to proclaim to save nature, then don't make a road that will disturb it.
#13
Parts of the Yellowstone region are wilder now than they’ve been in a century. Grizzlies are spreading. This one, in Grand Teton National Park, fends off ravens from a bison carcass. Workers moved it away from the road to keep scavengers and tourists apart.
MISS BROWN 6 years ago
must have just dropped dead...birds are like...It's our turn now...Bears like keep it up and you'll be next..now scat !!!
#14
The colors of Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone come from thermophiles: microbes that thrive in scalding water.
Amanda Mackenzie B. 9 years ago
Am I the only one that immediately was reminded of the structure of the human eye? Totally see an eye ball and optic nerves here.
#15
In Flint, Michigan, siblings Julie, Antonio, and India Abram collect their daily allowance of bottled water from Fire Station #3, their local water resource site.
Chet Corey 9 years ago
2 years ago the governor diverted there water to save money which corroded pipes leading to lead poisoning, and it still has not been fixed
Lynn Hussey 9 years ago
THAT is Criminal! What a beautiful photo but how sad they have to live with these conditions!
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Kristine Wolf 9 years ago
Criminal that this is necessary in this area in this country, as if living in 3rd world
Katie Smith 9 years ago
How, after all this time, are families still having to go get their daily allowance of bottled water? When will their water be fixed? Why do they not have access to safe drinking water in one of the wealthiest nations in the world?
Kathleen Dixon 9 years ago
A combination of greed and disregard for those whose water was poisoned.
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UIi Lessmann 9 years ago
I used to play BG in Flint once a week. One if the gloomiest places I have ever been to. Love these kids!
Amanda Raynes 9 years ago
They look so classy, wish people dressed like that down here in Kalamazoo.
Lynn Hussey 9 years ago
Umm...seriously, they have No water fit to drink.
Load More Replies... Kathleen Dixon 9 years ago
Even if the water was actually potable, I would not rob them of it. What is Nestle thinking? Of big bucks, apparently, as they will get a cheap price for the polluted water, and sell it for a profit.
Load More Replies... #16
To track changes in sea ice, the Norwegian research vessel Lance drifted along with it for five months in 2015, on a rare voyage from Arctic winter into spring.
#17
The carcass of a bison that drowned in the Yellowstone River became a feast for this wolf and her two-year-old offspring.
Kathleen Dixon 9 years ago
Yes she has. Those eyes; I would not be able to look away.
Load More Replies... Susanna Vesna 9 years ago
Those eyes! Staring into your soul! Love the eyes of wild free animals! They are so alive, full of fire and some deep knowledge.
Kristine Wolf 9 years ago
Yes, the color/camouflage effect is terrific--only two tones, except for the raw flesh. Really great.
Ashlyn Taylor 9 years ago
I LOVE WOLVES!!!!!!!!!! I wish I could one day befriend one there so dangerous and beautiful
#18
Indigenous people farm and hunt in Peru's Manú forest but only for their own subsistence. Spider monkeys are a favorite quarry—and also favorite pets.
#19
Twilight bathes the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia at Delphi. Pilgrims in ancient Greece may have offered sacrifices here before consulting the oracle of Delphi.
Kristine Wolf 9 years ago
Perfect moment sunset high lighting against dusky tones in background
Gretel Hallett 9 years ago
It's a stunning place - hard to photograph without all the tourists though.
Kathleen Dixon 9 years ago
I would love to be alone there. I would just sit quietly and listen...................
Tiny Dynamine 9 years ago
Poor lighting effects. I improved it in less than 1 minute to enhance the colours and light. It's a lot more dynamic. delphi-2-5...6b5963.jpg 
#20
A diver keeps a close watch on a tiger shark in the Bahamas. But the scene may not be as dangerous as it looks: Tigers rely on surprise to hunt prey and are unlikely to attack divers who keep them in sight.
#21
Dressed for Mars, space engineer Pablo de León tests a prototype space suit at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where fine soil and fans simulate conditions on the red planet.
Stacey Weaver 9 years ago
I've always assumed a NASA Space Center would look less like my basement.
Rijin Rijin 8 years ago
i hope this won't be used as 'proof' of fake Mars landing in a couple of decades
#22
Isra Ali Saalad moved from Somalia to Sweden with her mother and two siblings. “The reason we came to this country is because it is safe,” says her sister, Samsam.
