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N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C 国家地理
编者的话
纳森·隆普
在我们的故事中，最常令我触动的是，许多故事都是坚持不懈的产物。我们在这些页面中呈现其成果的人们，都具有坚韧的毅力。他们所展现的时间、精力和勇气，以及纯粹的奉献精神，成就了伟大的事业。我相信，无论在哪个方面，我们都受益于驱动他们行动的热情。
本期我们还为您带来乔尔·萨托尔 (Joel Sartore) 那野性世界的缩影，我们经常在杂志中分享他的照片。今年是乔尔的“照片方舟 (Photo Ark)”项目的 20 周年，这项事业正是坚持不懈的化身——其目标是记录生活在世界各大动物园、水族馆和野生动物保护区中的每一个动物物种。乔尔的工作并非简单的噱头或虚荣之作：他捕捉这些非凡生物（其中许多处于濒危状态）精髓的使命，是为了激励我们去保护它们。到目前为止，他已经拍摄了超过 18,000 种动物。如果这不叫执着，我不知道什么才是。
本期杂志提供了一个典型的例子。我们的封面故事以全新的视角审视那些古老的社区——最著名的是庞贝 (Pompeii)，但还有其他在公元 79. 年维苏威火山 (Mount Vesuvius) 剧烈喷发中被摧毁的社区。这次灾难性事件是历史上研究最广泛的自然灾害之一，但由于考古学家和研究人员的坚持，我们仍在发现能够提供新见解的成果。在我最喜欢的功能部分之一，详细描述了研究人员为破译脆弱的莎草纸卷轴上文字所做的艰苦工作，这些卷轴奇迹般地在
喷发中幸存下来。尽管它们在多年前就被发现，但此前无法阅读，而现在包括人工智能 (AI) 在内的技术正让这一切成为现实。
希望您喜欢本期杂志。
摄影：MARK THIESSEN, NGM STAFF
V O L U M E 2 5 0 N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C N U M B E R 0 2 第 2 5 0 卷 国家地理 第 0 2 期
目 录
6 我们的世界 | 1 2 聚焦
64 揭秘地球上的每一种动物
野生动物摄影师乔尔·萨托尔 (Joel Sartore) 正致力于为约 25,000 种动物拍摄特写肖像。在其“照片方舟 (Photo Ark)”项目开展 20 年后，全球生物多样性比以往任何时候都更需要一位捍卫者。
18 世界爆炸之日
最前沿的科学正促使人们对维苏威火山 (Mount Vesuvius) 的喷发及其摧毁的罗马定居点产生令人惊讶的新认知——并改变了我们对那里居住者的理解。
116 独家审视一只难以捉摸的大熊猫
对于一名摄影师而言，在中国的荒野中数周的艰苦跋涉，换来了一张非凡的近距离特写。
86 夜空中的隐藏公路
118 沼泽地的神秘森林
58 在佛罗里达州遍布短吻鳄的后方地带，成排的奇特阶梯状柏树长期以来一直是生态奇观，但科学家们正意识到它们巨大的价值。
94 拯救世界最稀有兰花的探索
在哥伦比亚，一位特立独行的花卉采集者正将濒危兰花从灭绝的边缘挽救回来。
MORO CCO’S HORSEWOMEN 摩洛哥的女性骑手
几个世纪以来，只有男性练习传统骑术 (Tbourida) 运动。现在，一批先驱女性正在招募新一代强悍的女性骑手。
1 3 4 档案库 (F R O M T H E VAU LT)
封面：在奥普隆蒂斯 (Oplontis)，一座被公元 79, 年维苏威火山 (Mount Vesuvius) 喷发掩埋的海滨度假胜地，一件从废墟中回收的尼刻 (Nike) 女神大理石雕像现正展出。摄影：PA O L O V E R Z O N E
我们的世界 (Our WORLD)
B E H I N D T H E S C E N E S W I T H N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C 国家地理幕后故事
“当我第一次看到扎希亚 (Zahia) 的剧团拍摄时，我感到热血沸腾——就像是我自己骑在马背上一样。”
新的国家地理探索博物馆 (National Geographic Museum of Exploration) 使用投影视频来展示乔尔·萨托尔 (Joel Sartore) 拍摄的物种。
本月对野生动物摄影师兼国家地理探索者 Joel Sartore（乔尔·萨托尔）的的人物特写（《揭秘地球上的每一种动物》，第 64 页）标志着他的“照片方舟 (项目)” (Photo Ark) 启动 20 周年。这是一个雄心勃勃的计划，旨在拍摄所有被人类圈养物种的肖像。在过去的二十年里，萨托尔拍摄了约 18,000 只动物。今年夏天，该项目将在华盛顿特区新落成的国家地理探索博物馆 (National Geographic Museum of Exploration) 中生动呈现，届时将展出萨托尔照片的巨幅投影，并配以互动解说，阐述这些图像如何成为保护濒危物种的有力工具。与此同时，国家地理书籍出版了《照片方舟：地球动物》的周年纪念版，将萨托尔的肖像画与作家 Sy Montgomery 的新文章相结合。请在 natgeo.org/moe 预订探索博物馆的门票。
照片：REBECCA HALE, NGM STAFF (展品); MARWA ELMAITE
为了记录摩洛哥传统骑术 (Tbourida) 运动的重大变革，摄影师 Chantal Pinzi（上图）与携带步枪的女骑手团队——包括由传奇骑手 扎希亚·阿布莱特 (Zahia Aboulait) 领导的团队——共同生活，这成为了本月的特写报道（《摩洛哥女骑手的崛起》，第 94 页）。
A U G U S T P A G E . 6
国家地理的纪录剧集《庞贝：时空之外》，由 汤玛斯·希德勒斯顿 (Tom Hiddleston) 主演，揭示了关于 维苏威火山 (Mount Vesuvius) 喷发的最新见解，这也是封面特写报道的主题（《世界爆炸之日》，第 18 页）。我们采访了主持人兼执行制片人希德勒斯顿——他在成为获奖演员之前曾是 剑桥大学 (University of Cambridge) 的古典学学生——询问庞贝为我们提供了哪些新鲜的启示。
该剧将喷发前普通人的生活戏剧化了。为什么？
最让你惊讶的是什么？我一直以为火山喷发后城市被掩埋，人们无能为力。但并非所有人都被掩埋了。那种规模巨大的的人道主义危机图景——成百上千甚至数千名难民在逃亡并寻找新家园——这是一个非常有共鸣的当代意象，我希望它能激发人们巨大的共情心。
这就是庞贝给我的感觉。它关心的不是高地位人物的雕像，不是将军、执政官和皇帝。那些 [由考古学家制作的喷发遇难者] 石膏铸像，是普通人。父亲、母亲、孩子、教师、叔叔和家犬。我觉得这正是最令人动容的地方。
照片：PAOLO VERZONE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
为什么这个时代如此地令我们痴迷？
希德勒斯顿及其团队
与生存心理学家 Sarita
我们讲述过去的故事是为了理解现在的某些事物，而像庞贝这样一个地方就是一座门户，将我们之间存在的 2,000 年时间压缩，让这一切感觉就像发生在昨天一样。
Robinson 在一座庞贝别墅内。
本采访经过编辑以精简篇幅并提高清晰度。
《庞贝：时空之外》正在 迪士尼+ (Disney+) 上线。请查看当地 listings。
激光雷达 (Lidar) 和高分辨率 CT 扫描仪等技术正助力开启恐龙研究的新黄金时代，科学家们每年发现多达 50 种此前未知的物种。本期特刊将揭示这些新发现如何改变我们对那些自以为熟知的史前巨兽的认知。
N E W O N N E WS STA N D S
恐龙：新视界
P A G E . 7 2 0 2 6
我们的世界
这些贡献者获得了 国家地理学会 (National Geographic Society) 的资助，该学会致力于阐明和保护我们世界的奇迹。欲了解更多关于学会对探索者支持的信息，请访问 natgeo.com/impact。
Paolo Verzone
“世界爆炸之日”，第 18 页
本月封面故事中，Verzone 拍摄了来自庞贝以及其他被维苏威火山摧毁遗址的文物。其中许多文物源自博物馆储藏室；另一些则在研究人员手中，他们正利用创新技术来揭开古代之谜。
“沼泽地的神秘森林”，第 118 页
Stone 是一位常驻南卡罗来纳州的摄影师， 15 年多来一直致力于记录佛罗里达大沼泽地。在本期中，他带领读者走进被称为“柏树圆顶”的森林湿地。为了拍摄一张照片，他涉入鳄鱼出没的水域，以获取这些生物令人惊叹的近距离特写。
一位摄影师如何寻得植物之乐
Juanita Escobar 在哥伦比亚卡利长大，见过许多兰花——她的母亲兼职培育并销售这些优雅的植物。但 Escobar 之前从未经历过如此绚烂的色彩爆发，直到她在拍摄本期关于丹尼尔·皮耶德拉希塔（一名从兰花收藏家转变为特立独行之环保主义者的哥伦比亚人）的故事时（“拯救世界上最稀有兰花的探索”，第 58 页）。在 Piedrahíta 广阔的保护区里，Escobar 几乎不知道该将相机对准哪里。
照片：LUCA ZANETTI（上）；REBECCA HALE，NGM 职员
“我是如何拍到这张照片的”，第 116 页
“你的眼睛会处于持续的亢奋状态，”她说。
Green 自 2022 年起成为一名探索者，他来自蒙大拿州米苏拉，为了在本期中拍摄照片而远离家乡。在中国的大熊猫国家公园，Green 和他的团队安装了红外相机，以捕捉这个国家最具代表性的生物之一在野外的身影。
同样访问过 Piedrahíta 温室的作家 Alexandra Marvar 在她的记者笔记本中用水彩画记录了兰花的细节。
A U G U S T 2 0 2 6
I N F O C U S
来自我们摄影师的最新动态
野生动物
在福克兰群岛 (马尔维纳斯群岛)，这些一个月大的象海豹在海洋中进行了初次尝试。摄影师 Matty Smith 在现场记录了母亲们离开这个著名的繁殖地并返回南大西洋的时刻，留下数百只刚断奶的幼崽自生自灭。“这些小海豹超级友好，试图爬到我身上，试图爬到我的相机上，”Smith 说道。这些顽皮的幼崽依靠脂肪储备生活，直到它们学会游泳并开始捕鱼。
A U G U S T P A G E . 1 2 2 0 2 6
在马耳他的工作室里， 76 岁的玩具制造师兼发明家 Mario Pandolfino 与他 41 岁的儿子 Matthew（一名艺术家兼场景设计师）合影。摄影师 Valery Poshtarov 将这张肖像画作为他名为《父与子》系列的一部分。他旅过了 15 个国家，要求拍摄对象手牵手——这件事他们可能已经数十年没做了。“我给了他们这样一个安全空间，”他说，“去建立或重建一种联系。”
您可以让世界在您离开后变得更好。当您在遗嘱、信托中为国家地理学会留下一份捐赠，或通过受益人指定方式捐赠时，您可以为子孙后代保护关键动物物种。
婆罗洲云豹，Neofelis diardi borneensis
邮寄至：
National Geographic Society Planned Giving Office 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036-4688
