National Geographic USA 12.2021

12.2021

FREE POSTER GREAT MIGRATION OF THE SERENGETI

Life on our planet
is driven by hidden

forces. We’re still
exploring them.

WELCOME TO

EARTH

WATCH ‘WELCOME TO EARTH’
STREAMING DECEMBER 8

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GETTING TO KNOW

EARTH ANEW

FROM THE EDITOR PAGE

SUSAN GOLDBERG NO. 01

In Tanzania’s Serengeti
National Park, two male
lions take a break in a
dry lake bed.

WHO HASN’T PAUSED to appreciate a beautiful sunset? before you turn the page—but I will
say that the chapter on smell features
W Or listen to the wind rustling through the trees? By a process we’ve used just once before in
the sea, there are mesmerizing tides and a salt-air National Geographic’s 133-year history:
a “scratch and sniff” sample. Check
scent; in the sky, dazzling formations of birds, and page 26 to see what that’s about. Then
there’s the chapter documenting life
endless stars. on the Serengeti, amazing storytelling
that features the photography of Charlie
Behind all those experiences are the natural forces that power Hamilton James.

our planet. They give rise to the sounds, smells, and sights we “I’ve been going back and forth to
the Serengeti for 25 years, and it’s never
perceive; the life that swarms around us, moving at every speed. lost its wonder to me,” Hamilton James
says. “There simply isn’t anywhere bet-
Those phenomena are the focus of this special issue and of a six- ter on Earth to photograph wildlife.”
Cumulatively, he’s spent more than two
part National Geographic television series, starring Will Smith years there for National Geographic to
capture the epic annual migration of
and available on Disney+. about 1.3 million wildebeests—a swarm
if ever there was one.
In print and broadcast media and on digital and social platforms,
Also included in this issue, in print
this project shares one title: Welcome to Earth. That’s an oddly and online: a Serengeti poster with
maps and illustrations by Nat Geo art-
appropriate greeting, addressing us as if we’re strangers to a place ists and cartographers.

we think we know well. But we may find that we don’t know it well at Each month, we aim to transport
you to places you’ve never been and to
all, as Welcome to Earth invites us to look at the planet in new ways. show you the world anew. I hope you
think this issue more than fills the bill.
In this issue, six chapters explore one phenomenon each, such as
Thank you for reading National
color, sound, speed, and pattern. I don’t want to give away too much Geographic. j

The National
Geographic series
Welcome to Earth is
available on Disney+
December 8.

PHOTO: CHARLIE HAMILTON JAMES

WELCOME TO

EARTH
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DATE

VOL. 240 NO. 6 DEC. 2021

During the months that wildebeests chase seasonal rains around East Africa’s greater Serengeti region in their annual
migration, they’ll make repeated, dangerous transits of the Mara River at traditional crossing points like this one in Kenya.

We don’t have a sleigh
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But we do deliver millions
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Spread the cheer at usps.com/holidays

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ON THE COVER

Egrets, other hangers-on trail

migrating wildebeests in Tanzania.

4 PATT ERN INNATURE,EVENTHE
PATTERNS CAN HAVE
PATTERNS, AND THEY’RE
EVERYWHERE: AS MATE
BAIT, CAMOUFLAGE, OR
LIVING WORKS OF ART.

STORY, PHOTOGRAPHS
BY JOEL SARTORE

IT’S ALL AUDIBLE! READ
ABOUT (AND LISTEN TO)
SHIFTY SNAKE RATTLES,
WILDLIFE SHEET MUSIC,
WEB VIBES, AND MORE.

BY HICKS WOGAN,
JASON BITTEL, AND

JORDAN SALAMA

20 COLOR VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS
CREATE A CANVAS
WHERE ORGANISMS
CAN GROW IN A
RAINBOW OF HUES.

BY M AYA W E I - H A AS

PHOTOGRAPH BY
STEPHEN WILKES

CAN SCIENCE RECLAIM
THE SMELL OF A FLOWER

EXTINCT FOR MORE
THAN A CENTURY? SURE,

RESEARCHERS SAID.
LEARN HOW THEY DID IT—

AND SMELL THE PROOF.

BY SARAH GIBBENS

30 SPEED FORCES THAT SHAPE THE
PLANET MOVE AT MANY
DIFFERENT SPEEDS. ONE
THAT’S ACCELERATING
AT AN ALARMING RATE:
GLACIAL MELT FROM
CLIMATE CHANGE.

BY MICHAEL GRESHKO

THE SWARM OF 34 SWARM
WILDEBEESTS IN THE

SERENGETI’S MASS
MIGRATION IS ONE OF

EARTH’S GREATEST
SPECTACLES.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY
C H A R L I E H A M I LTO N JA M E S

FREE POSTER: TRACKING THE GREAT SERENGETI MIGRATION



PATTERN

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAGE

JOEL SARTORE NO. 04

SPIRALS. STRIPES. SYMMETRIES. THROUGHOUT NATURE,
PATTERNS HELP ANIMALS BLEND IN OR STAND OUT.

A crazy quilt of patches
covers a Masai giraffe’s
neck at the Houston Zoo
in Texas.

