Joel Sartore is an American photographer who has spent much of his life focusing - quite literally - on some of the world's rarest and most endangered species.
He is a long-time contributor to National Geographic magazine, and is the founder of the Photo Ark, a ground-breaking effort to document species before they disappear-and to get people to care, while there's still time.
He has created intimate portraits of an estimated 20,000 species of birds, fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates.
An endangered baby Bornean orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, named Aurora, with her adoptive mother, Cheyenne, a Bornean/Sumatran cross, Pongo pygmaeus x abelii, at the Houston Zoo, 2013. (PHOTO: Joel Sartore)
A Sierra Nevada ensatina salamander, Ensatina eschscholtzi platensis. (PHOTO: Joel Sartore)
A Saint Vincent parrot, Amazona guildingii, at the Houston Zoo, Texas, 2015. BIR037-00428-HR.jpg (PHOTO: Joel Sartore)
A springbok mantis, Miomantis caffra, at the Auckland Zoo. (PHOTO: Joel Sartore)
Legend: A vulnerable Victoria crowned pigeon, Goura victoria, at the Columbus Zoo. (PHOTO: Joel Sartore)
