In the White River Badlands of Nebraska, a 65 million year old fossilized turtle
who once swam in the deep oceans that existed here erodes away after
sun and rain expose its shell for the first time since its death

A brown-eyed susan casts its shadow on a compass plant leaf at Aldo Leopold's farm near Baraboo,
Wisconsin. Leopold's granddaughter has restored much of the acreage back to its original prairie savannah state

The source of one of America's greatest rivers, the Mighty Mississippi begins its
southern journey to the Gulf of Mexico in Itasca State Park in N.W. Minnesota

A young moose calf nibbles on branches in Isle Royale National Park,
Michigan, Lake Superior's largest island

A red-tailed hawk sits on a fence post near Stillwater, Minnesota

A bald eagle with its broken wing bandaged, sits behind bars during its recovery
at the University of Minnesota Raptor and Rehabilitation Center
in St. Paul, Minnesota

A gray wolf in snowstorm, Minnesota. Minnesota holds the largest population of wolves in the lower 48 states
with numbers approaching 3,000. No longer considered endangered or threatened,
the wolf's status remains one of controversary

A group of netted piranah on the Maranon' River, a tributary to the Amazon River in Peru

Colorful patterns at Midway Geyser Basin in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park

A small lead in the polar sea ice off the western coast of Greenland runs to an iceberg where
Polar Inuit hunters have killed a bearded seal for food. Suggestions of global warming
have given way to studies about why polar ice depths are thinner and shift
out earlier each year perhaps altering a very fragile ecosytem

An Arctic Tern dives for a closer look off the southern coast of Iceland