40 Glimpses Of Nature So Perfect, You May End Up Feeling Like You’ve Been Let In On A Secret

A woman in West Virginia snapped a one-in-a-million shot of a tree being struck by lightning. Photographed by Donnie Dania

Hippocampus guttulatus, commonly known as the long-snouted seahorse and in Great Britain as the spiny seahorse, is a marine fish belonging to the family Syngnathidae, native from the northeast Atlantic, including the Mediterranean

How my friend found a fox in her back garden. Must have been a hard day

A photograph captures the moment a mother jackal chases down an eagle that has kidnapped her cub. The images were taken by wildlife photographer Ateeb Hussain, who was in the right place at the right time to capture the jackal in action. As you can see in the picture, nature is brutal, but this time the creepy story had a happy ending. The place is the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, where an eagle swung over a small jackal cub and took it away. However, the mother of the animal was lurking and wouldn't let her puppy get lost. It is known that after the action, the jackal not only rescued its seemingly uninjured pup, but was also able to hide it in a cave from poachers.

Spectacular clouds captured on the road from Poland to Hungary.

This is how big a Redwood is

This Is a Northern Blue Banded Bee – And Yes, It's Real!
Not all Bees are Yellow and Brown.
Native to Australia and Southeast Asia, this solitary bee stands out with its electric-blue stripes and fast, precise flight. It doesn’t make honey or live in colonies—but it’s a powerful pollinator.

This drone photo was taken during a heavy rainstorm. A beaver dam is blocking dirty water

Yareta (Azorella compacta) in Bolivia (elevation of 14,000 ft.). This may look like a moss, but it isn't! This is a broad-leafed plant in the carrot family, Apiaceae. These plants can grow to be over 3000 years old. This large specimen may be over 1000 years old.

Mouse deer like chevrotains and Java mouse deer are considered living fossils because they are thought to be the most primitive ruminants. Whales may have evolved from water-loving creatures that looked like small deer

The Rainbow Snake

The tufted ground squirrel is noted for having the largest known tail to body size ratio of any mammal, with the volume of its tail including the air included in the fluff being 130% of the volume of its body 🐿

These salt deposits were formed during the “Messinian Salinity Crisis”, a geological event during which the Mediterranean Sea was cut off from the Atlantic Ocean and dried up (or mostly dried up), creating massive deposits of previously dissolved salts. This occurred at the end of the Messinian age of the Miocene epoch, from 5.96 to 5.33 million years ago, ending when the Atlantic again flowed into the basin

Crotalaria cunninghamii, also known as the green birdflower or Regal Birdflower, is a truly fascinating plant native to inland northern Australia. What makes it so striking is its unusual flowers — the petals are shaped in such a way that they resemble tiny, green hummingbirds in flight. The illusion is so convincing that at first glance, it looks like a cluster of birds feeding from the plant.
Some experts suggest that the flower’s shape may be an adaptation to attract bird pollinators, such as honeyeaters, which are common in its native habitat. The Aboriginal communities have also traditionally used its sap to treat eye infections.
Despite their bird-like appearance, these flowers are all-natural, a perfect example of how surreal and artistic nature can be. The plant belongs to the legume family

The Adorable Dik-Dik: Tiny, Fast, and Full of Personality! 🦌✨ This tiny antelope, called a dik-dik, looks straight out of a storybook! Standing only about 30–40 cm tall, dik-diks are incredibly quick and shy, perfectly adapted to hide among bushes in the African savannah. Their big sparkling eyes, small size, and delicate horns make them one of the most charming little creatures you'll ever see!

Just as impressive underground as above ground. Despite their incredible heights of 300+ feet, typical redwood root systems are relatively shallow, only 6 to 12 feet deep. Redwoods create the strength to withstand powerful winds and floods by extending their roots outwards, up to 100 feet wide from the trunk, and living in groves where their roots can intertwine. This ancient giant fell naturally and will continue to provide life to seedlings as a nurse log for many years to come. Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

Sometimes there is a line to get on the 'Falls Viewing Platform', and sometimes there is a line to fish at the falls!