DLB 9 years ago
I welcome you Isra. I welcome you with an open heart and mind. I lived through 9/11 in NYC. Thinking all Muslims are terrorists is akin to saying all Christians are Nazis. It's simply not true. I've taught many superb, compassionate Muslim children. Teach love and compassion, they internalize that love. Meet them with scorn and hatred... What do you think they internalize? What have you taught them by hating them? I welcome you Isra as if you were my own child. God bless.
Rajani Sarasan 8 years ago
This pic seems a little ordinary compared to the others... Or am i missing something?
Hyodo widger 8 years ago
wish peace and safeness would be in the whole world, wish you a long happy safe life :3
#23
A young Rüppell’s vulture eats a piece of zebra in the Serengeti. More dominant birds have taken their fill of the choice meat, leaving the skin and bones for other birds.
Pam Tafarella 9 years ago
How did this guy get away with his eyeballs? These photographers are incredible.
#24
Photographs and paintings of sights such as this—the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone— inspired Congress to create the park in 1872. It was a revolutionary step.
Cheesybeansy 9 years ago
Reminds me of my time in geography classes at school. To see the erosion and abrasions left by what must of been a massive glacier. Amazingly still I remember it!
#25
Gerd Gamanab, 67, sought treatment too late: Years of labor in the Namibian sun and dust destroyed his corneas. His blindness likely could have been prevented.
Yvonne Bernal 8 years ago
A lot of diseases could be prevented.... I am saddened by this man having no sight.
Kathleen Dixon 9 years ago
Gorgeous photo, his eyes look like they could see through eternity, albeit a dreadful illusion. His quite strength and grace dominate the photograph. How could a photo catch all of that? Kudos to the photographer for catching more than the surface.
#26
Poachers killed this black rhinoceros for its horn with high-caliber bullets in South Africa’s Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park. Black rhinos number only about 5,000 today.
Emilia Maria 9 years ago
people are the most cruel creatures in the world. Watching this picture I feel ashamed of being one of them.
Stacey Weaver 9 years ago
Anyone capable of killing such amazing animals deserves the worst that karma can throw at them. I'm torn here... this is supposed to be about the photography, which in this case (and the others) is absolutely stunning, but I feel like upvoting it is somehow condoning the slaughter of this gorgeous creature. I know it's not, but it just feels so wrong. *way overthinking this*
Amanda Mackenzie B. 9 years ago
Oh my gosh this is awful. Immediate tears. Sometimes I really hate humans.
Kristine Wolf 9 years ago
OMG. So horrible. And poachers also execute rangers. It is such an indictment of us, humanity. Market for this is *depraved*
#27
As the train nears the end of the journey at Kashgar station, a child draws a heart in the desert sand that came along for the ride.
#28
Steven Donovan, flipping into a pool, took a seasonal job at Glacier National Park to sharpen his photography skills.
#29
Virunga Park rangers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo undergo military-style training, including ambush tactics, due to the constant threat from armed groups.
Kristine Wolf 9 years ago
Toughest job, very dangerous, poachers execute rangers like these to take horns, tusks
#30
Within sight of downtown Seoul, South Korea’s capital and a hub of modern stressful life, salesman Sungvin Hong rests after a hike in Bukhansan National Park.
Angie Reilly 9 years ago
His reenactment of Glenn waking up at the prison after the Governor's war on The Walking Dead.
#31
On their first migration to their summer range in southeastern Yellowstone, three-week-old calves of the Cody elk herd follow their mothers up a 4,600-foot slope.
#32
Villagers in Bagaran, Armenia, sing of cultural endurance and survival while picnicking at night beneath apricot trees—and a giant cross that shines defiantly into Turkey.
Misty Showers 9 years ago
It's so sad that two incredible cultures have so much animosity between them. In truth it will take many years before the anger could even begin to subside. Too many people on both sides have been hurt so badly.
#33
These rhinos on a South African ranch have recently had their horns trimmed. Unlike elephant ivory, rhino horn grows back when cut properly. The rancher is stockpiling the horn in hopes that selling it will soon be legal.
Anna Brandigi 9 years ago
This is a much better and much less wasteful alternative to poaching. This should be made known
Hans 9 years ago
I am afraid this will not scale. If you make this legal, it is all possible that illegal activities will also benefit. Humans do not (anymore) need ivory and similar stuff. Period.