O P P O S I T E : This scale-
covered pinwheel is a
veiled chameleon’s tail,
which the animal curls
into a tight spiral when
it’s startled.

PHOTOGRAPHED IN LINCOLN, NEBRASKA (CHAMELEON)



SECTION

PAT T E R N

The contrast of light and dark helps animals stand out, blend in, or deter would-be predators.
C L O C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: Question mark cockroach, black-and-white ruffed lemur, Malaysia giant tree
nymph butterfly, Timneh parrot, rusty-spotted genet, clown knifefish

PAGE

NO. 07

C L O C K W I S E F R O M TO P L E F T: Carnaby’s black cockatoo, black-necked swan, Malayan krait, Xingu River ray,
Eastern Florida diamondback terrapin, ocellaris clownfish

ANIMALS ON PAGES 6-7 PHOTOGRAPHED AT BUDAPEST ZOO, HUNGARY; JURONG BIRD PARK, SINGAPORE; HENRY DOORLY ZOO AND AQUARIUM, OMAHA, NEBRASKA; PALAIS DE
LA PORTE DORÉE TROPICAL AQUARIUM, PARIS; MELBOURNE ZOO, AUSTRALIA; MELAKA BUTTERFLY & REPTILE SANCTUARY, MALAYSIA; LINCOLN CHILDREN’S ZOO, NEBRASKA;
SEDGWICK COUNTY ZOO, WICHITA, KANSAS; MILLER PARK ZOO, BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS; BREVARD ZOO, MELBOURNE, FLORIDA; DALLAS WORLD AQUARIUM, TEXAS

SECTION

PAT T E R N

Which hopper on this page is most poisonous?
The red little-devil poison frog, top right. Clock-
wise from there, the rest are only mildly poisonous:
tiger-striped leaf frog, Limón harlequin frog, Rio
Pescado stubfoot toad, sun glass frog.

PAGE

NO. 09

Most frogs are nocturnal, but poison frogs are active during the daytime, when their eye-catching
colors and patterns can warn predators to steer clear. Clockwise from top, variable poison-arrow frog,
little-devil poison frog, harlequin poison frog (both yellow-and-orange-spotted and yellow-spotted),
blue dyeing poison dart frog.

FROGS ON PAGES 8-9 PHOTOGRAPHED AT AMPHIBIAN FOUNDATION, ATLANTA; HOUSTON ZOO; CENTRO JAMBATU, QUITO, ECUADOR; NATIONAL AQUARIUM,
BALTIMORE; AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

SECTION

PAT T E R N

Caterpillars’ colors, shapes, and behavior are their tools for survival. Eyespots and bark- or leaflike
camouflage help the larvae blend in with their surroundings; spines or barbs that are venomous—or

PAGE

NO. 11

that at least look menacing—may deter predators. Their spines had better protect these orange lace-
wing caterpillars as there’s no blending into the leaves for them.

PHOTOGRAPHED AT MELBOURNE ZOO, AUSTRALIA

SECTION A PHOTO ARK FULL
OF PATTERNS
PAT T E R N
The National created the 25-year
S O M E L I K E I T B O L D ; some Geographic Society, project—now the
committed to illumi- National Geographic
S like it subtle. Some show nating and protecting Photo Ark—to use
off and others blend in. the wonder of our images to inspire
Some of our favorite ani- world, has been a people to help save
mals are known for their funder since 2012 of threatened species
patterns. What’s a tiger, or a zebra, the Photo Ark project and habitat.
without its stripes? founded by National
For patterns pitting color against Geographic Explorer ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY
color, birds seem to win the prize. Joel Sartore. An author,
The paradise tanager, the red-crested a teacher, and a con-
turaco, the green twinspot, and of servationist as well as a
course the macaw: All wear colors with photographer, Sartore
abandon, reds and greens and blues
side by side in vibrant designs. B E L OW : A lizard that it isn’t just for self-
Angelfish glow as if neon under lives in Australia’s hot, defense. It also helps
water. Chameleons can change their dry interior, the thorny the reptile capture
hues. Poison frogs dare to clothe them- devil has a spiny, moisture from conden-
selves in the most unnatural of blues armored exterior—but sation on its body.
and yellows—effective in discouraging
predators, experts presume.
In the world of animal wardrobes,
all these species are show-offs.
Yet color need not be part of the
plan. Black, white, and gray can offer
ample variety.

PHOTOGRAPHED AT MELBOURNE MUSEUM, AUSTRALIA

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SECTION

PAT T E R N

The highly venomous Malayan krait A B OV E : The okapi is rainforests in the
is unassuming in colorless bands. A striped like a zebra, Democratic Republic
South American swan’s snow-white but its closest rel- of the Congo uses its
body is topped with a coal-black head. ative is the giraffe. 18-inch tongue to eat
The clown knifefish seems to wear This reclusive native more than a hundred
black-and-white portholes down its of dense, humid species of plants.
silver sides. While some birds proclaim
themselves in color, the Timneh parrot Parts of this photo
and the Carnaby’s black cockatoo stick essay are drawn from
to cool gray. Sartore’s new book,
Photo Ark Wonders, on
Other patterns borrow from the sale at shopdisney.com.
background, strategies for blending
in and staying unseen. The chain PHOTOGRAPHED AT WHITE OAK CONSERVATION, YULEE, FLORIDA
catshark’s murky mottling mirrors
shifting patterns of dark and light on
the ocean floor. Splitfins shimmer like
sunlight on water.