A thick covering of ivy being pulled off the side of a building

Echium wildpretii, also known as Tower of Jewels
Echium wildpretii is a species of flowering plant in the Boraginaceae family, endemic to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago. It grows mainly in the subalpine zone of the ravines of Mount Teide, a volcano on the island of Tenerife. Common names are tower of jewels, red bugloss, Tenerife bugloss or Mount Teide bugloss.
It is a biennial herbaceous plant reaching between 1–3 m (3 ft 3 in – 9 ft 10 in) tall, with an erect inflorescence bearing red flowers. The plant produces a dense rosette of leaves during the first year, flowers in the second year, and then dies back. It flowers from late spring to early summer in Tenerife.

Lake Nakuru - Kenya, is the nesting site of a million pink flamingos

The Forest’s Silent Executioner
This is no ordinary death. What you see is a masterpiece of biological manipulation—a parasitic fungus that hijacked an insect’s body and turned it into a living tomb. It climbed high, compelled by the fungus, and clamped down before succumbing. From its lifeless husk, fungal fruiting bodies now erupt, spreading invisible spores into the damp air of the forest floor.
One life taken to ensure many more.
A haunting reminder: in nature, even the smallest creature can become the stage for a chilling performance

Malayan tapirs are classed as Endangered, and South American tapirs are Vulnerable. Poaching and habitat loss are two major reasons 🌳
Therefore, zoo-based breeding programmes are essential insurance for tapirs, whilst simultaneously engaging visitors on the matters of mass deforestation and illegal logging
Chester Zoo
Jimmy's Farm & Wildlife Park

The vineyards of La Geria, on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, are a stunning example of human adaptability and ingenuity. Born from the devastation of volcanic eruptions in the 1730s, these vineyards transformed an arid, ash-covered landscape into one of the world’s most unique agricultural regions. Farmers discovered that the volcanic ash, or picón, could trap moisture and protect the soil from the island’s relentless heat, allowing crops to thrive in an otherwise inhospitable environment.
Each vine is planted in a pit dug into the ash, with crescent-shaped stone walls shielding it from fierce winds. These distinctive patterns stretch across the black volcanic terrain, creating a striking visual contrast with the vibrant greenery of the vines. The Malvasia grape, cultivated here, is famous for its sweet, aromatic wines, which stand as a testament to this innovative farming method.

Three-Tailed Swallowtail Butterflies!
Hundreds of these endangered butterflies, were spotted gathering by a creek in Tengchong, SW China's Yunnan Province.

The Saiga Antelope, found in the steppes of Central Asia, is famous for its oversized, trunk-like nose.
This unique nose helps filter dust and cool the air during the scorching summers. Sadly, they’re critically endangered due to poaching and habitat loss.
Photo: Mogens Trolle

A 2 feet tall specimen of Amorphallus, the Punggapong flower in full bloom during the rainy season. One of the rarest plants found in the Masungi georeserve, the Philippines

A large stork nest near the village of Báscones del Aqua, Spain

Meet the black giant squirrel! Native to Southeast Asia, the black giant squirrel is known for its jet-black fur and long tail. It is one of the largest squirrel species in the world!

The flat phantom of the rivers 🐢🌊🕵️‍♂️✨
It looks like a fossil from another time - mysterious, ancient and almost alien: the Cantor's giant tortoise (Pelochelys Cantorii) is one of the rarest and most unusual turtles in the world!

In Oaxaca there is a honey ant known because its tummy is filled with a delicious honey that you can extract and then let go to the little ant In the Oaxaque villages it is known as chindudis and is a variety of ant that produce honey only that instead of depositing it in a honeycomb, generate a bag next to its stomach that inflates outwards while being filled with the sweet flavor, which extracted overnight of floral nectars. They belong to desert areas and can be found in some communities, especially in the Mixteca area, when there is no rain.

They are known by different names: Chindudis, Tiocondudi, Botijas, Tioko Ntudi (variant of Mixteco meaning honey ant), Vinitos, Binguinas, among others, as the name varies in different villages. You just have to dig a little during the day where you see an ant and you will find this sweet treat, although its taste is sweet it has a wide range of floral flavors. Don't hurt them, you can extract the honey from their tummy and let them go, they will fill their belly again over night.

A baboon accepting its fate...