DIY

National Geographic’s Top 20 Photos Of 2015 Are The Best Ones Yet.

National Geographic’s Top 20 Photos Of 2015 Are The Best Ones Yet. January 23, 2017

The incredible shore of Larak, Iran, an island that’s treated to the presence of luminescent plankton that pile up on the sand.

Clinton Berry captured this photo with a GoPro on Antarctica’s sea ice. “I studied the movements of the penguins for weeks,” Berry wrote. “They walked in the same area almost every day.

We would get maybe a dozen or less going by. The day this was taken there were over 60 penguins. It was a bit of luck involved too.”.

Located in Sződliget, Hungary, this house looks like something out of a fairy tale. “It was utterly ghostly and very moody out there,” wrote photographer Gabor Dvornik.

“I felt like I was in a fantasy tale, in an enchanted land. I was so euphoric that I made around 500 captures and walked around the lake two to three times.”.

A snowy owl trying to brave the elements in Quebec City, Canada.

“I knew that many snowy owls were in the area,” wrote photographer Dominic Roy, “but it’s not always easy to find them.”.

800-year-old baobab trees in Madagascar, photographed by Marsel van Oosten.

The baobab is considered the mother of the forest, because the trees tend to form ecosystems of their own that support life for both animals and humans — the tree can store up to 4,000 gallons of water in its trunk.

The setting sun shining through the ice on the shore of a frozen Lake Superior “Part of the beauty of this place is the silence of it,” wrote photographer Ernie Vater. “You hear nothing except the occasional creaking of the ice (which can make you jump if it’s right under you).

There were a few times when I just stopped and enjoyed the quiet. In this spot the only sounds were the water drops splashing.”.

This photo was taken at the Gran Paradiso National Park in Italy, and depicts a nonplussed fox taking a break in the breathtaking autumn foliage.

Photographer Alexey Trofimov spends a few months a year photographing landscapes at Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest and oldest lake.

This unusual crack pattern gave him the photo he’d been waiting for for years — doesn’t it look as though the world is splitting apart.

Photographer Jeff Hester took this photo and claimed, “I believe this is what our oceans should look like.” The location is Cabo Pulmo, a marine park in Mexico’s Baja California peninsula that was established by local citizens to counteract depleted reef fishes and marine life due to overfishing.

The aurora borealis and the moon over Iceland.

These vivid beams of light are caused by collisions between charged particles released from the sun’s atmosphere, and gaseous particles in Earth’s atmosphere.

An adorable mouse peeks its head through his hole in this perfectly timed shot from photographer Cezary Wyszynski.

Researcher Ian McAllister used an underwater protective device for his camera to get this insane portrait of a wolf moving through the water in British Columbia.

Croatia’s Plitvice Lakes National Park during early autumn.

It’s the country’s oldest and largest national park has 16 terraced lakes, and over 261 species of birds.

A diver gazing at the Hilma Hooker, a cargo ship purposely sunk off the Caribbean island of Bonaire.

A fox kit in southern Estonia poses for Kalmer Lehepuu’s camera.

The photographer had waited for the kits to grow big enough to start leaving the den, and this was one of the first nights he got to sneak in and take a peak.

A weeping cherry tree blooms at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, Japan bloom in late March and early April, and call to mind Japanese paintings, only in real life.

This incredible shot is of a humpback whale and her new baby.

“I could not help but wave and smile at the newborn whale almost three times my length,”photographer Karim Iliya wrote. “Its curiosity got the better of it and emerging from under its mother’s fin, it swam toward me, approaching less than 30 centimeter from my face.”.

The wildlife inhabiting Italy’s Gran Paradiso National Park include fascinating creatures such as ibex, chamois, red foxes, and ermines.

The ermine in this picture is wearing its white winter coat instead of its usual reddish brown.

This is Jellyfish Lake, located on one of the Rock Islands in Palau.

It’s a saltwater lake that’s filled with thousands of golden jellyfish, which are totally harmless to humans. The fish chase the sunlight as it moves through the sky and subsequently the water, using the light to nourish themselves.

Abderazak Tissoukai captured this amazing photo of fishermen, working near sunset in Xingping, China.

“Xingping is definitely one the most beautiful places in China, with its scenic karst landscapes [and] traditional and genuine people,” he wrote. This particular kind of fishermen are cormorant fishermen, who use trained birds with snared throats to capture fish.