Wood turtles’ shells sport elegant
mosaics, picking up earth tones of the
leaf litter where they scuttle. A grass
mouse striped like the stubble it calls
home, a katydid as brightly veined as
the leaves that fall around it, a whip
snake’s scales in hues of the rainforest
it winds through—all exhibit patterns
from the environments they inhabit.

The animal kingdom offers patterns
in abundance. Some we interpret to
have a purpose, but others seem like
arbitrary shapes and colors combined
with abandon—nature’s artistry. j



SOUND
ISSUE PAGE

WELCOME TO EARTH NO. 14

DON’T JUST GIVE THESE PAGES A LOOK—GIVE THEM A LISTEN. USE YOUR PHONE’S CAMERA TO
SCAN THE QR CODE WITH EACH ARTICLE TO HEAR THE SOUNDS IT DESCRIBES.

L AC K I N G S H A R P E Y E S I G H T, spiders use their legs to feel
vibrations in their webs. A web’s silken strands have
different lengths and tensions and, as a result, different
frequencies. The resident spider is attuned to those fre-
quencies to detect prey, potential mates, or threats. Now, a group
of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology aims to
convey a bit of that Spidey sense to humans. With 3D laser imaging
based on cobweb cross sections (above), the MIT team mapped
the web of a tropical tent-web spider. To the strands, the scien-
tists assigned musical tones audible to humans. They also built
a virtual reality interface that lets users “play” the spiderweb like
an eerie-sounding stringed instrument. “We’re trying to give the
spider a voice,” said MIT’s Markus Buehler—and, maybe someday,
communicate with the arachnid via vibrations. — H I C K S WO GA N

PHOTOS: M. BUEHLER, T. SARACENO, I SU, ET AL. (WEB); ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (SPIDER)

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SECTION

SOUND

SNAKE USES ITS Listen to the songs WHAT’S A SONGBIRD
RATTLE SPEED of the endangered WITHOUT ITS SONG?
TO FOOL FOES regent honeyeater.
A SPECIES’ SURVIVAL MAY REST ON ELDERS
If you TEACHING YOUNG MALES MATING CALLS.
can hear
the raspy T H E R E G E N T H O N E Y E AT E R (Anthochaera phrygia)
ch-ch-ch is a critically endangered songbird in southeastern
produced by a Australia. Only a few hundred are left, and some
rattlesnake’s tail, young males aren’t around older ones enough to
then you’ve already learn their songs. A research team based in Canberra
wandered too recently reported that 27 percent of male honeyeaters
close. Or is that just were singing flawed renditions, while 12 percent
what the snake didn’t know their mating calls at all and had adopted
wants you to think? those of other species—not what female honeyeaters
By analyzing sound want to hear. The team has exposed captive young birds
waves, scientists to older birds’ recorded songs—and even to wild-caught
learned that west- older males—in hopes that this music therapy will teach
ern diamondback youngsters the right tunes to preserve the species. It’s
rattlesnakes vibrate a reminder that populations and cultures rise and fall
their tails slowly together, like the notes of a song. — H I C K S WO GA N
when a threat is
far away but shift
into a quicker, high-
frequency rattle as
a threat nears. This
acceleration tricks
the human ear into
thinking the ser-
pent is closer than
it actually is.

—JASON BITTEL

NOTING THE CALLS OF THE WILD

The whistling of a nightingale. The howl of
a gray wolf. The kazoo-like calls of emperor
penguins. To keep his ear trained during
a COVID-19 lockdown, French-German
composer Alexander Liebermann began
transcribing sounds of the animal kingdom
into sheet music that he posts online. What
started as a joke has resonated with fans, he
notes, and become “something bigger.” — H W

PHOTOS: KIM TAYLOR, NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY (SNAKE); JAN WEGENER, BIA/MINDEN PICTURES (BIRD); MIRA/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (WOLF); ALEXANDER LIEBERMANN (SCORE)



SECTION PAGE

SOUND NO. 18

WHALE SONGS ACT AS AN THE SOUNDS
ULTRASOUND OF SEAFLOOR OF HUMANITY

LONG REGARDED AS INTERFERENCE ON QUAKE RECORDINGS, Latin pop
C E TAC E A N C A L L S C O U L D H E L P M A P T H E E A RT H ’S C RU ST. in Peru,
a call to
Listen to a F RO M LO C AT I O N S on the ocean floor, seismographs relay prayer
humpback data to scientists on land who monitor earthquakes. Besides in Iran, the nightly
whale’s song picking up seismic activity, the instruments often capture news in Norway’s
translated the songs of nearby whales. Typically, researchers delete Arctic. All these
into a human those whale sounds during analysis. But scientist Václav sounds emanate
musical Kuna, then with Oregon State University, hit upon a new from Radio Garden,
score, from application as he listened to the calls of a fin whale, which a website that
our May 2021 can be as loud as a large ship and detected up to 600 miles links to thousands
issue. away. Seismographs record the initial signal from a fin of radio stations
whale and then an echo after the sound has penetrated the streaming live from
seafloor, gone as deep as one and a half miles beneath the places large and
floor, and bounced back upward. By studying the echoes’ small—and bringing
frequencies, scientists can gain a type of low-resolution listeners to the
ultrasound of the Earth’s crust. It’s not unlike how energy most distant of
companies deploy air guns to scan for underwater oil and destinations. With
gas deposits—except whale sounds are naturally occur- origins in a 2016
ring, free of charge, and less disruptive to marine life. In exhibition project
researcher Kuna’s view, “It’s a win-win.” — H I C KS WO GA N commissioned by
the Netherlands
Institute for Sound
and Vision, Radio
Garden now aims
to plant “seeds”
of global connec-
tions through the
sounds of humanity.