是的！请向我发送关于向国家地理学会捐赠的信息。
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I N F O C U S
在墨西哥的下加利福尼亚附近，一群条纹枪鱼将数百条较小的鱼驱赶成一个被称为“饵球”的密集阵型，然后开始享用猎物。摄影师布鲁克·派克（Brooke Pyke）使用她的水下相机捕捉到了“这些雄伟且敏捷的猎手”将鱼群追向水面的瞬间，她说，这非常像狗在驱赶羊群。当枪鱼轮流俯冲进食时，几只海狮也加入了战局，头先扎进球形鱼群中，将鱼群冲散。
班加罗尔最初因其农场和公园而被昵称为“印度的花园城市”，如今已被科技产业转型为该国的“硅谷”。国家地理探索者萨扬·哈兹拉（Sayan Hazra）在记录城市绿地空间的项目中，拍摄了这座不断扩张的大都市中近期设计的一片原生植物区。哈兹拉表示，这些花园的“培育、种植、浇水、施肥和修剪”在很大程度上被大多数居民所忽略。但这种无形的编排，为这座繁荣的城市提供了至关重要的生物多样性来源和一份宁静。
2 0 2 6
那是历史上最戏剧性的时刻之一——但维苏威火山的爆发并非单一的灾难。新证据揭示了火山阴影下的三个定居点如何面临三种截然不同的命运，从而重塑了我们对古罗马人如何生存与死亡的认知。
文字：S A M K E A N 摄影：P A O L O V E R Z O N E
公元 79 年，维苏威火山喷发，在意大利坎帕尼亚地区（靠近现代的那不勒斯）降下火山灰，将周围社区掩埋在深达 60 英尺的火山碎屑之下。
1 9
庞贝的系统性挖掘始于 1748 年，尽管此后约三分之二的区域已被发掘，但这座古城仍有一大部分尚未被挖掘。
那不勒斯湾的海面上，一层厚厚的火山灰正在积聚，黑色的烟雾吞噬了上方的天空。此时，在罗马小镇奥普隆蒂斯 (Oplontis) 沿海的一座仓库里，六十个人在恐惧中蜷缩着。有些人紧紧抓着金币和珠宝——那是他们在恐慌中匆忙抢救出来的家族财产。另一些人则握着普通的铁制工具，仅此而已。一名年轻女性抱着她隆起的腹部，为腹中未出世的孩子感到惊恐。他们的年龄和社会阶层各不相同，但他们很可能都是因为同一个原因聚集在水边仓库里的：等待一艘救援船，而他们日益担心这艘船永远不会到来。
赫库兰尼姆 (Herculaneum) 大部分避开了火山碎屑（lapilli），但却遭到了火山碎屑流的猛烈冲击，这些气流将莎草纸等有机材料碳化，并将整座城市埋在了 60 英尺厚的岩石之下。位于庞贝 (Pompeii) 和赫库兰尼姆之间的奥普隆蒂斯则双重受灾，这使得一座装饰精美、绘有壁画的别墅以及数十名遇难者的骨架得以保存下来。
在那间仓库中等待救援的人没有一个人能生还。在任何救援船能够抵达之前，蜷缩在那里的男人、女人和孩子早已被埋在 30 英尺深的碎片之下，并在那里停留了近 2,000 年。
自 18 世纪对维苏威火山 (Mount Vesuvius) 地区进行首次系统性挖掘以来，学者们一直对遇难者的生活感到困惑。现代研究人员凭借人工智能和先进的 DNA 分析等工具，正在揭开前几代人只能猜测的秘密。这三个遗址的发现为研究罗马帝国时期的生活带来了新的启发。在奥普隆蒂斯，仓库里的骨架有望提供关于阶级和性别动态的罕见见解。在庞贝，一个被掩埋的厕所正促成一项首创的关于古代饮食与健康的基因组研究。而在赫库兰尼姆，研究人员通过一批碳化卷轴获得了关于那个时代哲学和道德准则的线索，这些卷轴最近通过虚拟展开技术变得可读。
公元 79 年那一天所发生的一切始于单一事件：维苏威火山的爆发。但火山阴影下的每个定居点——包括最著名的庞贝——根据其相对于火山的位置，以及维苏威火山喷出物质的时间、速度和方向，经历了截然不同的灾难。那些社区中少数幸运的人逃脱了。但许多人经历了极其痛苦的死亡：有些人在被称为火山碎屑（lapilli）的鹅卵石大小的浮石连续落下数小时、导致建筑崩塌将其掩埋时死去；另一些人则在被称为火山碎屑流的超高温火山灰、气体和岩石雪崩中被灼烧殆尽。商业中心庞贝在很大程度上避开了火山碎屑流，但消失在 10 英尺多深的风载火山碎屑之下。随后，堆积的火山灰在死者周围硬化，留下了空腔，在后世填充石膏后，便形成了如今标志性的临终挣扎 casts。而那处奢华的海岸度假胜地则……
目前显现出来的是一个关于一个与我们并不遥远的世界的连贯故事——一个繁荣的社会，关注着社会不平等、健康福祉以及如何过上充实的生活。
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在维苏威火山爆发两千年后，保存下来的文物仍在为研究人员提供关于罗马帝国不同生活方式的新见解。这座尼刻 (Nike)（胜利女神）的大理石雕像是在高端的奥普隆蒂斯 A 别墅发现的。
在公元一世纪，数万人在意大利中部靠近维苏威火山 (Mount Vesuvius) 的这片肥沃地区生活。公元 79 年，火山剧烈爆发，摧毁了乡村，灾难降临。破坏程度取决于地理位置、风向和地形。如今，研究人员继续深入挖掘遗址，以寻求更多发现。
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贝内文图姆 (Beneventum)
Abellinum
Caudium
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Nola
肥沃的土地 许多葡萄园和农场在维苏威火山山坡及其平原上生产力极高的火山土中繁荣生长。
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数千年的活跃期 随着构造板块移动释放能量，这座火山在数千年中曾多次喷发。它至今仍处于活跃状态。
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Villa rustica (乡村庄园)
罗马道路 渡槽
一座港口城镇
距离火山火山口向西三英里半，这个渔业社区也拥有豪华住宅，其中一座还设有规模宏大的图书馆。
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科西嘉岛 (Corsica)
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维苏威火山 (Mt. Vesuvius)
古罗马意大利的核心 罗马地区的坎帕尼亚 (Campania) 地区富饶繁荣，既是精英公民喜爱的目的地，也是商业、贸易和农业的中心。
4,203 ft
下方视角方向
公元 79 年罗马帝国的范围
庞贝 (Pompeii)
撒丁岛 (Sardinia)
第勒尼安海 (Tyrrhenian Sea)
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伊奥尼亚海 (Ionian Sea)
西西里岛 (Sicily)
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塔兰托湾 (Gulf of Taranto)
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Nares Lucanae
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萨莱尔努姆 (Salernum)
萨莱诺湾 (G u l f o f S a l e r n o)
努切里亚-阿尔法特纳 (Nuceria Alfaterna)
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庞贝 (POMPEII)
斯塔比亚 (Stabiae)
奥普隆蒂斯 (OPLONTIS)
庞贝 (POMPEII)
一座显赫的城市
位于维苏威火山东南五英里处，这个城市区域是周边农业地区的商业和政治运作中心。
一个沿海郊区
位于火山以南四英里处，两座别墅支撑起这个定居点——一座极尽奢华，另一座则是农业分配中心。
那不勒斯湾 (G u l f o f N a p l e s)
本透视视图中的比例不一。从赫库兰尼姆到庞贝的距离为 8 英里 (13 KM)。MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK 和 PATRICIA HEALY，NGM 工作人员。来源：TINITALY，国家地球物理与火山学研究所；FLORIAN SEILER，SALVE 项目，柏林德国考古研究所；图宾根大学；LIBERA ESPOSITO, FRANCESCO FIORILLO, MICHELE GINOLFI, GUIDO LEONE，贝内文托桑尼奥大学；ITINER-E，自然科学数据；NASA/JPL；GREEN MARBLE；USGS
一次喷发，三个社区，三种不同的结果
奥普隆蒂斯 (OPLONTIS)
这个郊区是工业枢纽，拥有一个农业分配中心（可能是用于葡萄酒）和如今被称为奥普隆蒂斯 B 的公寓。它注定将消失在火山灰和岩石之下。
公寓
仓库
填充酒器
纸草别墅：宏伟的 estate
赫库兰尼姆既是一个渔村，也是文化的堡垒，这里有宏伟的纸草别墅 (Villa of the Papyri) 庄园，其中藏有一个卷轴图书馆，随后被炽热的碎屑流吞没。
卷轴的皮革套
卡罗琳娜女王之家 (Casa della Regina Carolina)
神庙
这座城市将私人生活与公共生活融合在同一屋檐下。像卡罗琳娜女王之家 (Casa della Regina Carolina) 这样的精英住宅被用于社交聚会和商业事务——直到浮石和火山灰将一切掩埋。
前中庭，后改为餐厅
来源：CAITLÍN EILÍS BARRETT, 康奈尔大学；卡罗琳娜女王之家项目；JOHN R. CLARKE, 德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校，MICHAEL L. THOMAS, 德克萨斯大学达拉斯分校，奥普隆蒂斯项目；
SOPHIE HAY, 考古公园 KENNETH LAPATIN, J. PAUL GETTY 博物馆
时间 正午 正午
进入 估计温度
喷发影响
火山灰有助于保存骸骨，这些骸骨在被发现时仍完整地佩戴着珠宝并带有钱币。附近还有食物。
900°F
庭院
掉落的碎片阶段以及来自火碎流的热量可能导致了至少 60 人死亡。
火碎流产生的火山灰
32 ft
浮石拉皮利层
喷发影响开始
结束
庄园
750°F
大柱廊
由火山灰和气体组成的电流将有机材料碳化——保存了木制家具、食物、织物和卷轴。
热量
65 ft
火碎流导致了瞬间死亡，证据是 300 多个人类遗骸。
na：精英别墅
浮石累积
400°F
被困在较浅的浮石和火山灰层中，大多数人类遗骸和有机材料已分解。
坍塌的屋顶和热电流挤压、使人窒息或造成热休克，导致 1,100 多人死亡。
25 ft
厨房 厕所
面包房
庞贝 (POMPEII)；MANTHA ZARMAKOUPI, 宾夕法尼亚大学；SEUM；CLAUDIO SCARPATI, 那不勒斯腓特烈二世大学
在喷发前已有预兆：维苏威火山的山顶升起蒸汽，大地颤抖。随后，一柱火山灰和岩石冲向天空。在接下来的 30 小时里，被称为拉皮利的浮石碎片覆盖了下方的城镇，而被称为火碎流的超高温气体和火山灰雪崩则沿着山坡疾速而下。
