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Nat Geo Image Collection

A young male, forced to leave his family herd, wanders through Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve in a photograph published in September 2008. Adult males, called bulls, tend to roam on their own, sometimes forming smaller, more loosely associated, all-male groups.

A forest elephant reaches for the fruit of a Detarium macrocarpum tree in Gabon’s Lopé National Park. Fruit is the most nutritious part of the animal’s diet. Elephants help trees such as this one spread by digesting the fruit, which makes the seeds germinate faster. The photograph was published in May 2019.

In a previously unpublished image, tourists pose for photographs with Asian elephants on a beach in Phuket, Thailand. In their June 2019 story, photographer Kirsten Luce and writer Natasha Daly set out to look behind the curtain of the thriving wildlife tourism industry, to see how animals at various attractions—including some that emphasize their humane care of animals—are treated once the selfie-taking crowds have gone.

An elephant strolls through the lobby of a Luangwa Valley Lodge in Zambia, after remodeling blocked the animal’s access to a mango tree in the hotel courtyard. ‘‘Though the image is whimsical at first glance, it points to a profound issue: Both elephants and people have laid routes across Africa, many of them crisscrossing each other. Now it’s up to us humans to figure out how to coexist in these shared spaces,’’ photographer Frans Lanting wrote in the September 2005 issue.

A male elephant grabs an evening snack in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park. Most of the park’s elephants were killed for their ivory, used to buy weapons during the nation’s 15-year civil war, which ended in 1992. With poaching controlled, the population is recovering, as photographer Charlie Hamilton James revealed in the May 2019 issue.

An elephant mother walks with her calf at sunset through Namibia’s Etosha National Park. Having a baby elephant is a serious commitment. Elephants have a longer pregnancy than any other mammal—almost 22 months. Photographer Annie Griffiths captured this image for the March 2012 issue.

Two elephants play at a water hole in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park, in an unpublished image taken in 1955.

A portrait of the first rescued orphan elephant at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya.

Carl Akeley, the taxidermist for P.T. Barnum, photographed this eight-month-old elephant fetus during an expedition to Africa in the early 1900s. Partially funded by the Smithsonian, and led by former president Teddy Roosevelt, the trip was meant to collect as many specimens of African wildlife as possible. This image appeared in the magazine in August 1912.

The Elephant Festival in Jaipur features elephant polo, elephant tug-of-war, and an elephant beauty contest. When Charles Fréger photographed the festival in 2012, however, it was canceled early—reportedly because of animal welfare concerns. This photo was published in August 2013.