—JORDAN SALAMA

A DJ spins at Amsterdam’s
Radio Radio club, also the
online radio station RRFM.

PHOTOS: JORDI CHIAS, NPL/MINDEN PICTURES (WHALE); JORIS VAN GENNIP, LAIF/REDUX

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SECTION

COLOR

The National A PHOTOGRAPHER’S LONG,
Geographic Society, AMAZING DAY WITH A VOLCANO
committed to illuminating
and protecting the wonder Stephen Wilkes documented an eruption
of our world, has funded in Iceland for 21 hours straight, making images
Explorer Stephen Wilkes’s of the fiery scene as day turned to night.
photography and story-
telling about the natural A VO L C A N O ’ S C O L O R S can be felt as
world since 2017.
A much as seen. At the Fagradalsfjall
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY volcano in Iceland, about 19 miles
from the capital, Reykjavík, the hottest
Scan this QR code to lava radiates whitish yellow but cools
watch a behind-the- to orange, red, and eventually midnight black. This
scenes video on how “extraordinary dynamic range” is one of many col-
Wilkes and his team orful phenomena that photographer Stephen Wilkes
made this image. observes in his May image of the eruption, at left.
The image shows the landscape transition from day
to night in a single frame. Wilkes created the effect by
compiling 70 of the 1,123 photographs he took from a
single vantage point over 21 hours. The composition
starts on the lower right with a photo taken at 1:54 p.m.
and progresses diagonally to the upper left, blending
together Wilkes’s favorite moments. “I’m re-creating
my memory, in many ways,” he says.
The process of making the image was a whirlwind.
After an overnight flight to Iceland, Wilkes passed a
COVID-19 test and ate a quick lunch before boarding
a helicopter to scout sites. He chose a steep hill to the
east of Fagradalsfjall; from there, by his calculations,
the setting sun would line up with the fiery volcanic
peak. Steady 45-mile-an-hour winds buffeted Wilkes
and his team as they drove stakes into the ground to
anchor the camera’s tripod. Then Wilkes settled in to
track the ever changing scene. The precariousness
of the rocky slope underfoot forced him to stand the
entire day and night—but tired legs and frigid fingers
didn’t distract him from the volcanic light show.
As the sun sank toward the horizon, the volcano
fell quiet, and Wilkes watched with rising concern:
“I do all this planning,” he notes, “but at the end of
the day, I just have to react to what’s in front of me.”
Just when it seemed his plans were foiled, the vol-
cano sputtered back to life, and Wilkes got the much
anticipated image.
Watching the deepening colors of the sunset
above the golden lava from the volcano—a union of
forces that have shaped our planet’s surface since its
infancy—he says he felt an almost spiritual connection:
“That is where it all began.” — M AYA W E I - H A A S

S O L A N G E D U H A M E L turned her University of Arizona, came to study: the birth SECTION
of new land. Many people see volcanic erup-
S back to the wind as it whipped tions solely as forces of death and destruction, COLOR
nearly sideways across the rocky and their capricious blasts certainly can wreak
Icelandic landscape this past havoc. But eruptions also create a blank can- A more subtle rainbow comes to life
April. She shielded her face vas that gives way to a rainbow of life. under some volcanic surfaces. There,
from pellets of hail, waiting for the storm to subterranean cavities offer niches
end. Yet Duhamel couldn’t help but stare in Volcanoes have produced more than 80 per- where microbes may thrive, perhaps
awe at the scene unfolding before her. cent of the rock on Earth’s surface today, both partially fed by nutrients and organics
A stream of incandescent lava poured from above and below water, blasting out craters percolating down from above. Some of
the mouth of the nearby Fagradalsfjall vol- and building mountains, islands, and plateaus. the colonies are visible to the naked
cano, which had been erupting for weeks, Eruptions dredge up nutrients from the bowels eye—but shine ultraviolet light on the
nearly filling the valley where Duhamel stood of our planet, spreading them in rock and ash underground walls, and a microbial
with jet-black rock. As hail collided with the that eventually break down, when on land, galaxy bursts forth. “You can see lit-
lava field’s still sizzling surface, it instantly into fertile soils. The steps to release these tle individual colonies and the films
vaporized, rising in wisps of fog. nutrients come from the combined efforts showing up in glorious color,” says
The hazy cloak that covered the landscape of wind, water, and microbes. Together they Jen Blank, an astrobiologist at NASA’s
only enhanced the otherworldly feel of the transform the volcanic landscape’s shades of Ames Research Center.
process that Duhamel, an environmental gray into rusty red and mustard yellow soils
microbiologist and biogeochemist at the that soon explode with verdant plant life. Fagradalsfjall volcano’s violent
awakening on March 19 gave Duhamel
a golden opportunity to study one of
the earliest steps in lava’s transforma-
tion: the microbial colonization of the
cooled surface.

VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS CREATE A CANVAS C O O L E D L AVA RO C K is iron oxides, one of which
FOR LIFE IN EVERY HUE, FROM water partially drive bot
C initially sterile because But some microbes also
TINY MICROBES TO TOWERING TREES. it emerges from the earth “The microbes, in many w
at temperatures hotter University’s Jeffrey Marlo
COLOR than 2,000 degrees Fahr- to study the microbial tra
BY PAGE enheit, far too hot for life to survive.
By collecting weekly samples on the Key to this colorful tran
M AYA W EI - H A AS NO. 23 surface, Duhamel and her colleagues volcanic glass, which for
hope to pin down what appears there both ash and parts of the
and when. “It’s pretty rare to be able soils form and the hue they
to study a volcanic eruption from the content, vegetation, and
beginning,” she says. found where the land is d
Even once cooled, fresh expanses of are full of iron. In cool, we
lava rocks aren’t very hospitable to life. an excess of organic matt
Volcanic ash and rocks are rich in mag-
nesium, iron, calcium, potassium, and The weathering gives wa
more, but these nutrients aren’t readily are usually the first to arri
available for use. Many vital ingredients greens, vibrant oranges,
for life, such as nitrogen, are also scarce, actually a partnership be
so the pioneering microbes must be them to survive in harsh
resourceful. Some early movers may be Their tiny, rootlike structu
microbes that consume nitrogen from the rock, preparing it for
the air, converting that gas into forms
that are easier for other organisms to
use and setting the stage for later arriv-
als. “You can see it as a collaboration of
life,” Duhamel says.
Meanwhile, the rock and ash slowly
start to break down, made visible
through chemical changes to the
metals trapped within. Of particular
importance is iron, which weathers to

h we commonly know as rust. Wind and VOLCANOES’ PAGE
h the physical and chemical changes. MANY COLORS MAY
can transform the metals in the rock. NO. 25
ways, are the painters here,” says Boston OFFER CLUES
ow, who is collaborating with Duhamel TO WHAT LIES In Hawaiian lava caves, colors
ansformation of volcanic minerals. BEYOND OUR that emerge after volcanic
nsformation is the rapid breakdown of PLANET—AND HELP eruptions include a yellow-gold
ms as lava rapidly cools and makes up SCIENTISTS IN THEIR coating of microbial colonies
e rock. Yet the speed at which volcanic (far left) and blue and purple
y take on rely also on temperature, water HUNT FOR oxidation on cooled drips of
more. Red soils, for example, often are EXTRATERRESTRIAL once molten rock.
ry and sparsely vegetated and the rocks
et environments with abundant plants, LIFE. islands and patches expand as they
ter turns the soils yellow or brown. grow increasingly lush. “You will end up
ay to waves of larger forms of life. Lichens PHOTOS: KENNETH INGHAM with a mosaic of different successional
ive as speckled sheets and frills of dusty stages,” says Catalina González Arango,
mustard yellows. These organisms are a paleoecologist at the University of the
etween fungi and algae, which allows Andes in Colombia.
environments where plants often fail.
ures generate acid that helps break down VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS
larger forms of life. What start as small
V craft a canvas not only
for life aboveground but
also for life belowground.
Basaltic lava is poor in
silica, making it runny, as seen at
Fagradalsfjall or Hawaii’s Kilauea. As
the molten rock flows like a river,
upper layers may cool to form thick
crusts that insulate the stream below.
But if the flow is diverted or the erup-
tion ends, it leaves behind what’s
known as a lava tube.
The caves initially may seem like
empty black husks, but a close inspec-
tion reveals many subtle hues from
microbes. In some tubes, colonies of
Actinobacteria spread in thin golden
biofilms that repel water, Blank says.
Other microbes seem to grow along
with tiny white branches of “cave
coral” or tawny polyps. Shining ultra-
violet light reveals even more hid-
den diversity glowing in neon blues,
oranges, and greens.
Volcanoes’ many colors—both
aboveground and belowground—
reflect the collaboration of geology
and life that shaped our planet as we
know it today. That interplay likely
will continue long into the future. It
may also give clues to what lies beyond
our home world, helping scientists in
their search for extraterrestrial life.
Perhaps these scenes that seem so
otherworldly could, in fact, be found
on other worlds. j

Maya Wei-Haas is a staff science writer at
National Geographic.