Load More Replies... Yvonne Bernal 8 years ago
Nasty - no matter how you look at it. A rhino needs his horns... people DO NOT!
Amy Tan 9 years ago
The only way to save the rhinos are to dye their horn ms in bright Colours so that the horns no longer is valuable to the poachers
Misty Showers 9 years ago
But that might make the animals stand out and easy targets for predators. They did something similar with giraffes and found that the "marked" giraffes were being killed off faster by lions, etc.
Load More Replies... Susanna Vesna 9 years ago
No body part should be trimmed off without consent. Let's trim women's hair and sell it just because it grows back! What the f**k!
Misty Showers 9 years ago
Lots of women do that already. If you have good hair you can make some extra cash.
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Pia Clarke 9 years ago
Every single study shows, that when the local government opens the market for legal harvesting and selling of endangered animal parts, the black marked explodes, as it gets much much easier to get illegal stuff out. So let's hope it will never get legal to sell that stockpile
Marika Stanway 9 years ago
I do not understand why anyone else even needs rhino horn apart from the rhino himself... This might be "more humane" but it's still completely unnecessary. Or am I entirely wrong? Farming rhinos sounds a bit odd. Is this a conservation effort or just a private person farming/breeding rhinos?
Kristine Wolf 9 years ago
I didn't know this either. But I'm wondering how effective this is. It looks like there's still some horn that could be attractive to desperadoes.
Pia Clarke 9 years ago
There's something about a gland or something at the root of the horn, that's especially sought after in some chinese medicine. So your kinda right. But I'm guessing this helps quite a bit.
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#34
Igor Voronkin surfaces at the Barentsburg coal mine on Spitsbergen, in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. Like most of the 400 other miners, he’s from eastern Ukraine.
Marshall Davies 9 years ago
Thanks to an international treaty, the mine is owned by a Russian Company & almost all of the approx 500 people in the town are from the Ukraine. Norway is only involved if an accident occurs; the relevant Norwegian Government authorities carry out the resulting investigation.
Load More Replies... Kathleen Dixon 9 years ago
It is as if he is actually looking at us. All we can do is look back.
Misty Showers 9 years ago
Immigrants are always the people who do the jobs no one else wants to do. They don't take away anyone's job because no one wants it. They are carted in by disgusting people who often take their passports and belongings so the ommigrants can't leave if they get sick or want to go home.
Chringram Ingy 9 years ago
I didn't know David Byrne was moonlighting as a coal miner?! THANKs Bored Panda!
#35
The capital of Taiwan, Taipei comes to vibrant life when the sun goes down.
#36
A panda keeper in China uses a stuffed leopard to train young pandas to fear their biggest wild foe. A cub’s reactions help determine if the bear is ready to survive on its own.
Marika Stanway 9 years ago
Lol, exactly what I thought :) He scares me more! But then, we're not pandas :)
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Dawn Beaulieu 8 years ago
Yep it's real, it says "Stuffed" as in Taxidermy. I've read about them doing that. It helps the pandas though. Sucks because it's a real Leopard, maybe it died of natural cause?
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#37
Eye-care workers use test-lens frames to conduct eye exams in India’s Sundarbans region. Their goal: to help reduce India’s blind population of more than eight million.
me myself 9 years ago
They're looking at a mirror to read it, use common sense.
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#38
Becky Weed and her husband, David Tyler, raise sheep near Yellowstone National Park. They ranch with a guard dog to ward off coyotes, bears, and mountain lions.
Elizabeth Crawley 8 years ago
Beautiful!! To bad ignorant people, like some of the commenters below, don't recognize the beauty and wisdom that comes with age. Don't recognize the beautiful stories of love and heartache that are contained in wrinkles. Stories of years of laughter, tears, love and pain. There's more to the human existence than physical beauty. We ALL age, it's only the shallow people that don't recognize that this is true beauty. I feel sorry for y'all.
Susanna Vesna 9 years ago
Face of a woman who knows no glamour or spoils, but labours hard every day...:(
#39
At Fort Hall, Idaho, Leo Teton stands next to a pole ornamented with bison skulls, representing the spiritual connection between the Shoshone-Bannock tribe and bison.
