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Ronan Donovan

Gathering outside the family’s abandoned house, the chimpanzees see their reflections in the windows as a challenge.

Wild chimpanzees whose natural habitat has shrunk approach a home in Kyamajaka, Uganda.

Unlike their counterparts held in captivity, chimps observed in sanctuaries or in the wild seem to age in healthier ways because they stay active throughout their lives.

Scientists have been observing the wild chimps in the Kanyawara region of Kibale National Park since 1987, helping to advance our understanding of primate behavior and how that relates to modern humans.

A chimpanzee named Yogi, seen here in October 2011, is among the roughly 60 wild animals studied as part of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in Uganda.

That's partly because of Tom O'Brien, a resident technical wizard who designs things like the camera trap used for this photo of wolves picking a muskox carcass in the Canadian Arctic. Back at Nat Geo HQ, O’Brien even gnawed on part of this camera trap to test it, anticipating a probe by a hungry predator.

African elephants, Loxodonta africana, during a thunderstorm.

Around some villages in western Uganda, small groups of chimpanzees must survive in remnant strips and patches of forest. Deprived of wild foods, the chimps emerge to raid crops and cultivated fruit trees, competing desperately with people for sustenance, space, and survival. In July 2014, a large chimp snatched and killed a toddler outside his family home, seen here, in Kyamajaka village. Over time, the chimps returned to loom menacingly around the house, posing a threat to the other children. (From “‘I am scared all the time’: Chimps and people are clashing in rural Uganda,” August 2020.)

A troop of chimpanzees are seen in Uganda. Some alpha males rule using an iron fist, while others take a gentler approach to leadership.

A person sits near a colony of gentoo penguins, Pygoscelis papua, next to an old research shed.