5 mi 5 km
那不勒斯 (Neapolis)
赫库兰尼姆 (Herculaneum)
火 碎 流
庞贝 (Pompeii)
奥普隆蒂斯 (Oplontis)
电 流
图形和地图由 F E R N A N D O G . B A P T I S T A , P AT R I C I A H E A LY, 以及 M A T T H E W W. C H W A S T Y K 绘制
那不勒斯湾
掉 落 碎 片
第二天
从中午到傍晚，喷发柱的大部分碎片向东南方向飘散，用拉皮利覆盖了地形。
早晨，喷发柱崩溃，引发了冲向维苏威火山山坡的剧烈火碎流。
风向
1974, 在托雷安嫩齐亚塔镇为学校体育馆沉桩的施工人员发现了一些意想不到的东西。他们发现的不是基岩，而是一座古罗马仓库，其中包含一个装满骸骨的储藏室。这是一个非凡的考古发现：来自各阶层的人们，全部死于同一场灾难，且可能是在同一瞬间死亡。在他们死亡时，奥普隆蒂斯已是庞贝一个成熟的郊区，拥有整个维苏威地区最奢华的别墅之一，该地点现在被称为奥普隆蒂斯 A。那里一个陶壶上的铭文将奥普隆蒂斯 A 的所有者与波培娅联系在一起，她是罗马皇帝尼罗第二任妻子的家族。这座房子的宏伟程度即便在今天依然令人震撼：大理石雕塑
以及 fo 和 “m of Tex 挖掘项目 空间更多，房间 翼 omin 到某些 气体来自 在 公元 像 h a 40-f 残骸 东方 sh
喷发柱上升至 21 英里
碎片
60-英里-每小时 贴地电流
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公寓
储藏室
富人与贫民聚集在一起
喷泉，一个 200-英尺的游泳池，杰作壁画，” 德克萨斯大学 教授 John R. Clarke 说道，他作为奥普隆蒂斯 挖掘项目的共同负责人领导着这些调查。这些基本完整的壁画描绘了狮身人面像、半人马、孔雀、无花果和
神龛
，已在目前这里发现的 103 个 s 中被找到；别墅的西翼仍在挖掘中。但如果你仔细观察，会有 ous 的迹象。损坏的 壁画标记了来自火碎流的超高温 撕裂的地方。公元 79 年。其他墙壁显示出剧烈的鼓起， 疝。虽然这座别墅曾坐落在俯瞰那不勒斯湾的 foot 悬崖上，但来自喷发的沉积物将现代海岸线向外推了半英里。
对在庞贝郊区
奥普隆蒂斯发现的骸骨残骸进行详细的“骨骼传记”研究，可能有助于阐明罗马社会和性别动态的复杂性。
在维苏威地区最豪华的别墅中，包括这里所示的奥普隆蒂斯 A，这是一座辉煌的住宅，拥有一个 200-英尺的泳池和像这座萨堤尔扑向赫耳玛佛罗狄忒的大理石雕塑。
当维苏威火山爆发时，浮石和火山灰覆盖了奥普隆蒂斯，使其著名的《赫拉克勒斯在赫斯珀里得斯花园》（右图）壁画免于氧化和侵蚀，而此前被称作碎屑流的极高温岩石、火山灰和气体洪流已席卷此处。
向东约 300 码处是一座现在被称为“奥普隆蒂斯 B”的大型仓库。它曾有两层楼高，围绕中心庭院分布着 70 多个房间；周围则环绕着带有店铺的联排住宅。这里发现了约 1,600 个陶制双耳细颈瓶，许多瓶子被倒置堆放以干燥，这表明商人在这里装瓶葡萄酒。成堆的、现已碳化的石榴皮（通常用于皮革鞣制）暗示了这里还存在其他手工艺。但奥普隆蒂斯 B 最珍贵的发现位于底层一个阴暗的、像洞穴一样的储藏室里。由于奥普隆蒂斯遇难者的遗体被火山灰及上层的碎屑物质掩埋，他们的骨骼得以完整保存。古代墓地通常按阶级隔离，但奥普隆蒂斯这场突如其来的毁灭将各色人群聚集在同一地点，留下了最具科学价值的罗马死者遗骸群之一。
同样的密封环境使石榴（下方）等用于皮革鞣制的有机材料碳化。
如今，奥普隆蒂斯 B 的庭院看起来十分宁静，有庄严的圆柱和长满苔藓的石头。一堆双耳细颈瓶位于一侧，被火山沉积物熔结在一起。然而，二楼过于不稳定而无法参观，现已被嘈杂的鸽子占据。多年来，这里很容易被忽视，但领导庞贝应用研究实验室的生物考古学家瓦莱里娅·阿莫雷蒂（Valeria Amoretti）在这些废墟中看到了丰富的信息。“我们太关注庞贝了，”她说，“有时我们忘了看看郊区。”
在一次近期访问中，阿莫雷蒂的一名研究生研究员瓦伦蒂娜·贾科梅蒂（Valentina Giacometti）拿出了几个袋子。其中一个装着半块下颌骨，另一个则是脊椎的碎片。贾科梅蒂花费了数年时间将这些碎片铺在桌上，将它们重新拼接在一起。早期的挖掘者记录了 54 名遇难者，而阿莫雷蒂的团队已经确认了至少 60 名——包括幼儿和未出生的胎儿。他们被发现分布在两个截然不同的集群中：约 20 名遇难者位于筒形拱顶房间深处，手里紧握着工具和灯笼。其余的人则在门附近，也许是等待救援船的第一批人群，身上携带大量钱币和珠宝，包括金项链、银蛇形手镯以及镶嵌有祖母绿和珍珠的吊坠。对某些人来说，这种差异暗示了两个社会群体：后方的劳动者和奴隶，以及前方的商人或精英。看来，即使在面对死亡时，罗马生活的等级制度依然稳固。
尽管出发点是好的，但 20 世纪 80 年代的挖掘者未能按照现代科学要求的细节记录储藏室内的骸骨。他们并不总是仔细区分层叠在一起的尸体，导致不同个体的骨骼混在一起。留下的局面——数十个装满塑料袋骨骸碎片的标本箱——简直成了一个需要拼凑的谜题。
这些遗骸目前存放于阿莫雷蒂的实验室中，她的团队正在将骸骨一片片重新组装。这项工作可能会深化我们对古代世界性别、阶级以及暴力普遍性的理解。
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在掌握这些数据的基础上，其他研究人员也可以探索社会和性别动态。如果女性骸骨带有体力劳动的痕迹，这将拓宽人们对她们在罗马社会中从事工作的认知。如果在那些携带珠宝的遗体中发现童年营养不良的迹象，则可能指向一名后来地位提升的奴隶——这种阶级流动性的证据是现代人很少将奴隶制与之联系在一起的。
这种阶级划分目前仍是一项理论，尽管来自阿莫雷蒂实验室的研究可能会为这一假设提供坚实的基础。一旦贾科梅蒂理清了哪些骨骼属于哪些个体，团队就可以编写学者们所称的“骨传记”——即刻在骨骼上的个人历史。例如，贾科梅蒂倾斜着一个少年男孩的颅骨，指出其前牙上微弱的波纹，这可能是童年营养不良的迹象。承重骨上的瘢痕可以揭示充满体力劳动的生活。在其他受害者身上，贾科梅蒂注意到重复的骨折和钝力创伤——这也许是暴力行为的记录。随着
在过去的几十年里，考古学扩大了视野，旨在记录那些脆弱且被忽视的人群的生活。奥普隆蒂斯的骨架提供了一个难得的机会，可以对比来自不同社会阶层的男女骨骼——这里聚集了商人、劳工、被奴役者和富有的精英，他们最终在剧烈的死亡中结合在一起。
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早期的发掘揭示了奥普隆蒂斯 A 区域保存极其完好的壁画柱廊。后来探索奥普隆蒂斯 B 区域的考古学家们也做出了同样令人震惊的发现：一个存放着大量骨骸的储藏室，这些遗骸目前由庞贝的应用研究实验室负责管理。
这座拥有古老图书馆的沿海度假胜地终于揭开了它的秘密
这些物品看起来像垃圾——不过是一些被烧焦的旧布捆。但当挖掘者于 1750 年在赫库蓝拿姆的一座别墅中进行挖掘并仔细观察时，他们惊讶地发现，自己实际上找到了莎草纸卷轴。被请来检查这些卷轴的学者们——据估计数量在 650 到 1000 之间，有些完整，有些是碎片——既感到兴奋又感到沮丧。一方面，它们代表了已知唯一幸存的古代图书馆，这是一项轰动的发现。然而，这些卷轴极其脆弱，几乎无法安全地处理，更不用说展开和阅读了。这是一个真正的来自过去的时间胶囊，只是我们缺乏打开它的工具。
直到最近，情况才有所改变。多亏了新的技术，记录在这些古老卷轴中的故事和记述开始零星地流传出来。
我们通常认为自然灾害会摧毁物品；很少有人考虑它们是如何保存物品的。当维苏威火山爆发时，炽热的碎屑流吞噬并密封了赫库蓝拿姆，最终形成了 60 英尺厚的覆盖岩层。那里的有机材料——蜡板、木质摇篮、面包块——并没有腐烂，而是被烘烤成了碳化化石。卷轴也遭遇了同样的命运。如今，除少数几个之外，所有卷轴都保存在那不勒斯的一座国家图书馆深处的柜子里。大多数看起来扭曲且焦黑，有些则看起来像是有人踩过一个卷饼，然后用喷灯烧过一样。它们紧实的黑色包裹层极其脆弱——一位修复师曾说，就像蝴蝶的翅膀一样。
几个世纪以来，学者们多次尝试诱导卷轴展开，使用了从汞浸泡到一种用丝线牵拉末端并将破碎鳞片沉积在粘性猪膀胱膜上的机器等各种手段。通过这些工作，他们了解到该藏品主要由 Philodemus（费洛德姆斯）的希腊语著作组成，他是一位公元前一世纪的伊壁鸠鲁哲学哲学家，以其对神学和道德等主题的沉思而闻名。尽管取得了一些成功，但大多数展开尝试仅破坏了莎草纸而没有带来太多收获，官方最终在 25 年前禁止了所有此类尝试。相当于数千页的文本——多于莎士比亚的全部作品集——似乎注定将永远保持沉默。
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来自维苏威火山的碎屑流温度达到 750 华氏度，瞬间烘烤了有机物——将赫库蓝拿姆“莎草纸别墅”图书馆中的莎草纸卷轴变成了碳化的、像煤一样的外壳，然后将它们密封在灰烬之下。
最近的技术进步使得像 Rossella Villa 这样的莎草纸学家能够阅读被维苏威火山烧焦的赫库蓝拿姆卷轴。这里，她正在准备一份由希腊哲学家 Philodemus 在火山爆发前约 100 年写成的作品，以便在那不勒斯国家图书馆进行光谱扫描。
这些古代卷轴如果物理展开会崩碎或化为灰烬，现在通过结合 3D 成像和人工智能技术实现了虚拟展开。摄影测量设备也帮助将其数字化。下方这个卷轴写于公元前一世纪末至公元 79, 爆发之间，使用的是拉丁文，讲述的是传奇的亚克提乌姆战役，在那次战役中，由马库斯·阿格里帕领导的屋大限海軍击败了马克·安东尼和克娄opatra 的联军。
然后，在 2000 年代初，肯塔基大学一位名叫 Brent Seales 的计算机视觉专家开发了一项虚拟展开卷轴的计划。他首先使用 X 射线断层扫描（类似于医院的 CT 扫描）捕捉其内部层的 3D 图像。随后，软件将扫描结果“分割”成块，将其展平以方便阅读，并搜寻墨迹。在过去的几年里，Seales 通过训练 AI 程序执行各种任务（包括检测 and 增强墨迹，墨迹可以赋予莎草纸一种独特的纹理，像干泥一样）加快了这一艰苦的过程。
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在 2023 年与两名硅谷金融家合作启动了“维苏威挑战赛”(Vesuvius Challenge)，该竞赛为达成特定里程碑（如读出首批字母）提供现金奖励。西尔斯依然记得九个月后他感受到的震撼：当时一组大学生和博士生成功地在 16 个不完整的文本列中挖掘出了 2,000 个希腊字母——使得这些段落在两千年后首次变得清晰可见。“就像火箭点火一样，”他回忆道。
他还公开了团队拍摄的卷轴图像，邀请全球的程序员尝试改进墨水检测算法。为了激励这项工作，他
此后，又有数十卷卷轴被扫描并输入到西尔斯的程序中，尽管
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两千年后，来自赫库兰尼姆的碳化卷轴再次变得可读。其中一部分描述了克娄帕特拉在思考死亡。