Daniel Law 9 years ago
We do. But a part of American Natives' relationship to the bison was that the bison provided them with food. This pole is similar to a cross for Christians.
Marika Stanway 9 years ago
They do also die of natural causes... These might all be collected from the plains.
Load More Replies... #40
An American crocodile rises from a bed of turtle grass to return to the labyrinth of mangrove roots that offer near-impenetrable shelter.
#41
Kirill Vselensky perches on a cornice in Moscow as Dima Balashov gets the shot. The 24-year-olds, risktakers known as rooftoppers, celebrate their feats on Instagram.
Marc Tullis 7 years ago
Completely irresponsible to grant the exposure that such risk takers seek.
Gretel Hallett 9 years ago
So who took this photo? And where's the one Balashov is taking right now?
#42
A curiosity, a portent, a looming symbol of the impending change: This May, for the first time in nearly four decades, an American cruise ship sailed into Havana Bay.
Bridgette David 9 years ago
The destruction of the pristine Cuban natural environment has begun. Yay tourists!
Full Name 8 years ago
The island has always had tons of tourists. Mostly Canadian (I know, I'm one of them). I do worry that the influx will be too much which is why I went as soon as I heard they were letting Americans in soon. I wanted to see it before Castro died. I'm so glad I did. I'm not glad that I chose Sunwing though because they ruined my vacation.
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Susanna Vesna 9 years ago
Let's hope they wont let US turn it into a whore house, which they resisted for decades thanks to Fidel.
Full Name 8 years ago
Let me go out on a limb and assume you've never been there.
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#43
Kids swim in a river where a bridge collapsed in Port Salut, Haiti. The city suffered serious damage from Hurricane Matthew, with many homes completely destroyed.
Misty Showers 9 years ago
One of the poorest countries on earth, right in the shadow of the US.
#44
Summer attracts sunbathers—clothed and otherwise—to the grassy banks of Munich’s Schwabinger Bach. The meadows here have been popular with nudists since the 1970s.
Timothy D. 9 years ago
this photo is actually in one of my little brother's kids books, which is weird, but also the photo is older than 2016
#45
A worker uses a mallet to dislodge frozen tuna aboard a Chinese cargo vessel docked at the city of General Santos, in the Philippines.
Hans 9 years ago
Cease to buy tuna, people, unless you are sure it is from a sustainable source. Most isn't.
Timothy D. 9 years ago
try pink paste instead! jk but really don't buy tuna
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#46
A harvested bull elk and its prized antlers are transported the old-fashioned way—by mule. More than 72,000 hunters came to the lands around Yellowstone and Grand Teton in 2014.
Marika Stanway 9 years ago
I have to say I laughed at that comment :) But sinister humour aside.. a human question.. I wonder what the donkey thinks about his load?
Load More Replies... Anonymous Hobiest 9 years ago
The elk population was nearly extinct until the hunters got involved in the conservation effort. Now there are hundreds of thousands of elk.
#47
Russia’s Bovanenkovo natural gas field, on the Yamal Peninsula, was deemed too expensive to develop until President Vladimir Putin made it a priority.
Misty Showers 9 years ago
If you don't do what he asks he'll have you shot. Just a slight difference between our country and theirs.
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#48
With the help of a bloodhound, a ranger tries to track the poachers who killed this elephant and cut off part of its head to get away quickly with its ivory tusks.
htbq 9 years ago
why??? see what money does! its a piece of paper that turns humans into monsters! f*** money..
Viktoria Zellner 8 years ago
not the humans are bad - but their systems. the systems are archaic.
Add New Image
What do you think ?
Stefanie Probst 8 years ago
yesterday, hamburg Police took this picture ... wow https://www.facebook.com/polizeihamburg/photos/a.1401912723402451.1073741828.1390767804516943/1765683843692002/?type=3&hc_location=ufi
Donette Kingyens 8 years ago
I think it is sad that most of these pics have been so photo-shopped they look fake..
Stefanie Probst 8 years ago
yesterday, hamburg Police took this picture ... wow https://www.facebook.com/polizeihamburg/photos/a.1401912723402451.1073741828.1390767804516943/1765683843692002/?type=3&hc_location=ufi
Donette Kingyens 8 years ago
I think it is sad that most of these pics have been so photo-shopped they look fake..
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