Planet Earth

A World Full of Images

Deserts - The Great Victoria Desert in Australia

Deserts - Rub' al Khali or Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia

Deserts- Petrified dunes near Sesriem, Namibia

Deserts - Dune, Namib Desert, Namibia

Deserts - Aerial photo of Die Lange Wand, or Long Wall, Namib Desert, Namibia

Deserts - Conception Bay, Sand Sea, Namib Desert, Namibia

Desert s- A dust storm crossing the Red Sea from Egypt to Saudi Arabia on May 13th, 2005

Deserts - An intense Saharan dust storm sent a massive dust plume northwestward over the Atlantic Ocean on March 2nd,

2003

Deserts - A flash flood in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 2004

Deserts - Atacama

Deserts - Atacama, the world driest desert

Desert - Colorado River Toad or Sonoran Desert Toad

Deserts - Black-Tailed Jackrabbit(south-western USA)

Deserts - Kangaroo Rat (south-western USA)

Deserts - Sidewinder Rattlesnake

Deserts - A Camel Thorn Tree (Acacia Erioloba) in the Namib Desert, Namibia

Antarctica, the frozen desert

•The windswept ice of Victoria Land in Antarctica stretches for hundreds of desolate miles. •This area receives less precipitation than most of the world's hot deserts.

Antarctica, the frozen desert

•Ancient ice on the edge of a glacier crumbles under its own weight in Drake Passage, Antarctica.• Some parts of Antarctica haven't had precipitation in over 100 years, earning the continent the nickname "frozen desert."

Antarctica, the frozen desert

Snow-mantled crags, Queen Maud Land in central Antarctica.

Antarctica, the frozen desert• Icicles drape the sides of an iceberg

in the waters around Antarctica.• Fifth-largest of the world's continents,

Antarctica comprises

5,500,000 square miles (14,245,000 square kilometers)

of snow-topped glaciers and ice sheets with less

than 5 percent ice-free.

Antarctica, the frozen desert

•In the midst of an Antarctic plain rises 8,963-foot-high (2,732-meter-high) Mount Melbourne, an active volcano cone that may have erupted as recently as the 18th or 19th century. •More than 30 active and inactive volcanoes dot the frozen continent.

Antarctica, the frozen desert

• Sheltered by a titanic iceberg,

emperor penguins bask in the Antarctic

sun. • Emperor penguins

survive this harsh environment, where wind chills can reach

-75 degrees Fahrenheit (-60

degrees Celsius), by huddling together in large groups to block wind and conserve

warmth.

Antarctica, the frozen desert•An enormous iceberg nestles into an ice shelf in Antarctica.

•Disintegrating ice shelves in Antarctica have caused alarm among scientists who warn that ice loss here could mean a disastrous rise in sea levels worldwide.

Grasslands (Prairie)

Ranchers herd cattle across

the shortgrass prairie of

Montana on their way to

winter pasturelands.

Grasslands (Prairies)

Grasslands (Prairies)• An American bison

stands in a field on the Tallgrass Prairie

Preserve in Oklahoma.

• The preserve, maintained by the

Nature Conservancy, is the largest

preserved portion of what was once 140 million acres (362.5 million hectares) of

grassland in the American Midwest.

There are about 2,500 American bison, which were once hunted to a few hundred animals, roaming the preserve.

Grasslands (Prairies)

•Wisp grass seedpods sway in the wind in South Dakota's Badlands National Park. •Fifty-six different grass species are found in Badlands.

Grasslands

Wyoming prairie lands

Grasslands (Prairies)

•A black-tailed prairie dog perks up outside his burrow in South

Dakota.

• These playful rodents live in well-

organized underground burrows called towns that can have populations in

the thousands.

Grasslands

•A swarm of insects hovers over grassland in Madagascar.

•The island nation has problems with locusts, insects that can destroy crops and grasslands quickly.

Grasslands (savanna)•An acacia tree stands tall as the sun rises over Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.• The savannas of the Serengeti stretch over Tanzania and Kenya, and support hundreds of species of plants and animals.

Tropical Rain Forest

The Congo Basin’s 500 million acres of tropical forest, second-largest in the world after

the Amazon, are known for an

incredible array of wildlife including great apes, forest

elephants, and some 700 species

of river fish.

Tropical Rain Forest

A scarlet macaw in

Brazil's Amazon rain forest. These birds are best

known for their loud

cackles, four-toed feet, and

brilliant plumage.

Tropical Rain Forest

A fig tree in the

Philippines, which

produces fruit on runners that come

from its trunk instead of on its branches.

Tropical Rain Forest

•A lizard suns itself on a leaf in the El Yunque National Forest in Puerto

Rico. • El Yunque is the

only tropical rain forest in the U.S. National Forest system, which

protects the 28,000 acres (11,331

hectares) in the Luquillo Mountains

Tropical Rain Forest

•A monkey from the Malaysian rain forest.

•Malaysia is still heavily forested, about 60 percent of the nation is tree-covered, but deforestation has proceeded rapidly during the nation’s recent economic development.

• Rain forests give refuge to tremendous biodiversity and those covering Peninsular Malaysia’s highlands also give rise to the rivers which supply 90 percent of the nation’s freshwater needs.

Tropical Rain Forest

• The red-eyed tree frog is an icon of the

Central American rain forest.

• When asleep, it's green color provides

effective camouflage.

• When threatened, the red of suddenly-exposed eyes or legs may startle predators and enable an escape.

Tropical Rain Forest

•Sunny rays penetrate the canopy of an Indonesian rain forest on Nias Island.

•Rain forests are among the Earth’s most biologically diverse habitats. Their fauna and flora are precious for their own sake but can also aid humans.

Rain forest plants, for example, produce chemicals to combat insects and disease that have led to the development of many beneficial drugs.