赫库兰尼姆拥有数千年历史的莎草纸卷轴因被烧焦而无法打开——直到科学家布伦特·西尔斯及其团队发明了一种阅读方法。以下是他们如何对其进行虚拟展开的步骤。
莎草纸 No. 1667
卷轴展开后长 3 英尺。
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1
支撑卷轴
外壳
同步辐射光源
团队 3D 打印了一个保护壳，以防止碳化卷轴崩碎。
研究人员使用一个名为同步辐射光源的大型粒子加速器，用精密光束对卷轴进行 X 射线扫描，在细胞层面创建 3D 扫描图。
1,000 英尺
卷轴
360 度旋转
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片段
一种算法帮助虚拟地抚平褶皱，以消除褶皱莎草纸产生的失真。
一个 AI 程序识别出扫描卷轴中的莎草纸层，然后将这些层分成较小的片段，以达到理想的可读性。
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墨水浮雕
团队训练了一个 AI 模型来识别莎草纸上的墨水纹理，从而揭示标记。
最终生成的图像清晰地显示了单个字母——准备好由莎草纸学家进行阅读和解读。
“好的事物”
莎草纸
图表：FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA 和 PATRICIA HEALY。来源：肯塔基大学 BRENT SEALES 和 CHRISTY CHAPMAN。图像由肯塔基大学 NSF 资助的 EDUCELAB 和维苏威挑战赛提供；PAOLO VERZONE
这并不是说完整的文本现在能神奇地直接蹦出来。由于古代的损坏，莎草纸经常缺失单词或整个文本列。而且 AI 也有局限性：它检查每个像素并判定其是否为墨水，但无法识别字母，更不用说解读段落了。这项工作由学者完成，例如费德里卡·尼古拉迪，她是那不勒斯费德里科二世大学的莎草纸学家和教授，曾担任维苏威挑战赛的评审。
生活，包括音乐、面包，甚至圆苞鱼菜。卷轴还揭示了作者的性格：他将那些与他意见不合的人贬低为“愚蠢”和“傻瓜”。这是毫无保留的哲学探讨。最近，尼古拉迪确定菲洛德姆斯的一卷关于神学的卷轴标题为《论神，第 8 册》。在此之前，第 1 册和可能的第 3 册为人所知，但没有其他册本——这意味着她的团队似乎一举证明了几个完全未知作品的存在，其中任何一个都可能扩展我们对希腊众神体系的认知。这些卷轴还可以揭示古代图书馆的内部运作方式。某些卷轴参差不齐的形状像拼图一样契合，这使学者们得出结论：当维苏威火山的碎屑流席卷并使它们变形时，它们是并排摆放在书架上的。了解相邻卷轴的内容反过来可以揭示图书馆的归档系统——是按主题、语言、体裁，还是完全由其他标准决定。
最长的一卷数字展开卷轴达到了惊人的 20 英尺，最初呈现出一个谜团。由于某些词语中存在孔洞，尼科拉迪团队的一名研究员玛丽亚·基亚拉·罗布斯泰利 (Maria Chiara Robustelli) 花了数分钟研究其中的每一个词——而当她最终破译出这些词时，它们看起来完全不协调。“我很困惑，因为我预期的是其他东西，比如哲学词汇之类的，”罗布斯泰利说道。相反，她发现的是像 koureion（“理发店”）和 myropolion（“香水店”）这样的词汇。同样令人费解的是另一位学者识别出的一句话：methyskesthai（“醉酒”）。这究竟是什么样的哲学？尼科拉迪的团队最终将这段文字追溯到了《性格》(Characters)，这是一部由亚里士多德的一名学生在公元前 4 世纪撰写的关于伦理学的作品。它出自关于 bdelyros（“令人厌恶的人”）的章节，该章节批评了那些发起轻率诉讼，或在理发店和香水店等社交场所吹嘘饮酒的爱管闲事的人。他们判定，整卷卷轴是菲洛德穆斯 (Philodemus) 一部名为《论恶习》(On Vices) 的更大作品中此前未知的部分。该作品剖析了性格缺陷和道德失败，并为如何成为一个更好的人提供指导。这部作品似乎具有一种实用且日常的倾向——与现代时常晦涩难懂的学术哲学形成了对比。
但为什么图书馆的所有者会拥有这么多单一作者的作品，尤其是像菲洛德穆斯这样的一位中庸哲学家？亚里士多德、荷马、希罗多图的作品在哪里？已知菲洛德穆斯在晚年移居意大利，尼科拉迪怀疑赫库兰尼姆图书馆可能是他的档案库，后来传给了朋友或家人。如果在卷轴中发现他的论文草稿和不同版本，将为这一观点增加分量。
或者，可能会出现一些真正出乎意料的东西。在花了一个上午检查那些发黑的卷轴后，尼科拉迪绕着桌子走了一圈，询问每位团队成员梦想中的发现会是什么。他们提到著名哲学家之间的书信、失传的拉丁史诗、赫库兰尼姆别墅图书馆的目录。尼科拉迪还希望在赫库兰尼姆挖掘更多卷轴。“别墅的一部分从未被挖掘过，”她指出，而且那里恰好位于大多数原始卷轴被发现的地点旁边。很可能会发现更多东西。
另一卷数字展开的卷轴探讨了稀缺商品是否比丰裕商品提供更多快感。其论点尚不明确——尼科拉迪团队的成员们就标题将是什么而打了一个 20 欧元的赌——但文本讨论了感官知觉，并再次引用了日常生活的例子。
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没有人知道谁曾住在庞贝南部这座庄严的宅邸中，这座宅邸现在被称为“卡罗琳女王之家”（Casa della Regina Carolina），得名于 19 世纪初资助当地初步挖掘工作的那位那不勒斯女王。这座房产最显著的特点是其约 8,000 平方英尺的花园，这是一个靠近两座繁忙剧院、经过精心造景的绿洲，种有树木、藤蔓、开花植物，并设有供祈祷和沉思的私人神龛。
遗传考古学家通常从骨骼或其他生物材料中提取 DNA，并且此前在庞贝也曾这样做过。但由康奈尔大学考古学家兼国家地理探索者凯蒂·巴雷特（Caitie Barrett）共同领导的一支团队，最近成功从卡罗琳女王之家的花园土壤样本中提取了 DNA——发现了橄榄和葡萄的证据。未来在这里及其他地方的工作可能会识别出罕见的品种或失传的栽培种，暗示某些家庭对异域风情有着独特的品味。更重要的是，这项工作证明了一个基本事实：脆弱的 DNA 很可能在庞贝的古老土壤中幸存了下来。
这座房子的二楼在维苏威火山喷发期间被摧毁，一楼墙壁上几乎所有的装饰都已崩塌。但重新种植的花园在每日熙攘的游客中依然是一处阴凉的避风港，游客们匆匆走过，并未意识到真正的宝藏其实隐藏在地表之下。
基于这项研究，巴雷特和她的同事现在希望拼凑出关于住户的细节
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维苏威火山的喷发将庞贝掩埋在火山碎屑中。随后，高温和缺氧使城市的食物碳化，包括这块面包。这些完整的遗骸以及幸存的 DNA，正帮助科学家更好地了解古罗马。
庞贝的部分地区被深达 20 英尺的火山碎屑和火山灰掩埋，保存状况惊人地好。这使得人们能够罕见地聚焦于古代生活的常规与习惯，其中大部分就在中央论坛（central forum）展开：这里曾是政治、经济和宗教活动的中心。
——他们吃什么、喝什么，以及潜在的如何患病以及如何护理病人。事实上，他们已经在从一个比花园更不体面的地方提取遗传物质：房子的厕所综合体。在地面上，靠近厨房的地方，两个厕所占据了独立但相邻的房间，就像现代洗手间的独立隔间。但在地下，收集人类废弃物的坑洞是相连的。
去年夏天，团队部分挖掘了其中一个坑洞，宽约一码。（当被问及挖掘时团队是否闻到了异味，巴雷特笑着回忆道：“一种尿味——非常淡，非常微妙。”）他们的样本正由亚利桑那州立大学的遗传学家弗拉维奥·德·安杰利斯（Flavio De Angelis）和爱德华多·阿莫林（Eduardo Amorim）进行分析，他们正在寻找包括肠道蠕虫在内的多种生物的 DNA，以探讨庞贝的疾病负担。但他们的主要关注点是肠道微生物群：居住在人类消化道中并随粪便排出的多样化细菌群落。根据饮食的不同，两个人的肠道可能携带截然不同的细菌组合。某些物种在牛奶中生长茂盛，而其他物种则依赖糖分、脂肪或蛋白质。通过测量厕所中每种细菌 DNA 的相对丰度，团队希望重建该家庭的饮食情况以及餐桌的多样性。
德·安杰利斯和阿莫林还希望他们的遗传分析能为罗马 era. 时期的心理疾病提供见解。人类的胃肠道在食道和直肠之间包含大约 100 million 个神经元。任何影响这些神经元的事物——包括肠道细菌——原则上都可能影响大脑功能。“肠道微生物群与心理健康之间存在直接联系，”德·安杰利斯说道。
厕所也可能产生人类 DNA，从而揭示关于该房屋居住者的细节。这座房产曾是一栋宏伟的独栋住宅，但在维苏威火山喷发时，它已被分成了较大和较小的两个单元。每个单元都有自己的厕所，巴雷特建议，通过对比两者的 DNA，可能会揭示两个家庭之间的关系。如果发现相似的 DNA，可能表明较小的单元是为姻亲准备的套房；不匹配的 DNA 则可能表明这是一个出租房。或者，如果出现许多不相关个体的 DNA，则可能意味着其他情况——也许业主是一位在家接见请愿者的有影响力人物。“我们感兴趣的是讲述每一个曾在这个房子里生活的人的故事，”巴雷特说道。
针对现代人群的研究已经确定了特定细菌与双相情感障碍、精神分裂症等疾病，以及阿尔茨海默病等疾病之间的关联。该团队的样本可能会揭示古代世界中这些疾病的存在情况。
尽管它们缺乏庞贝最著名文物的那种光彩——令人惊叹的壁画，
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在庞贝的 Regina Carolina 之家 (Casa della Regina Carolina)，学者们正在对花园和厕所进行前所未有的基因组研究，这可能会揭示更多关于古罗马人健康状况的信息。
雕塑、烛台——但来自 Regina Carolina 之家的 DNA 数据同样具有揭示性。巴雷特表示，虽然厕所看起来可能“恶心且不美观”，但“在很多方面，我们能从厕所和垃圾堆这类东西中学到的东西，比从精美的雕像中学到的更多”。
帝国的运行。正如赫库兰尼姆卷轴所反映的那样，那个 era, 的哲学包括关于实用日常生活事务的指导。而厕所中残留的微量 DNA 则可能揭示那些让他们生活陷入阴霾的疾病。这些人在很多方面都与我们相似，如果维苏威火山保持静默，庞贝及其姊妹城市可能会繁荣多年。然而，火山摧毁了他们——从而将他们永远地保存在了历史之中。即便在 2,000 年后，这场历史上最著名的灾难依然在不断给我们带来惊喜。j
事实上，从奥普隆蒂斯、赫库兰尼ウム和庞贝挖掘出的发现，深化了我们对那里所有居民的理解。劳工和被奴役者的骨骸讲述了那些不可见且往往极其艰辛的劳作，正是这些劳作维持了罗马
深入探索庞贝：在国家地理的新纪录剧集（docudrama）中，演员汤玛斯·希德勒斯顿扮演了历史侦探的角色，与一些世界领先的庞贝专家一起，拼凑出维苏威火山喷发中不为人知的故事。《庞贝：与汤玛斯·希德勒斯顿共度时光》(Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston) 目前正在迪士尼+ 上线播放。请查看当地节目单。
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来自维苏威地区的发现正在深化我们对罗马人的健康状况、阶级等级和性别角色的理解。例如，这座庞贝房屋属于茱莉亚·费利克斯 (Julia Felix)，她是一位商人，拥有一座巨大的庄园和商业综合体，其中包含豪华浴场、公寓和商店。
