White southern right whale calf underwater, Eubalaena australis. About five per cent of southern right whales are born white due to a condition known as grey morphism and will gradually turn dark as they age. They are not albino (which is a complete lack of pigmentation). Sometimes referred to as "brindled", the white coloration is a recessive genetic trait and only lasts a few months. Typically, but not always, white calves will become much darker as they mature but will still be somewhat lighter than normal even as adults.
Species: Southern Right Whale, Eubalaena australis
Location: Puerto Piramides, Chubut, Argentina
Image ID: 38434
White southern right whale calf underwater, Eubalaena australis. About five per cent of southern right whales are born white due to a condition known as grey morphism and will gradually turn dark as they age. They are not albino (which is a complete lack of pigmentation). Sometimes referred to as "brindled", the white coloration is a recessive genetic trait and only lasts a few months. Typically, but not always, white calves will become much darker as they mature but will still be somewhat lighter than normal even as adults.
Species: Southern Right Whale, Eubalaena australis
Location: Puerto Piramides, Chubut, Argentina
Image ID: 38438
Courting pair of southern right whales underwater, Eubalaena australis. While the posture in this photo isn't quite mating, it is a courting behavior that often precedes mating. The male is below, upside down and trying to access the female belly-to-belly. However, the female does not want to mate, so she has positioned herself upside down at the surface so that the males in the courting group cannot reach her genital slit.
Species: Southern Right Whale, Eubalaena australis
Location: Puerto Piramides, Chubut, Argentina
Image ID: 38446
Huge California Sea Lion Male Underwater, a bull, patrolling his breeding harem and territory, Coronado Islands, Mexico. His sagittal crest, the bony bump on his head that distinguishes adult male sea lions, is clearly seen. This particular sea lion bears an orange tag on his left foreflipper, probably as a result of rescue and release as a young sea lion years earlier.
Species: California sea lion, Zalophus californianus
Location: Coronado Islands (Islas Coronado), Baja California, Mexico
Image ID: 38657
Divers Swim Over the Wreck of the HMCS Yukon in San Diego. Deliberately sunk in 2000 at San Diego's Wreck Alley to form an artifical reef, the HMCS Yukon is a 366-foot-long former Canadian destroyer. It is encrusted with a variety of invertebrate life, including Cornyactis anemones which provide much of the color seen here.
Location: San Diego, California
Image ID: 39474
Aspens show fall colors in Mineral King Valley, part of Sequoia National Park in the southern Sierra Nevada, California.
Location: Mineral King, Sequoia National Park, California
Image ID: 32298
Sunlight streams through giant kelp forest. Giant kelp, the fastest growing plant on Earth, reaches from the rocky reef to the ocean's surface like a submarine forest.
Species: Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera
Location: Catalina Island, California
Image ID: 33434
Sunlight streams through giant kelp forest. Giant kelp, the fastest growing plant on Earth, reaches from the rocky reef to the ocean's surface like a submarine forest.
Species: Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera
Location: Catalina Island, California
Image ID: 33435
Sunlight streams through giant kelp forest. Giant kelp, the fastest growing plant on Earth, reaches from the rocky reef to the ocean's surface like a submarine forest.
Species: Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera
Location: Catalina Island, California
Image ID: 33436
Sunlight streams through giant kelp forest. Giant kelp, the fastest growing plant on Earth, reaches from the rocky reef to the ocean's surface like a submarine forest.
Species: Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera
Location: Catalina Island, California
Image ID: 33437
Sunlight streams through giant kelp forest. Giant kelp, the fastest growing plant on Earth, reaches from the rocky reef to the ocean's surface like a submarine forest.
Species: Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera
Location: Catalina Island, California
Image ID: 33438
Whale hair on the rostrum and chin of a southern right whale, sidelit by the setting sun. These individual hairs provide sensor information to the whale as it swims through ocean currents or touches the ocean bottom.
Species: Southern Right Whale, Eubalaena australis
Location: Puerto Piramides, Chubut, Argentina
Image ID: 38331
The Botanical Building in Balboa Park, San Diego. The Botanical Building, at 250 feet long by 75 feet wide and 60 feet tall, was the largest wood lath structure in the world when it was built in 1915 for the Panama-California Exposition. The Botanical Building, located on the Prado, west of the Museum of Art, contains about 2,100 permanent tropical plants along with changing seasonal flowers. The Lily Pond, just south of the Botanical Building, is an eloquent example of the use of reflecting pools to enhance architecture. The 193' by 43' foot pond and smaller companion pool were originally referred to as Las Lagunas de las Flores (The Lakes of the Flowers) and were designed as aquatic gardens. The pools contain exotic water lilies and lotus which bloom spring through fall.
Location: Balboa Park, San Diego, California
Image ID: 28823
Courting group of southern right whales, aerial photo. Mating may occur as a result of this courting and social behavior. The white whale seen here is a serious player named El Copulador (the copulator) and is often seen in mating and courting groups of southern right whales at Peninsula Valdes. His light coloration is an indication that he was a white calf, but he did not darken as he aged in the way most white southern right whale calves do.
Species: Southern Right Whale, Eubalaena australis
Location: Puerto Piramides, Chubut, Argentina
Image ID: 38357
Giant redwood, Lady Bird Johnson Grove, Redwood National Park. The coastal redwood, or simply 'redwood', is the tallest tree on Earth, reaching a height of 379' and living 3500 years or more. It is native to coastal California and the southwestern corner of Oregon within the United States, but most concentrated in Redwood National and State Parks in Northern California, found close to the coast where moisture and soil conditions can support its unique size and growth requirements.
Species: California redwood, Coast redwood, Giant redwood, Sequoia sempervirens
Location: Redwood National Park, California
Image ID: 25795
Blue whale, exhaling as it surfaces from a dive, aerial photo. The blue whale is the largest animal ever to have lived on Earth, exceeding 100' in length and 200 tons in weight.
Species: Blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus
Location: Redondo Beach, California
Image ID: 25951
The bisons massive head is its most characteristic feature. Its forehead bulges because of its convex-shaped frontal bone. Its shoulder hump, dwindling bowlike to the haunches, is supported by unusually long spinal vertebrae. Over powerful neck and shoulder muscles grows a great shaggy coat of curly brown fur, and over the head, like an immense hood, grows a shock of black hair. Its forequarters are higher and much heavier than its haunches. A mature bull stands about 6 1/2 feet (2 meters) at the shoulder and weighs more than 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms). The bisons horns are short and black. In the male they are thick at the base and taper abruptly to sharp points as they curve outward and upward; the females horns are more slender.
Species: American bison, Bison bison
Location: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Image ID: 13120
A rainbow appears in the spray of Riverside Geyser as it erupts over the Firehole River. Riverside is a very predictable geyser. Its eruptions last 30 minutes, reach heights of 75 feet and are usually spaced about 6 hours apart. Upper Geyser Basin.
Location: Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Image ID: 13367
Male elk bugling during the fall rut. Large male elk are known as bulls. Male elk have large antlers which are shed each year. Male elk engage in competitive mating behaviors during the rut, including posturing, antler wrestling and bugling, a loud series of screams which is intended to establish dominance over other males and attract females.
Species: Elk, Cervus canadensis
Location: Madison River, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Image ID: 19697