THE PHOTO THAT SHOCKED THE WORLD

 

That of an elephant who continues to move forward, carrying the body of her baby with her.

Futura: "An elephant carrying her deceased calf, somewhere in the Huab River valley in Namibia. It's a scene of rare intensity, immortalized by Federico Veronesi. It earned him the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 award, a competition developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London."

The photographer recounts that he was following a herd when strange tracks caught his attention: something had been dragged through the sand of a dried-up riverbed. This "something" was a dead baby elephant, its leg now wedged between its mother's tusk and trunk.

OTHER WINNERS

HIDDEN DEPTHS

BBC: "Tinker-Tsavalas uses macrophotography to reveal the intricate details of small animals easily overlooked, especially in urban habitats."

SECRET WORLDS

Uddin's photographs explore the miniature world of slime molds, organisms barely visible to the naked eye and whose fruiting structures are only one to two millimeters high.

WARNING SIGN

Negroni recounts this scene of a dead puma displayed as a hunting trophy in Santa Cruz, a province in Argentine Patagonia. Although Santa Cruz banned puma hunting in 2025, the illegal persecution continues.

What are the latest discoveries that shocked the world?

 Scientists discover Kraken beak fossil! (Nanaimoteuthis hagarti)

Scientists recently discovered 27 ancient octopus beaks in Canada and Japan that date back 72 million to 100 million years, contemporaneous with dinosaurs.

The size of the beak is very large, about 50% larger than the beak of the Giant squid.

Because the ratio between the size of the beak and the size of the octopus's body is consistent, scientists can estimate the size of the ancient octopus and the largest estimate is 18.6 meters !

That size is slightly larger than legendary giant predators such as mosasaurs, livyatan, and can even match the size of megalodon.

Based on analysis of scratches on its beak, scientists found that the level of wear and scratches on its beak was very high , even eroding 10% of its beak size.

This means that the Kraken often ate very hard and dense prey , so it is possible that the Kraken also preyed on giant marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs and even mosasaurs.