那不勒斯国家考古博物馆以其从维苏威火山灰中回收的令人惊叹的马赛克、雕像和壁画收藏而闻名——但其储藏室中藏有更巨大的宝库。在那里，在通常不对公众开放的区域，国家地理获准接触数千件来自庞贝和赫库兰尼ウム的脆弱考古珍宝，这些珍宝捕捉到了古罗马生活的习俗与欢乐。
游戏暂停瞬间
这枚由骨头制成的骰子与各种混杂在一起的物品共同被凝固在坚硬的火山物质中。有些物体无法辨认，而另一些，如钉子，则清晰可见。
古董美酒
该地区大量的酒罐（包括青铜双耳瓶）在维苏威火山灰中得以保存，揭示了一种在今天依然强盛的充满活力的葡萄酒文化。左侧架子上的容器也被用来盛放 mulsum，这是一种受富裕精英青睐的蜂蜜酒。
获救的壁画
这幅壁画描绘了一个经典的希腊风格剧院面具，它可能是在18世纪由修复大师约瑟夫·卡纳特 (Joseph Canart) 从庞贝的一面墙上剥离下来的。卡纳特通过将壁画切割下来并安装在板岩支撑物上，从而能以大块且完整的方式移除壁画。
T R A I L B L A Z E R（开拓者）
寻找
世界上最稀有的
面对灭绝危机，一位特立独行的植物学家正将其庞大的花卉收藏转化为科学资源。
文字：
A L E X A N D R A M A R V A R
摄影：
J U A N I T A E S C O B A R
长尾马斯氏兰 (long-tail Masdevallia) 的花朵触感极其像肉体。触手般的尾巴从像花瓣一样的萼片上垂下，颜色呈现出栗色、珊瑚色和黄色——那是腐烂水果的色调。苍蝇可能会误将其当作盛宴。数千万年来，这种原产于哥伦比亚快速消失的云雾林的奇异兰花，凭借吸引传粉者的能力幸存至今。而如今，那个传粉者是一位戴着老花镜的 64 岁男人。
丹尼尔·皮耶德拉希塔 (Daniel Piedrahíta) 拥有 25,000 株兰花——这是全球最大的私人非商业收藏之一。但此时此刻，在哥伦比亚麦德林市郊的一座温室里，他只关注这一株。他轻轻捏住其中一个尾巴，将其花脸向上倾斜，然后用一根细金属丝将一颗针尖大小的花粉从一朵花转移到另一朵花上。如果这次传粉成功，将会形成一个荚果，其中包含多达一百万颗像尘埃一样的种子。皮耶德拉希塔会将它采摘下来，用铝箔包裹，并将其交给麦德林的科研人员，由他们尝试
[[IMG_XXXX]] 丹尼尔·皮耶德拉希塔 在他位于哥伦比亚拉塞哈 (La Ceja) 的一座温室里检查一系列树兰 (epidendrum orchids)，这是他兰花收藏中 3,500 个代表物种中的一部分。随着灭绝威胁着兰花物种，这位收藏家建立了他所谓的“基因库”。
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N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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哥伦比亚 (COLOMBIA)
在实验室中培育这种野性且狡黠的植物。
南美洲 (SOUTH AMERICA)
据估计，全球 30,000 种已知兰花中约有一半正因栖息地丧失和黑市贸易而面临灭绝威胁。像皮耶德拉希塔这样的私人收藏提供了极其宝贵的资源：用于研究、繁育和潜在重新引入的基因储备。唯一的问题是？私人收藏家通常非常谨慎，小心守护着那些辛苦获得的栽培技术知识，并且不愿让人审视其标本的来源。
加勒比海 (Caribbean Sea)
委内瑞拉 (VENEZUELA)
麦德林 (Medellín) 森林之魂 (Alma del Bosque)
波哥大 (Bogotá)
太平洋 (PACIFIC OCEAN)
哥伦比亚 (COLOMBIA)
厄瓜多尔 (ECUADOR) 巴西 (BRAZIL)
400 mi 400 km
秘鲁 (PERU)
但皮耶德拉希塔不同。在那些将稀有度视为至上的收藏家亚文化中，他致力于让一些最稀有的标本实现繁衍。在他去年开设的名为“森林之魂” (Alma del Bosque) 的植物园和教育中心里，他以一种近乎传教般的狂热在为兰花传粉，并分享他的种子和技术。他是先驱收藏家的一员，旨在通过这种方式削弱黑市，并确保未来的修复项目有足够的幼苗供应。麦德林的三个实验室的合作伙伴正利用他的种子库来繁育以前从未量产过的兰花——皮耶德拉希塔说，这是“不让这些物种灭绝的唯一机会”。
皮耶德拉希塔的“森林之魂”保护区中发现的兰花，从左上角起顺时针方向为：
罗斯柴尔德拖鞋兰原产于婆罗洲的基纳巴卢山，目前处于极危状态。生长在秘鲁安第斯山脉的皇后马斯氏兰具有长而像尾巴一样的附属物。兰花杂交种“月光”兜兰 (Paphiopedilum Clair de Lune) 是由育种者在近一个世纪前培育出来的。像这种“皮诺曹”兜兰 (Paphiopedilum Pinocchio) 般的维纳斯拖鞋兰具有囊状唇瓣，用于捕捉昆虫并在释放它们时为其涂上花粉。
皮耶德拉希塔 (Piedrahíta) 在过去 30 年里一直从事商业花卉种植。2000 年代初，在他和妻子在拉塞哈 (La Ceja) 小镇（哥伦比亚切花产业中心）建立一座绣球花农场后不久，他便陷入了兰花热。哥伦比亚拥有近五分之一的世界兰花物种，数量超过任何其他国家，且大多数品种是附生植物——即利用特化根系附着在树上，而非生长在土壤中的植物。皮耶德拉希塔在哥伦比亚野外的观鸟之旅中开始注意到它们，并被它们巧妙的适应机制所吸引。有些兰花伪装成雌性昆虫，如此逼真以至于雄性昆虫试图与它们交配，离开时身上沾满了花粉。另一些则通过模仿巧克力、腐烂水果或腐肉的气味来诱吸引传粉者。皮耶德拉希塔对兰花要求种植者的勤勉程度深感着迷：在一棵大叶松长到两层楼高所需的时间里，一株兰花幼苗可能才开出一朵花。“当它最终绽放时，”皮耶德拉希塔说，“真的感觉像魔法一样。”
在第一次参加地区兰花展时，他买下了一个摊贩的所有植物——约 250 株。凭借绣球花的利润资助这项新爱好，数百株兰花变成了数千株，这些植物来自商业种植者、与其他痴迷者的交换，偶尔也有从掉落的树枝上救回的。
NGM MAPS
如今，皮耶德拉希塔估计他的收藏代表了他所称的“基因库”，包含约 3,500 个物种——约占兰科 (Orchidaceae) 的十分之一。在将兰花安置在温室中多年后，他在去年夏天揭幕了 Alma del Bosque，这是一个拥有 52 英尺高顶棚的巨大展馆，并向公众开放参观。就像《侏罗纪公园》一样，巨大的黑色大门向两侧打开，露出一个工程打造的奇境：11,000 平方英尺的阶梯式花园和展区，配有伴生植物和水景，以创造出让各类兰花得以繁茂生长的微栖息地。
Alma del Bosque 也是皮耶德拉希塔旨在培养新一代具有保护意识的兰花研究者的项目总部。在过去的五年里，基于一个信念——即每一个培育稀有兰花的新种植者都在帮助降低野外盗采的诱惑——他通过面对面和在线方式向数百名学生传授了兰花界曾经秘而不宣的秘密。在他的指导下，并在其提供花粉和种子的帮助下，他的几名学生已经开始建立自己的苗圃。其中一人是 24 岁的圣地亚哥·阿兰戈 (Santiago Arango)，他现在经营着麦德林的 Culto Orquídeas 苗圃，拥有四名员工，约 9,000 株待售植物，客户遍布哥伦比亚全境。“人们更倾向于购买实验室培育的植物，而不是从自然界中提取的植物，”阿兰戈暗示道。他说，满足这一需求“是我们所有商业培育者的责任”。
皮耶德拉希塔还向麦德林 CES 大学研究人员提供种子，他们正利用这些种子开发稀有兰花的体外繁殖技术。他们目前的重点是一种名为“白修女” (white nun) 的华丽象牙色标本，它是危地马拉的国花。在大多数原生栖息地中，它几乎被盗采至灭绝，不过危地马拉目前正在开展一项重新引入计划，使用当地一位收藏家培育的幼苗。皮耶德拉希塔希望，利用他的种子库在实验室培育的植物能帮助白修女从盗采者的战利品变为苗圃的常规品种——并且同样的技巧最终可能支持哥伦比亚其他物种的修复工作。
使用实验室培育的兰花来补充野外种群仍是一门很新的科学，部分原因在于其难度较大，因为植物需要足够的遗传多样性才能进行繁殖。但已经出现了一些希望的曙光。在佛罗里达州，2018 年重新引入大赛普拉斯盆地 (Big Cypress Basin) 的幽灵兰虽然尚未繁殖，但已存活下来。在英国，就在去年夏天，一项自 1990 年代以来一直活跃的修复计划产出了该国近一个世纪以来首株野生的杓兰。
皮耶德拉希塔采取的是长远目光，通过保护受威胁物种，为科学研究的跟进奠定基础。“我是一个顽固的开拓者，”他说。他已经意识到，热爱兰花最需要的便是耐心。j
皮耶德拉希塔在 Alma del Bosque 展示他的收藏，这是他去年在哥伦比亚安第斯山脉西部开设的避难所。
Alma del Bosque 距离麦德林大约一小时车程，靠近 La Ceja 镇。请在 almadelbosque.com 提前预约参观。
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揭秘
地球
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乔尔·萨托尔 不断扩大的档案
依赖于一个全球野生动物
避难所网络，例如位于
德梅因的爱荷华鸟类康复中心，在那里他与这只土耳其秃鹫成了朋友，后者是这里的永久居民。
CHRIS BUCK (两者均提供)
“照片方舟 (项目)”是摄影师 乔尔·萨托尔 的一场十字军东征，旨在一次一个物种地记录我们星球动物界的完整光谱。这使得 萨托尔 成了这个庞大动物学项目的现代诺亚，该项目由 国家地理学会 支持，目前正庆祝其成立 20 周年。如果你了解他，就会发现这很契合。 萨托尔 与其前任诺亚之间有一种世俗的、由科学驱动的亲缘关系：诺亚不会因为外貌原因偏爱上帝的任何造物， 萨托尔 也不一样。他的运作基地位于内布拉斯加州的林肯市，只是在履行职责，一点点啃下任务，在为时太晚之前，尽可能地收集所有物种，无论大小，无论绚丽还是丑陋。
在数十年拍摄偏远地区不同物种的过程中， 萨托尔 赢得了生物学家和环保组织的信任，例如在阿拉斯加托吉亚克国家野生动物保护区的这个布满海象的海滩上，他曾假装在打盹。
ERIN HARVEY
这么说吧， 萨托尔 在 2006, 年最先纳入“照片方舟 (项目)”的动物是一只裸鼹鼠——一种秃顶、露齿的啮齿动物，他是在林肯儿童动物园的厨房里拍摄它的。 萨托尔（一位 国家地理 探险家）表示，这样一只卑微、朴素的生物证明是一个恰当的开始。在他此后积累的 18,000 多张动物图像中（主要是在避难所或人类看护下生活的生物），绝大多数“根本不在
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任何人的关注范围内。它们不是北极熊或老虎。它们是小鱼，是麻雀，是生活在高树上或土壤里的东西。它们不是那些经常被拍摄的对象。”
为了拍摄一张照片（例如新几内亚某种雄伟的极乐鸟）而进行一次远征， 萨托尔 和他那精干的团队会在途中多次停留，以拍摄一种
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在职业生涯早期， 萨托尔 在玻利维亚的马迪迪国家公园与一只凯门鳄对峙，随后他开始将重点转向人类看护下的动物，以建立“照片方舟 (项目)”。
