The winter Olympians of the natural world
Meet the penguins that like to luge and their animals friends that could give any Olympic athlete a run for their money.
For the last two weeks, people around the globe have been glued to their televisions, marvelling at the speed, power and gravity-defying skills of the world's finest Winter Olympics athletes. However, out in the wild, another set of fierce competitors have been perfecting their icy-weather performances for a lot longer then four years. For millennia in fact.
There is the hare that can spring across snowdrifts as fast as any downhill racer, and penguins, whose slide-and-glide technique would surely earn them a place on any top-placing bobsleigh team. These wild animals are our unsung athletes and their survival depends on podium-worth performances every single day.
Here are some of our favourite photographs of them in action:
Emperor penguins release bubbles of air, trapped underneath their plumage, just before they jump out of the water and onto the sea ice. This helps them to pick up speed and get the momentum they need.
An adult mountain hare running at full speed in the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland. We think Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, whose sprint finish last week sparked a thousand memes, should watch out.
Photographer Sascha Fonesca captured this image during a three-year camera trap project high up in the mountains of Ladakh in the Indian Himalayas. Snow leopards face an extremely difficult struggle for survival, living as elusive, solitary predators in one of the most harsh and unforgiving environments on Earth.
The true champions of any cross-country course, they can travel an incredible 25 miles in a single night.
A group of emperor penguins sliding over the ice in Antarctica. Luge athletes in the making — every single one of them.
A gentoo penguin jumps out of the sea — and seemingly straight into the photographer's lap. It's giving Eddie the Eagle.
A house sparrow bounces across the snow-covered ground in Derbyshire. It's probably not quite enough to qualify for the Big Air final, but give it another four years.
An Arctic fox skates across icy ground — Ilia Malinin take notes.
When hunting, the fox employs its signature move, the 'mousing leap', a high, swooping jump followed by a nose-first plunge through the snow in order to catch it's prey hiding beneath.
A snowy owl in Alberta Canada swoops low over its territory. Their loud screeching can be heard up to 10 kilometres away.
Reindeer undertake epic treks across the tundra, through blizzards and across frozen rivers, all while trying to avoid predators and find food. They can travel up to 3,000 miles in a single year — the longest known distance of any land-based mammal, dwarfing any Olympic course.
Their wide, crescent-shaped hooves act like snowshoes to help them move across different terrains, while also aiding them in digging for food.