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SMELL

BY

SARAH GIBBENS

TELEPHONES WERE A new invention, the Model T Ford

T was selling briskly, and William Howard Taft was U.S.
president the last time anyone might have smelled
a Hibiscadelphus wilderianus tree blooming in the
wild. A distant cousin of Hawaii’s famous hibiscus
flowers, the tree was native to the southern slope of Mount Hale-
akala, on the island of Maui. It’s likely that H. wilderianus went
extinct between 1910 and 1913, judging from reported sightings of
it dying along with other tree species that ranchers had slashed
to clear space for cattle.
More than a century later, a group of scientists would wonder
whether extinction was truly the end of the species’ story. What
if this plant no longer seen in the wild—found only between dry
pages in an archive—could be brought back to life, at least partially?
“We were sitting around and thinking, What if we could do
Jurassic Park?” says Christina Agapakis, the creative director at
Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston-based biotech company. “It was this
sort of dreamy conversation, and we thought maybe we could.”
Within five years, they had opened an aromatic window to the
past. Using DNA reconstruction and synthetic biology, they resur-
rected the tart juniper scent of the vanished Hawaiian tree’s bloom.

See the facing page for a scratch-and-sniff sample of the recon-
structed H. wilderianus fragrance and descriptions of two
other plants whose scents were retrieved.

Resurrecting a smell isn’t just about smelling something that no
longer exists, says Sissel Tolaas, a researcher and artist whose Smell
Research Lab in Berlin worked with Ginkgo on the plant project.
“Through smell you engage with memory and emotion,” she says.
Calling forth a long-lost smell is a way of experiencing the extinct
feelings it might have sparked, a whiff of the past.

Today an estimated 40 percent of Earth’s plants are in danger
of going extinct, according to a 2020 report by the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew. Many more will disappear before scientists even
realize they exist.

B R I N G I N G B AC K W H AT WA S LO S T wasn’t easy. Agapakis and her
team first had to find enough of their targets’ remains. Scientists in
the fictional Jurassic Park tapped a mosquito preserved in amber;
Agapakis first hypothesized permafrost might contain preserved
remnants of extinct plants. When that proved a dead end, she
tried the Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries, a 20-minute
drive from Ginkgo’s headquarters. In Harvard’s collection of dried

ILLUSTRATION: KATY WIEDEMANN. SOURCE: KENNETH R. WOOD, NATIONAL TROPICAL BOTANICAL GARDEN

THIS TREE LAST BLOOMED ON A
HAWAIIAN SLOPE MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO.

NOW SCIENTISTS HAVE RESURRECTED
ITS EXTINCT FRAGRANCE. TAKE A WHIFF!

PAGE

NO. 27

flower pistil SCRATCH AND SNIFF HERE
bud
HIBISCADELPHUS WILDERIANUS
dried seed pod stigma
with exposed seeds This flowering tree native to ancient
lava fields in Maui is believed to have
gone extinct between 1910 and 1913.
It’s part of a continuing biodiversity
loss that has wiped out nearly 11 per-
cent of Hawaii’s endemic plant taxa,
a 2019 study found.

Ginkgo Bioworks also worked to
reconstruct the scent, and the
extinction story, of two other plants:

ORBEXILUM STIPULATUM

The small flowering plant, commonly
known as Falls-of-the-Ohio scurfpea,
was presumed extinct in 1881. Like
the Hibiscadelphus tree in Maui, the
scurfpea was wiped out by develop-
ment: A river dam project flooded
its last known habitat in Kentucky.
Its flower’s re-created scent smelled
“citrusy and candy-like” to project
artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg.

LEUCADENDRON GRANDIFLORUM

Commonly known as the Wynberg
conebush, the small white-flowered
plant is native to South Africa. After
its habitat was taken for vineyards,
it was last seen in 1806. Research for
Ginkgo’s project revealed two differ-
ent specimens labeled as Wynberg
conebush, throwing into doubt the
plant’s identification. What Tolaas
reconstructed smelled “deep and
tobacco-y” to Ginsberg. Meanwhile,
South African conservationists hope
to bring back the indigenous plant:
By safely burning part of the land
that once was conebush habitat, they
may unlock dormant seeds in the soil.

SECTION PAGE

SMELL NO. 28

plant specimens pressed between the
large beige pages of books, 20 extinct
plants were logged. The herbarium
allowed Agapakis to take samples from
14; three were chosen for resurrection.
Hibiscadelphus wilderianus was one.

The second, Orbexilum stipulatum,
last seen on a Kentucky river island,
was presumed extinct in 1881. The
third was labeled as Leucadendron
grandiflorum, native to South Africa
and last seen in 1806. A sample the size
of a pinkie fingernail was taken from
each of the three plants and sent to the
University of California, Santa Cruz
Paleogenomics Lab, where geneticists
sequenced the plants’ DNA.

WHEN AN ORGANISM Just a small sample of the Harvard herbarium specimen of Hibiscadelphus
wilderianus was needed to identify the extinct plant’s scent molecules.
W dies, sunlight, water, and
microbes immediately Tolaas reconstructs smells from molecules the way a writer
uses letters to construct words. She references her smell library, a
begin to degrade the DNA collection 25 years in the making that includes 10,000 molecules
and compositions, organized in small jars and a database. Refer-
in its cells—so to recon- encing the molecules sent from Ginkgo, she figured out what scent
they might produce by matching their molecular structure to the
struct it, scientists must piece together structure of the smells in her library and in other collections. Over
eight months, she tinkered with the formula—highlighting or
the fragments of DNA that remain. de-emphasizing certain notes—to create her unique interpretation
of how the plants might have smelled.
Molecular biologist Beth Shapiro, who
“I am not adding anything that is not there,” Tolaas says. “I’m
oversees the paleogenomics lab, likens playing with the facts.”