JOEL SARTORE 与 ROSA MARIA RUIZ
他认为最有趣的昆虫）， 萨托尔 说道）。他的妻子凯西 (Kathy) 协助处理复杂的日程安排，并充当 萨托尔 数十年旅行记忆的某种“外置硬盘”。在其他员工中，他在林肯市雇佣了一名数据库管理员，以及几位自学成才的分类学家和自称的“动物园极客”。
在门廊灯下，或是一只恰好落在某人肩上的飞蛾。每一次马拉松式的旅程都是一场冲刺，因为“照片方舟” (项目) 中收录的许多物种正处于灭绝的边缘。有些物种在萨托尔找到其唯一的幸存者后不久就消失了，比如 Toughie，一只大约拳头大小的巴拿马树蛙。它在亚特兰大植物园一个名为 FrogPOD 的永久停靠银色拖车中生活了至少 12 年。Toughie 所在的物种——拉布斯缘肢树蛙 (Rabbs’ fringe-limbed tree frog)，以及巴拿马山脉中的数十个其他物种，在过去的 20 年里被一种名为壶菌 (chytrid fungus) 的真菌摧毁。Toughie 逃到了亚特兰大，但它的物种那独特的求偶鸣叫声在巴拿马的夜晚合唱中消失了，在任何人能够将其记录下来之前就已不复存在。一种声音——一种沟通方式——永远地消失了。
手机。不到两年后，在 2016, 年，Toughie 死亡。前一年，它在“照片方舟 (项目)”中的影像曾与它那如狗吠般的叫声音频一起，被投影在梵蒂冈圣彼得大教堂的正面，向教皇展示。随着“照片方舟 (项目)”在环保界的知名度提升，萨托尔在讲座、会议和募捐活动中经常提及这个故事。这同时也成了他的信条——某种引导整个项目的逻辑基准，他同样频繁地重复这句话：因为这就是灭绝的样子。
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访问过的国家
从智利到马达加斯加
到哈萨克斯坦，萨托尔已经旅行前往
皮埃尔·德·沙班内 (Pierre de Chabannes) 是一位居住在法国的前鼓手兼野生动物摄影师。在巴黎郊外的一个鸟类保护区经历了一次打破记录的拍摄日后，他于 2015 年加入了“照片方舟 (项目)”团队：在那次马拉松式的拍摄中，他帮助萨托尔识别并拍摄了 51 种不同的鸟类，这是萨托尔一次性记录的最多物种数量。“（那个地方的）禽舍纯粹是为了展示大量鸟类而建的，”德·沙班内说，“（所以）上面完全没有名字。”他最终通过视觉识别每种鸟类，然后在萨托尔的笔记本电脑上与愿望清单进行比对确认。“我持续引导鸟类出现，大概持续了七个小时，”他说。“我甚至没时间吃晚饭。”
全球三分之一以上的国家，以捕捉动物王国的多样性。
“照片方舟 (项目)”中的每一幅图像都代表了萨托尔最极致的努力，旨在为我们的内心撑起桨叶，通过让我们面对不可挽回的死亡来震慑心灵。他知道，当一个生物的灵魂直视你的灵魂时，你很难否认它的存在。
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磅设备
“照片方舟 (项目)”团队
在拍摄现场携带大量设备，
包括多台相机、灯架、拍摄帐篷，以及黑白背景布——
在拍摄 Toughie 的那天，萨托尔询问它的照顾者、一位名叫马克·曼迪卡 (Mark Mandica) 的两栖动物保护主义者，负责“某种生物的最后一个幸存者”是什么感觉。他说：“乔尔，每天早晨我去上班时，我的心都揪在一起，因为我担心今天就是那一天。”几个月后的一个雨晨，曼迪卡刚刚到达 FrogPOD 门外，就听到了一种他从未听过的声音——“像狗在吠叫，”萨托尔说，而曼迪卡知道这只能是那么一回事。“青蛙喜欢在雨中鸣叫和繁殖，”萨托尔解释道，“它可能闻到了湿润的空气，听到了雨声。”曼迪卡设法用手机记录了大约 10 秒钟。
在诺亚的故事中，圣经真正略过的一个情节是，他究竟是如何追踪所有那些遥远的物种，并在天气
恶化之前管理好将所有人送上船的庞大物流工作的。（有时，甚至是一个有机玻璃
在回巴黎的路上，当德·沙班内在开车时，“乔尔每当我有一点时间就向我闪现他的电脑屏幕，我会告诉他所有这些物种的科学名称和保护状态。”萨托尔一直熬夜到黎明，仔细核对德·沙班内的记忆，没有发现一个错误。第二天早上，他邀请德·沙班内作为分类学家之一加入“照片方舟 (项目)”。
tank.)
变臭了。如果萨托尔的版本能提供任何线索，那当时一定是一项艰巨的任务。
萨托尔的核心方舟团队包括他的家人。他说，儿子 Cole (33 岁) 将在他膝盖撑不住的时候接手。目前，Cole 承担了大量的技术工作——搭建布景、布置灯光、测试拍摄、捕捉视频——以及偶尔的拍摄（“通常是那些动物
但真正让萨托尔的
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年度日程在一年中 6 个月都被拍摄填满的，是他惊人的全球资源和联系网络。无论你想找任何一种动物，萨托尔都认识相关的人员。在交谈中，他能脱口而出世界各地城市的机构名称。
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个月的恶臭
那是奥马哈的亨利·多利动物园水族馆的一头侏儒河马将粪便和尿液喷在萨托尔的背景幕布上后，气味持续的时间。
萨托尔的人脉网络是支撑“照片方舟 (项目)”继续前行的社会架构，而他在这个想法出现之前，在为国家地理工作 17 年的过程中就已经建立起这一网络。该项目始于家庭困境中一个苦乐参半的副产品：2006 年，Kathy 被诊断出患有乳腺癌，治疗需要七个月的化疗和多次手术。萨托尔夫妇有三个年幼的孩子，分别 11 岁、9 岁和 2 岁。乔尔无法离开家。那时，他已经对自己所从事的工作感到一种挥之不去的徒劳感，这种感觉在他现在的声音中能更明显地听到——一种沮丧之情，因为即便过了这么久，仍然很少有人在严肃地面对此时此刻面临的危局。
在乔尔·萨托尔拍摄的 18,000 多个动物中，包括了一些地球上最受威胁的物种。在为期 20 年的项目中，有些物种已经消失，有些则在迅速滑向灭绝。以下是这个不断增加的易危动物类别中的一小部分——萨托尔带着紧迫的希望拍摄它们，希望这些肖像能激发人们采取保护行动。
摄影：乔尔·萨托尔
在妻子治疗的前几个月里，当他在家中照顾家人时，他的思绪不断转向著名的鸟类学家约翰·詹姆斯·奥杜邦。奥杜邦绘制了几种很快就灭绝的鸟类，而现在那些画作是我们仅存的记录。有一天，他突然想到：如果他创作自己的奥杜邦式画作，一套肖像系列，为每种动物拍摄一张照片会怎样？就像一座方舟。一个关于
这些灵长类动物以醒目的橙色颈圈为特征，在越南被猎杀以取肉。
拍摄于越南宁平，濒危灵长类动物救援中心
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威胁等级
物种灭绝风险（反映在世界自然保护联盟的红色名录中）是基于包括种群数量减少规模、分布范围下降和成熟个体数量在内的标准而定的。此表格中的受威胁动物分类如下：
在野外有较高灭绝风险
在野外有极高灭绝风险
在野外有极高风险的灭绝
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婆罗洲犀牛 Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni
照片方舟团队在全球旅行，以接触像 Pahu 这样极危的动物，她是一头雌性婆罗洲犀牛。作为世界上体型最小的犀牛物种，其数量已不足以在野外繁衍，这使得 Pahu 成为“方舟”中最稀有的生物之一。
拍摄于印度尼西亚，KELIAN 苏门答腊犀牛保护区
拍摄于 1. 犹他州，PARAGONAH；2. 密苏里州圣路易斯县，世界鸟类保护区；3. 圣地亚哥，海洋世界；4. 塔斯马尼亚州霍巴特，塔斯马尼亚大学海洋与南极研究所；5. 田纳西州，私人收藏；6. 圣地亚哥动物园；7. 檀香山，蜗牛灭绝保护计划；8. 阿布扎比，自然保护管理机构；9. 国家密西西比河博物馆和水族馆；10. 印度尼西亚，TAMAN SAFARI PRIGEN；11. 印度勒克瑙，KUKRAIL 恒河鳄与龟康复中心；12. 亚特兰大，两栖动物基金会；13. 圣路易斯国家野生动物保护区；14. 印度尼西亚，BATU SECRET ZOO；15. 亚特兰大动物园；16. 休斯顿动物园
让他忙碌——为了让他保持理智、高效——这变成了一个激情项目，随后成为了一份全职职业，最后成为了他一生的使命。
照片方舟及其在对抗灭绝中的效力。
萨托尔拍摄了地球上最后一只 Rabbs'
而且，这个“方舟”每隔一段时间就会及时出现，成为救星。桑德拉·斯内肯伯格 (Sandra Sneckenberger) 是美国鱼类和野生动物管理局的一名生物学家，驻地在佛罗里达州的维罗海滩。她花费多年时间试图为岌岌可危的佛罗里达草地麻雀争取支持——她说，这种鸟从远处看只是普通的棕色小鸟，但近看则是“一件艺术品”。与此同时，这种哨兵物种的数量不断下降，一度低至约
[[IMG_XXXX]] 亚特兰大植物园的边缘肢树蛙，两
如今，64 岁，在开展这项工作二十年后，他正在思考在还有如此多工作待完成的情况下，如何让项目持续下去。古老的物种灭绝，有时新的物种会分化或出现。18,000 张照片在无底洞般的任务面前不过是沧海一粟。不过，该项目现在已成为一个全球性的机构，这有所帮助。保护领域的所有人都知道
他在 2016 年灭绝前数年拍摄的肖像照片，一直被展出到了梵蒂冈城的圣彼得大教堂。
乔尔·萨托尔 (JOEL SARTORE)
75 只，而且“投入的资金微乎其微。根本没有引起关注”。在绝望之中，她给萨托尔发了电子邮件。他在五分钟内就回复了。
标志性照片？这真的重要吗？) 萨托尔不介意在某些方面通过干预来引导关注，以便让某些生存可能取决于此的物种获得关注。
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在鱼类和野生动物管理局工作的二十多年里，斯内肯伯格与萨托尔的合作如此频繁，以至于她开玩笑说自己是“照片方舟 (项目)”的“佛罗里达分部”。这种麻雀是他们最早的合作对象之一。她说，在基西米草原保护州立公园拍摄后的一年内，她的团队获得了超过 100 万美元的资金用于救助这种麻雀，它的困境甚至登上了《奥杜邦》(Audubon) 杂志的封面。“我们[正在]进行人工繁育、基因研究——所有这些原本绝对不可能实现的事情，”她说，“如果没有[乔尔]，我敢肯定就不会有佛罗里达草地麻雀了。”
拍摄的野生动物设施
因此，在某个时刻，他们决定：照片方舟 (项目) 第 18,000 号条目将是极度濒危的红手鱼，这是一种因栖息地遭到破坏而数量锐减的礁石鱼类。“它在海底行走，是个小不点，”长度约三英寸，“像蛙鱼或蝎鱼，”萨托尔说，“它看起来非常酷，而且极其可爱。”但目前仅剩约 520 只，其中许多在霍巴特的塔斯马尼亚大学，其中一只就在那里为萨托尔摆好姿势，在一个小有机玻璃容器的底部穿梭。照片方舟 (项目) 中的一张图像无法提供像乘坐诺亚方舟那样的神圣保障。它更像是一次“祈祷后的最后一搏” (Hail Mary) ——最后一次尝试。但他选择了红手鱼，因为这就是生存的真实模样。
除了动物园，萨托尔还在康复中心和保护区拍摄他的对象。有时他会加入在野外工作的研究人员。
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已拍摄的濒危或灭绝物种*
