National Geographic News's most popular coverage of 2009 scientific finds is swarming with megamouth sharks, giant snakes, a transparent-headed fish, and rare species rescued from obscurity—then eaten.
On the 150th anniversary of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, get a Galápagos tortoise's-eye view via a National Geographic Crittercam—a first. Video.
See the only known untouched shipwreck from the Klondike Gold Rush—recently discovered in Canada's Yukon Territory and announced today. The steamboat A. J. Goddard sank in 1901, killing three crew members.
Ancient Tibetan art and manuscripts recovered from caves carved into sheer cliffs could be linked to the fictional paradise Shangri-La, says the team that made the discovery.
Along the coast of Abu Dhabi, development is spilling into the sea, smothering the sea grass beds that nourish rare marine mammals called dugongs. Video.
Wild dromedary camels, brought to Australia in the mid-19th century to help explore and develop the outback, were left to breed and survive on their own. Now they number a million in the wild and have become pests, officials say. Video.
In the wilds of northern Minnesota, bear expert Lynn Rogers teaches participants at a "wild encounters" camp about bear language, manners, and lifestyle—all while getting up close and personal with wild black bears. Video.
Australia's iconic, island-like Uluru, or Ayers Rock, may soon be off limits to climbers, mainly because Aborigines see the desert sandstone formation as sacred. Video.
Giant, jelly-like sheets of dead and living organic matter, known as marine mucilages, are spreading throughout the Mediterranean. The blobs may smother marine life and carry diseases dangerous to humans.
Plastiki, a 60-foot-long (18.3-meter-long) catamaran made of more than 12,000 plastic bottles, will soon ply the Pacific Ocean to increase awareness of environmental problems.Video
New species discovered along Asia's Mekong River in 2008—including a leopard gecko and a fanged frog that eats birds—are already under serious threat because of climate change, WWF says. Video.
To help save South Australia's rare black-footed wallaby, researchers are taking joeys from the wild and placing them in surrogate pouches, encouraging wild moms to trigger "backup" pregnancies. Video.
UPDATE: A gelatinous fish found off Brazil's Bahia coast has been touted as a previously unknown species. But the six-foot-long, toothed oddity may be a known member of a group of mysterious bottom-dwellers known as jellynose fish, another expert says. Video.
Global warming is putting the pika, a hamster-like mammal, in peril. High in the Colorado mountains, a National Geographic researcher is trying to find out why its numbers are falling. Video.
