geographic images - Joel Sartore

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A hatchling leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) crawls along the beach toward the ocean on Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea. (IUCN: Critically Endangered, US: Endangered)

A fruit bat (Lissonycteris angolensis) hanging with wings folded, from Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea.

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A fruit bat (Lissonycteris angolensis) hanging with wings folded, from Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea.

Picture of millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roosting on the Chincua Mountain near Angangueo, Mexico.

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Millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) roost on the Chincua Mountain near Angangueo, Mexico. This is one of five wintering roosts for monarchs, where the cool mountain climate slows their metabolism enough for them to overwinter before migrating back northward in the spring. Logging threatens this spectacle–Already one of the five sites is no longer used by the butterflies due to the forest being cleared.

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Twin farmers enjoy lunch at Mulligan’s Bar in Oxford, NE.

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A three-toed sloth clings to an ambaibo tree in Madidi National Park, Bolivia.

Picture of a herd of bison (Bison bison) running across the prairie on the Triple U Bison Ranch near Fort Pierre, South Dakota.

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A herd of bison (Bison bison) running across the prairie on the Triple U Bison Ranch near Fort Pierre, South Dakota. This ranch has about 2,000 head of bison on over 50,000 acres.

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A herd of bison (Bison bison) running across the prairie on the Triple U Bison Ranch near Fort Pierre, South Dakota. This ranch has about 2,000 head of bison on over 50,000 acres.

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Wasatch Range and Brigham City, Utah, one of a string of Mormon communities originally settled by handpicked craftsmen, laborers, and school teachers, who arrived in 1847, redirecting mountain streams for farming.

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The town of Saint George a suburban sprawl in southwestern Utah.

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Two Ute Indian girls on a horse at sunset in Ouray, Utah.

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At Megahertz quality-control lab a technician scans for defects in electronic equipment. The company is one of 1,700 high-tech firms centered on the Wasatch Front in Utah.

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Mom’s Cafe, serving home-style western food, Salina, Utah.

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A college student attending the July Fourth Parade in Salina, Utah.

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Quinceanera party at Our Lady of Guadalupe church, Salt Lake City, Utah. The celebration is a traditional rite of passage for 15-year-old Hispanic girls.

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A family picnic outside their suburban house in West Jordan, a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah.

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Cowboys standing in front of a rainbow in Utah.

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A tearful young man bids good-bye to his family before going to India for a two-year Mormon missionary stint, Mormon Missionary Center, Provo, Utah.

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Fundamentalist Mormon polygamist with wives and children, Salt Lake City, Utah area.

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Newlyweds standing together at the Salt Lake temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. Fifty-two couples were married on the same day at this temple.

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Retirees frolic in a pool at the Fun N Sun Resort in San Benito, one of many border communities that attract “winter Texans” from the north every fall.

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San Benito high school greyhounds football team hold hands in prayer before an important game in San Benito, Texas.

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At the end of a workday, employees of Pebac, a “maquiladora,” or assembly plant , leave to catch the buses that will take them home.

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Criss-crossed by the shadows of containment bars in the back of a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle, a ten-year-old boy is driven back to his hometown of Matamoros after being caught sneaking into Brownsville, Texas.

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A Mexican family wade across the Rio Grande beneath the International bridge, leaving Matamoros and entering Brownsville, Texas illegally.

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Members of the Escaramuza Espuelas de Oro, the Golden Spur Equestrian drill team, are dressed in traditional Mexican dress at a festival in El Paso, Texas.

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Pedestrians on a walkway are bombarded by loud signs written in English and Spanish in Laredo, Texas. Many of the residents, about 75 percent, are bilingual.

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An aloe plant in an aloe field, where many of the workers are resident aliens, Mexican citizens with green cards allowing them to work in the United States. The aloe leaves will be processed into ointments, cosmetics, and beverages after harvest.

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Ranch hands relax and joke after a day of working cattle on the 130,000-acre Callaghan ranch near Encinal, Texas.

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Surrounded by a mountain of maroon sweatshirts, top seamstress Rolanda Vasquez Hernandez assembles more sweatshirts to add to the pile. The sign above her head indicates that she meets or exceeds 100 percent of her production goal at the Nova/Link plant, a “maquiladora,” or assembly plant.