在日历翻至 2026 年后不久，萨托尔和方舟核心团队开启了一次为期三周的澳大利亚之行，从内陆中心的爱丽丝泉沙漠公园到霍巴特的一家实验室，
像黄尾绒猴、星鲟和中华穿山甲等受威胁的生物在萨托尔的档案中占据着特殊的位置。
方舟的大部分使命是在某些事物消失之前将其捕捉到的赛跑，但时不时地，萨托尔的照片代表了一种重新发现，一次重生的机会——失而复得。就像豪勋爵岛拟步 the Lord Howe Island stick insect，一种体长四到五英寸的“树 lobster”，原产于悉尼东北约 500 英里的鲍尔金字塔陡峭崖壁上。长期被认为已经灭绝，豪勋爵岛拟步在 2001 年一次可怕的夜间攀登中被一个研究团队奇迹般地重新发现，随后被重新引入到
塔斯马尼亚，以其标准的抢时间速度采集动物。“我们联系了 135 个地点，”萨托尔说，“最后我们去了 36 个。”在旅途中，照片方舟 (项目) 跨过了另一个里程碑——物种数量达到 18,000 种——但当你移动如此之快并记录如此多动物时，情况会变得模糊。（哪种生物是
*包括世界自然保护联盟 (IUCN) 红色名录中列为濒危、极危、野外灭绝以及灭绝的动物
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2000 年，在一次国家地理的任务期间，在洛杉矶盆地，为电影业训练的幼年灰熊在观察萨托尔。
乔尔·萨托尔
通过萨托尔的相机镜头观察世界。或者考虑另一个与 Sneckenberger 的合作项目：佛罗里达帽蝠，它有厚实的圆耳朵和一个吻部。它看起来更像一只斗牛犬而非蝙蝠。近期直到 1979, 年，有些人还担心这种生物已经灭绝，但萨托尔为方舟拍摄的照片（同样拍摄于今年）则是该蝙蝠脆弱复苏的视觉证明。
萨托尔在每次照片方舟 (项目) 的拍摄之前都会给合作者发送一份操作指南，以便他能高效行动，快速拍摄，并最大限度地减轻受试对象的压力。策略因物种而异——但如果是猫类，他可能准备了 Zyrtec 药物，因为他过敏。
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那么第 19,000 种物种呢？或者下一个重大里程碑，第 20,000 种？萨托尔心中有一份清单，他和同事们经常将其称为“抛下一切”物种。换句话说，为了有机会亲眼见到它们，他们愿意放弃生活中的一切。他名单上的第二名：金丝猴（Tonkin snub-nosed monkey），一种蓝色面孔、厚嘴唇的灵长类动物（绝对建议去查一下），原产于越南北部。而第一名是：爪哇犀牛，仅在印度尼西亚爪哇岛最西端的 Ujung Kulon 国家公园中可见。
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“在我的一生中，它们的数量一直只有 60 只或更少，”他说。不过，印度尼西亚政府一直在讨论建立一个繁育中心，这一进展具有“抛下一切”的潜力。“所以我们拭目以待。我很耐心。我们愿意等待数年才能接触到动物。在照片方舟 (项目) 中，”他说，“我们玩的是长线游戏。”
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萨托尔估计，即使以他这种令人气喘吁吁的速度，要收集一个具有相当代表性的地球动物物种样本，至少还需要 25 年。听起来他与科尔的任务非常艰巨。 j
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萨托尔在爱荷华鸟类康复中心与白鹈鹕结识。除了参观动物园和水族馆，他还前往野生动物康复中心、鸟类环志站、生物闪击战 (bioblitzes) 等地。“全部的意义在于，在还来得及拯救生物多样性的时候，向世界展示生物多样性的样子，”他说。
克里斯·巴克
N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C 国家地理
P O R T F O L I O 作品集
夜空的
文字：T O M VA N D E R B I LT 摄影：P E T E M A U N E Y
一切都始于萤火虫。在 2010 年代初，摄影师 Pete Mauney 住在纽约州蒂沃利镇 (Tivoli) 沿哈德逊河的家中，他有一个简单但令人沮丧的目标：拍出一张完美的后院萤火虫照片。为了捕捉它们疯狂、闪烁且看似随机的飞行轨迹，
Mauney 采用了一种借鉴自天文摄影的工艺，称为“图像堆叠”(image stacking)。这本质上是 iPhone 相机在低光模式下所做的工作，通过将一系列曝光不足的照片融合在一起以消除噪点。这本该很简单。但当他将镜头对向夜空，并展开这次人类与萤火虫之间的协作（他开玩笑说，“尽管我的合作伙伴对此并不知情”）时，他面临一个持久且令人烦恼的问题：那些不断闯入照片中的讨厌飞机该怎么办？
Mauney 经常一次性将相机安置在纽瓦克自由国际机场 (Newark Liberty International Airport) 的长期停车场等地点，连续数小时拍摄飞机的进出繁忙航站楼的景象。
事实证明，这个问题同时也是一种启示。在纽泽西州蒙特克莱尔 (Montclair) 还是青少年时，
P O R T F O L I O 作品集
Mauney 经常徒步爬上俯瞰城镇的悬崖，观察进出纽瓦克自由国际机场的稳定飞机流。他曾漫无目的地思考过用胶片捕捉这些空中交通。他说：“但那时我没有钱，没有技术，其实什么都没有。”如今，近四十年后，凭借工具和专业知识，他意识到自己可以回到那个山脊，最终捕捉到那股飞机流。
如今，天空中的飞机几乎像星星一样普遍。在疫情期间航空旅行短暂下降后，乘客数量和航班数已回升至创纪录的高点，比以往有更多的人在云端翱翔。在 2024 年 7 月的某个时刻，天空中同时有近 15,000 架客机在飞行——这还没有计算所有的单引擎飞机、直升机、无人机、军用喷气机等等。但用肉眼观察，我们通常只能看到一架飞机在数千英尺的高空划破云层。
为了将这些分散的、几乎不可见的交通流量转化为戏剧性的光迹，Mauney 将他的伪装相机固定在三脚架上，在设定位置放置数小时，拍摄数百甚至数千次曝光，随后在后期制作中将图像堆叠，从而创造出一张单幅照片。一些图像揭示了交通模式，所有飞机的弯曲带状线在向目的地转向之前都采取相同的起飞路线。而其他照片，例如那些偶尔出现具有圣诞气息的
纽瓦克是美国第 14 繁忙的机场，每天大约有 1,100 架飞机起飞。
为了捕捉一整晚的空中交通而所需的长曝光时间，意味着 Mauney 的相机偶尔也会捕捉到地面层级的运动，例如汽车或纽泽西州卡特雷特 (Carteret) 的这些节日灯光。
A U G U S T 八月
绿、白、红色的光条，展示了飞行员在数字时代依然依赖的物理导航工具——绿灯始终在右翼 (starboard wing) 闪烁，红灯在左翼 (port side)，而白色的尾灯在后方。此外，还有一些图像，其中到达飞机的直线带与星星的弧形轨道交汇在一起。
漫长的夜晚让这项工作成为可能，但也使其变得更加棘手。虽然人们可能会认为飞机的运行具有一定的可预测性和节奏感，但 Mauney 指出，在长曝光拍摄中，几乎任何事情都可能出错。在他看来，这种吸引力的一部分在于“我无法控制拍摄对象，”他说道。由于强阵风，空中交通管制员可能会更改激活的跑道，或者好奇的执法人员可能会停下来询问 Mauney 究竟在做什么。但对于 Mauney 来说，这一切都是他努力将“我眼中的混乱转化为某种形式的秩序”中值得的一部分。j
在这张纽约市的照片中，弯曲的线条显示了从约翰·肯尼迪国际机场起飞的飞机，而横穿中间的线条则是前往拉瓜地亚机场的飞机。
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几个世纪以来，Tbourida 传统骑术 (摩洛哥马术运动) 仅限男性参与。现在，女性骑手正将这一充满冲击力的传统带给新一代。
文字：Aida Alami
摄影：Chantal Pinzi
崛起
一场传统骑术 (Tbourida) 表演
在一群持枪骑手同步发射的一声枪响中达到高潮。
这里，从左起第二位的努拉·莱布达维 (Noura Lebdaoui) 在开火后控制住她的马。莱布达维在摩洛哥少数几个全女性剧团之一中骑行，挑战着人们对长期被认为是男性传统的认知的看法。
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扎希亚·阿布莱特 (Zahia Aboulait) 小时候最喜欢跟着父亲一起参加被称为 moussems 的摩洛哥乡村节日，看他在他的传统骑术 (tbourida) 剧团中表演。传统骑术是一种有着数百年历史的马术传统，是一种观赏性运动。骑手队伍在泥土赛道上进行模拟骑兵冲锋，以紧凑且同步的精准度引导马匹前行。当骑手们在马匹全速奔驰时，一致举起一套古风步枪并共同发射出一声雷鸣般的齐射，整个骑行队伍随之结束。这项练习得名于阿拉伯语中表示“火药”的词汇，虽然北非其他地区也有表演，但在摩洛哥尤为深受喜爱。阿布莱特的父亲是一名农民，将加入剧团骑行作为业余爱好；而几乎从不错过一次 moussem 的阿布莱特则热爱其中的每一个部分：马匹的气味、火枪的爆裂声，以及男性身上飘逸且精致的刺绣长袍。
传统骑术在摩洛哥至少从 16 世纪起就开始实践，它从一种军事演习演变为一项融合了该国阿拉伯人和原住民 Amazigh 族群马术习俗的运动。它被联合国教科文组织认定为重要的非物质文化遗产，有时被称为 fantasia——这是 19 世纪法国人赋予的一个具有异域风情色彩的绰号，在摩洛哥很大程度上被蔑视。参与者（无论是人还是马）通常穿着华丽的传统服装，骑手携带细长的前装步枪，让人想起一个更早的 era.。任何一次表演仅持续几
那时，传统骑术的骑手几乎全部是男性。但在 1999, 的一天，她父亲剧团里的一名骑手没有出现，当时 14 岁的阿布莱特请求接替他的位置。她从六岁起就开始骑马，观察和学习传统骑术的时间也差不多一样长。她的父亲支持女儿的热情，并不认为让她骑马有问题。他借给她一件名为 djellaba 的长传统长袍，她将其穿在运动裤和运动鞋外面。当她进一步试探运气并要求使用枪支时，父亲给了她一把，并教会她如何装填黑火药（不含子弹）。关于那天的骑行，阿布莱特记得的是人群中那些可能从未见过女性骑手的人们，对着她拍了数百张照片。
在随后的 27 年里，女性在传统骑术中站稳了脚跟。如今，阿布莱特是该国最著名的女性骑手之一，也是她自己的全女性剧团的领导者——在摩洛哥大约一千个剧团中，这类全女性剧团不超过十几个——并且是少数资深女性圈子的一员，她们共同帮助人们改变了对这项传统样貌的认知。现在，随着传统骑术的视频在社交媒体上激增，将这项运动呈现在新的全球观众面前，阿布莱特发现自己正从一名先驱转变为一名导师，培训下一代年轻女性，以继承这一拥有深厚历史根基的习俗。
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传统骑术可追溯至 16 世纪，如今的骑手通过传统服饰来致敬这一遗产，服饰中通常包括古风的北非阿拉伯剑。
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“这是一个传统，一份我们必须守护的遗产。”