the process to “a trillion-piece puzzle.” She sent back 10 different variations of the Hawaiian plant’s smell
and six variations for the Kentucky and South African plants. Each
The author of How to Clone a Mam- version was a slightly different arrangement of the scent molecules
in the three plants and produced a range of smells they may have
moth, Shapiro is a pioneer in analyzing emitted in the wild.

and reconstructing ancient DNA. When Agapakis smelled the extinct scents for the first time, she
was moved. “We’re smelling something that’s lost forever. That
She and her team used an expansive hits you emotionally,” she says. “You don’t want to think about
extinction most of the time and how grim that is. Imagine the
digital database of known DNA to diversity we’re losing every day. Imagine all that magic that’s there.”

identify the genetic fragments from The synthetic biology used to revive extinct scents is the next
frontier in innovation, Agapakis says. So far, Ginkgo Bioworks has
the extinct plant samples, and then had a hand in creating microbes that replace chemical fertilizers,
concocting skin-care products with living bacteria, and cultivating
pieced together the genes of plant proteins used in meat alternatives. Agapakis foresees integrating
synthetic biology into daily life the way electronics and wireless
enzymes responsible for making internet are now everyday tools.

scent molecules. In that future, she wonders aloud, “What if we could have a
‘living’ everything?” j
With the help of synthetic biology
Sarah Gibbens is a staff writer covering the environment.
company Twist Bioscience, the dig-

ital reconstructions were printed as

synthetic DNA sequences. Back at

Ginkgo, these sequences encoding

the smell-producing enzymes were

inserted in yeast, which grew and pro-

duced scent molecules. Yeast is a pow-

erhouse in the field of synthetic biology,

Agapakis says, used to make everything

from medicine to food flavoring.

Ginkgo then sent the list of mole-

cules to Tolaas’s Berlin lab, where the

artistic part of this art-and-science

project began.

PHOTO: GRACE CHUANG AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY HERBARIA

HIS FUTURE CAN BE YOUR LEGACY

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CREATE A LEGACY OF YOUR OWN

SPEED

BY

MICHAEL GRESHKO

SINCE 2000 THE WORLD’S
GLACIERS HAVE SHED MORE THAN
5.3 TRILLION METRIC TONS OF
WATER, REMAKING LANDSCAPES
AND RAISING SEA LEVELS.

B O B M C N A B B I S one of

B the keepers of a number
that even he can’t fully
comprehend: 267 billion
metric tons of water. To
explain a quantity of this size, the
Ulster University glaciologist must
use analogies.
Depending on how you look at
it, 267 billion metric tons of water is
roughly half the volume of Lake Erie.
Or six months of discharge from the
Mississippi River. Or all the water in
a 10-foot-deep swimming pool that’s
the size of Ireland. “It’s really hard to
grok,” McNabb tells me.
If we could imagine all that water—a
pool as big as Ireland—could we also
imagine that much ice melting every
year for the past two decades?
Ultimately the enormous number
that McNabb helped derive is a speed:
the speed at which Earth’s more than
200,000 glaciers are being undone.
From 2000 to 2019, glaciers other
than the Greenland and Antarctic ice
sheets lost an average of 267 billion
metric tons of water each year, give or
take 16 billion metric tons, according
to research McNabb co-authored in
the journal Nature. Melting accelerated
over that span, from 227 billion metric
tons a year in the early 2000s to 292 bil-
lion metric tons a year from 2015 to 2018.
It’s one thing to try to reckon with
the speed of this loss, and another to

PAGE

NO. 31

2007

2016

2021 Comparisons
from 2007, 2016,
and 2021 of the
Rhône Glacier
in Switzerland
show the extent
of glacial ice melt
in those short
spans of time.

PHOTOS: JÜRG ALEAN
(ALL)

STAT E M E N T O F OW N E R S H I P, M A N AG E M E N T, A N D M O N T H LY C I RC U L AT I O N O F

OWNER AND PUBLISHER: National Geographic Partners, LLC
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A. TOTAL COPIES PRINTED AVERAGE NO. COPIES EACH ISSUE SINGLE ISSUE NEAREST
(Net Press Run) DURING PRECEDING 12 MOS. TO FILING DATE

B. PAID CIRCULATION OCT 2020 - SEPT 2021 SEPTEMBER 2021
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I. PERCENT PAID

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SECTION PAGE

SPEED NO. 33

understand what is being lost. Glaciers A geologist and a hydroelectric engineer work on a weather station at the
flow across more than a quarter million Olivares Alfa Glacier in Chile, where freshwater reserves are dwindling.
square miles of our planet, fed by high-
land catchments of snow that pressure But solely focusing on the global picture diminishes just how
and time turn into rivers of ice. In parts dramatic local changes have been. Nepal’s deepest lake, fed by
of the world, such as the Andes and glacial melt, started forming by the mid-1960s. In a study pub-
high-mountain Asia, glacial melt pro- lished last year, Davies found that as a percent of its current area,
vides a critical freshwater source. Other Patagonia’s ice is now receding faster than it has in 11,000 years.
regions, such as the European Alps,
rely on the ice forms as tourist attrac- We’ve also gained painful clarity on who is to blame. In April one
tions and mountaineering hot spots. study estimated that our greenhouse gases have caused practically
all glacial loss since 1850, and possibly more than 100 percent
Glaciers’ frozen tongues also help because some glaciers might have grown without human meddling.
articulate our shared sense of place. To Glaciologist Lauren Vargo of New Zealand’s Victoria University of
the Maori, New Zealand’s Franz Josef Wellington has found that our loading of the climatic dice made
Glacier is Kā Roimata o Hine Hukat- recent losses to that nation’s Brewster and Rolleston Glaciers about
ere, the fallen tears of a snow maiden 10 times likelier than they would have been otherwise.
mourning the death of her human
lover. In Iceland, records going back Today’s swift changes to the world’s glaciers can’t be undone all
centuries recount glacial advances at once. Individual glaciers’ response times to rising temperatures
that swallowed up farmland and even vary, but the global signal is clear: Glacial melt hasn’t caught up
knocked a church flat. More than any- yet with the warming that our emissions to date have locked in.
thing, glaciers are “part of the land- Even if we were to quit burning fossil fuels today, glaciers would
scape humans have evolved with,” says shed mass for several more decades before stabilizing.
glaciologist Bethan Davies of Royal
Holloway, University of London. “To That said, glaciers’ fate from the middle of the century onward
lose them is to lose something critically will hinge on how quickly we decarbonize here and now. In May
important to people’s well-being.” a team led by King’s College London climate scientist Tamsin
Edwards announced that under governments’ current emissions
I N T H E LO S S E S they sus- policies and pledges, warming through 2100 would cause glaciers
to add another five inches of sea-level rise. If we moved with greater
I tain, glaciers take on urgency and capped warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius—the Paris
even more importance. Agreement’s goal—losses would be halved.
Eventually glacial melt
bleeds into the oceans. “We’re on track to have substantial losses from global glaciers
There it has added more than half an at the moment—but it’s not too late,” Davies tells me. “We know
inch to observed sea-level rise since what we have to do to get there: We need political will.” j
2000—more than Greenland’s contri-
bution to rising seas over that same Michael Greshko is a staff science writer.
span and over double Antarctica’s.
That we can quantify this vast global
melting is a testament to huge scien-
tific advances. Since the early 2000s
satellite data have become more plen-
tiful and easily accessible, which has
let glaciologists build digital elevation
models for even the world’s hardest-
to-reach glaciers and monitor their
volume. Today’s computers process
enormous sums of data and can sim-
ulate glaciers’ advances and recessions
with high fidelity. When combined
with observations collected at glaciers
since the 1800s, these methods provide
a clear view of our reeling cryosphere.

PHOTO: TOMAS MUNITA, BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

PAGE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

NO. 34 WELCOME TO EARTH

THE SERENGETI MIGRATION IS ONE OF EARTH’S GREAT SPECTACLES,
VITAL TO LIFE IN A LAND OF AMAZING VISTAS AND VIBRANT CULTURES.

The swarm of more than a million migrating AN INTRICATE
WEB OF LIFE
T wildebeests in the greater Serengeti ecosys- BY PAULA KAHUMBU
tem is a breathtaking scene—and one that is
crucial to wildlife throughout East Africa. The Kenyan scientist
C H A R L I E H A M I LTO N JA M E S photographs this says the Serengeti
timeless journey, while PAU L A K A H U M B U, P E T E R GW I N , and and its wildlife are
YVONNE ADHIAMBO OWUOR write of the personal, ecological, symbols of pride,
and cultural issues that shape a region whose delicate but she worries about
balance of nature faces increasing threats. what could be lost.

PAG E 4 6

DATE

DEC. 2021

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHARLIE HAMILTON JAMES

THE WILDEBEEST, PHOTO ESSAY: VOICE OF THE FOREST PHOTO ESSAY:
AN UNLIKELY KING GUARDIANS BY YVONNE ADHIAMBO FOR WILDLIFE, A
BY PETER GWIN OF THE LAND OWUOR FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL

The king of the Seren- Rich traditions and A journey into a pristine For creatures across the
geti isn’t the lion. It’s the pressures on crucial mountain wilderness Serengeti ecosystem,
awkward-looking wilde- natural resources and a meeting with life is a constant search
beest, an antelope are the backdrop for its Maasai overseer to find food—and avoid
whose migration fuels daily life in the greater offer lessons about life becoming a meal for
a complex ecosystem. Serengeti region. and land. another animal.

PAG E 5 8 PAG E 7 2 PAG E 9 8 PAG E 1 0 6

Wildebeests plunge
down a steep bank
along the Mara River
during their quest
for water and fresh
grassland. Some
1.3 million each year
follow seasonal rains
in a clockwise loop
from Tanzania into
Kenya and back—the
largest land migration
on the planet.



Every February, before
they begin a grueling
trek north, wildebeests—
along with the many
zebras that travel with
the herd—gather to
graze and calve on the
short-grass plains near
the southern border of
Serengeti National Park
in Tanzania. Half a million
young wildebeests are
born here each year, an
average of 24,000 a day.
Calves can walk within
minutes of birth.