——吉塔·吉亚特 (Ghita Jhiate)
吉塔·吉亚特在传统骑术表演前为她的马 泽赫 (Zher) 洗澡时紧握缰绳。在这项运动中通常使用公马。在过去的两年里，吉亚特和泽赫一直在由扎希亚·阿布莱特领导的剧团（或称 sorba）中骑行，阿布莱特是 2000 年代中期首批组建全女性传统骑术剧团的骑手之一。
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女性 sorba 剧团大约在 20 年前开始在摩洛哥组建，而今天，最初的女性传统骑术骑手发现
他们自己也在指导新一代。
在首都拉巴特，
当布什拉·纳巴塔（Bouchra Nabata）在 2007. 年创建她的骑乘队（sorba）时，队里的许多骑手还太小，无法骑马。目前的成员包括（从左下角起顺时针方向）：
多哈·纳吉（Doha Naji）、希芭·埃萨拉克（Hiba Essallak）、马尔瓦·埃萨拉克（Marwa Essallak）、马尔瓦·埃尔迈特（Marwa Elmaite）、伊赫拉斯·格米里（Ikhlass Guemiri）、莱拉·纳巴塔（Laila Nabata）以及马胡芭·纳巴塔（Mahjouba Nabata，身穿橙色服装）。
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20 多岁。但当她创建自己的女性骑乘队（男女混合的骑乘队依然罕见）时，她还是一名青少年。扎希亚·阿布莱特（Zahia Aboulait）表示，她们几乎没有遇到直接的抵制，尽管偶尔会有男性骑手表现出敌意，但许多人则是支持且有礼貌的，甚至主动提出借出步枪或让她的骑乘队先行骑行。
卡萨布兰卡 穆莱·阿卜杜拉
拉巴特
西迪·拉哈尔
摩洛哥
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大西洋
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阿尔及利亚
如今，阿布莱特住在卡萨布兰卡，从事工商管理工作并抚养三个孩子。但在夏天，她会跑遍各个节日（moussem）巡回赛，带领一群由她亲自挑选并培训成为传统骑术 (Tbourida) 骑手的年轻女性。作为领队（muqadema），她的职责远不止于在队列最前端骑行。当成员没有自己的马时，她负责为骑手匹配合适的借用马匹。她还管理团队的服装和财务。她主持训练和热身环节，确保骑手们学会让马匹与步枪在完美的同步中协同运作。
西撒哈拉 (摩洛哥)
100 mi
100 km
几秒钟内，密集的马蹄声和期待感在一次完美的齐射中达到顶点。当马匹、骑手和步枪的同步达到极致时，人群会爆发出欢呼。骑乘队的评判标准在于其精准度、华丽程度和马术技巧。
罗格斯大学的社会学家扎基亚·萨利姆（Zakia Salime）表示，几个世纪以来，传统骑术被认为是一种“男性的表演”，是对战士技能的展示，女性传统上被排除在外。萨利姆说，第一批女性传统骑术骑乘队始于 2000 年代中期。她将这种转变称为一场“安静的革命”，并非抗议或鼓动的结果。内布拉斯加-林肯大学的人类学家、国家地理学会探索者格温妮丝·塔利（Gwyneth Talley）在研究女性传统骑术骑乘队后表示，这也不是由任何单项规则或政策的改变所促成的。但塔利指出，女性骑手的出现确实与摩洛哥国家马术基金会首位女性主席（该国皇室成员）发起的倡导女性参与马术运动的活动相吻合。
阿布莱特强调，传统骑术的核心在于纪律——而她的骑乘队通过严格训练所获得的回报，就是始终如高分的成绩。“我们拥有非常好的声誉，”阿布莱特说，“我们必须守护它。”
对于 26 岁的吉塔·吉亚特（Ghita Jhiate）来说，她随阿布莱特骑行已有两年，这位领队不仅仅是一个榜样——她更像是一个传奇。吉亚特在马拉喀什城市环境中长大，在回乡村探亲时才有机会骑马，但她在青少年时期，父亲拒绝让她参加课程。但这并没有阻止她对传统骑术的痴迷，当家人前往市外参加节日巡回赛时，吉亚特对此感到惊叹。尽管吉亚特从未见过她骑行，但她听过关于扎希亚·阿布莱特的故事，她是该地区首位女性领队。“我会说，‘我想成为扎希亚那样的人’，”吉亚特回忆道。
阿布莱特在父亲的骑乘队（sorba）中骑行，直到她 20 多岁。
NGM MAPS
将照片和视频发布到社交媒体上的前景，因为传统骑术这种短小且色彩绚丽的奇观在社交媒体上很受欢迎。阿布莱特说，她更倾向于那些因为热爱这份工作而加入的成员。她的骑乘队确实会拍摄表演视频——不一定是为了发布，而是为了在赛后像观看比赛录像一样，研究成员们需要改进的地方。
在 20 多岁时，Jhiate 买了一把自己的传统骑术 (Tbourida) 步枪，名为 moukahla。她终于开始了骑乘课程，随后存了足够的钱买了一匹自己的马，并将其寄养在马拉喀什郊外。她给马起名为 Zher，意为“运气”。
一名网友分享了 Aboulait 的电话号码，但 Jhiate 始终没勇气拨打。直到有一天，她的手机震动了，当她低头看时，整个人愣住了——是 muqadema（领骑员）打来的。Aboulait 是通过一名他们共同认识的骑手得知了 Jhiate。这位年轻的骑手愿意在摩洛哥最大且最著名的节日之一中，加入 Aboulait 的 sorba（骑行队）共同骑行吗？
在每次骑行前，团队会一起进行清洗，这是名为 wudu 的穆斯林仪式性净洗。然后，女性们会进行一次 dua，即祈祷，祈求骑行安全。Aboulait 表示，骑手们在骑马时保持心态平和且彼此和谐至关重要。她们涂抹防晒霜但不化妆，Aboulait 说这样可以避免注意力转向个人而非团队。她对一些她认为的现代对传统骑术 (Tbourida) 的侵蚀感到痛心。例如，她提到，过去男孩在被允许骑行之前必须学习更多内容。sorbas 的领导者被期待在他们的 moussem（集市）帐篷中担任礼节周到的主人，为客人提供食物。她说，这与其说是 Aboulait 在怀旧，不如说她只是在守护标准。
五天后，在半夜，Jhiate 带着 Zher 到达了 Moussem Moulay Abdellah Amghar。这是一个为期一周的年度活动，一百多支传统骑术 (Tbourida) 队伍在数千名观众面前竞争。她在 Aboulait 与剧团共用的帐篷外找到了她。两人交谈了几句，随后 Jhiate 在一群陌生人身边睡下了。第二天，她第一次在她的偶像——以及她现在视为姐妹的女性们——身边骑行。
多年之后，她并不认为自己通过帮助女性进入这项运动而具有特别的革命性。Aboulait 说，传统骑术 (Tbourida) 最美好之处之一就是它抹去了参与者之间的差异。在 moussems 上，一百支队伍的名单中可能只有两三支是由女性组成的，但她感到与所有同行骑手有着亲缘关系。传统骑术 (Tbourida) 将她与父亲联系在一起。如今，它正地巩固她与年轻门徒之间的纽带。“年龄、社会、文化，”她说，“大家说着同样的语言。” j
Jhiate 说，Aboulait 教会了她“成为一名骑手意味着什么”。她钦佩她的 muqadema 如何平衡家庭、事业以及对这项运动极具感染力的热爱。“当我们回头发现扎希亚·阿布莱特 (Zahia Aboulait) 是快乐的，”Jhiate 说，“当我们看到她在笑，我们比她更开心。”
Aboulait 刻意将她的剧团保持在较小规模。一些 sorbas 有超过 24 名骑手；而她的队伍目前不足 12 人。她说，如今她遇到一些年轻人，他们对这项运动的兴趣似乎是由
左图
扎希亚·阿布莱特 (Zahia Aboulait) 的 sorba 成员们——包括中左侧的 Ilham Mahfoud Salam 和中右侧的 Siham Aboulait——在每场表演前祈求安全。传统骑术 (Tbourida) 通常在被称为 moussems 的乡村集市上表演，这些集市是为了纪念当地的圣徒。
“这让你感到自豪。
除了体育方面，
它还具有某种摩洛哥特质，某种属于我们的东西。”
——扎希亚·阿布莱特 (Zahia Aboulait)
下图
Ikrati Talid 在一支总部位于内陆城市马拉喀什的全女性 sorba 中骑行。她经常担任领骑员，即 muqadema。
在拉巴特的 Nabata 家族马厩中，骑手们在为训练课做准备。人类学家 Gwyneth Talley 是一位国家地理学会 (National Geographic Society) 的探险家，她曾与 Nabatas 的 sorba 共处，她表示，男性传统骑术 (Tbourida) 骑手比女性更倾向于拥有自己使用的马。通常，一名 muqadema 必须为她的骑手们借马。
Chaymae Saad Eddine 是 Aboulait sorba 的一名骑手，在沿海小镇 Sidi Rahal 的一次 moussem 表演前，她正在调整缰绳。马匹佩戴着奢华的、通常由手工刺绣的马具。
下方
来自卡萨布兰卡的欣德·阿尔-拉米（Hind Al-Rami）与她的姐姐共同组建了一支全女性的传统骑术 (Tbourida) 剧团。阿尔-拉米表示，参与传统骑术使姐妹俩与家人产生了隔阂，因为家人认为女性不应该骑马。
“我与我的马分享了一切：我的金钱、我的开支、我的爱，甚至我的悲伤时刻。”
右图
马尔瓦·埃萨拉克（Marwa Essallak，左）、希芭·埃萨拉克（Hiba Essallak，中）和马尔瓦·埃尔迈特（Marwa Elmaite）在布希拉·纳巴塔（Bouchra Nabata）的骑兵队（sorba）中共同骑行，她们在训练课前帮彼此系好头巾。
—欣德·阿尔-拉米
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阿布莱特的剧团在穆莱·阿卜杜拉·阿姆加尔节（Moussem Moulay Abdellah Amghar）进行彩排，这是规模最大、最负盛名的传统骑术节日之一。去年的节日迎来了 130 支男性骑兵队和三支女性骑兵队。男女混合的剧团非常罕见。
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传统骑术骑手的古董风格步枪装有黑火药。来自阿布莱特剧团的萨阿德·埃丁（Saad Eddine）和莱布达维（Lebdaoui）正在清理在表演期间哑火的步枪。
我是如何拍摄这张照片的
近距离观察一种难以捉摸的
为了捕捉中国著名黑白熊的影像，一位极具创造力的摄影师首先必须找到它。
摄影与文字： 罗布·格林 (ROB G. GREEN)
“在中国，大熊猫的形象无处不在：路标、背包、钥匙扣、店面、茶杯。但要在野外见到一只大熊猫是出了名的困难——即使是在大熊猫国家公园。去年秋天，我在中国中部的这个保护区度过了三周，同行的是两名森林护林员以及三位摄影师兼国家地理学会探索者。我们的目标是设置两个红外相机陷阱，以记录被认为生活在公园内 125 平方英里旺朗区域的 30 只未佩戴项圈且未标记的熊猫。那里是一个拥有茂密竹林和原始针叶林的山区，非常适合追求孤独的熊猫。每天，我们检查竹子上的咬痕、熊猫的粪便和脚印。循着这些线索，我在两棵树之间的一个狭窄缝隙处放置了一个相机陷阱，这里似乎是路过的熊猫唯一能走的路。三个月后，凌晨 2:30，电话响了。是我在中国的合作伙伴孙晓东。他让我打开电子邮件，然后——砰！——它就在那里：一只年轻的熊猫正盯着我的脸。” —转述给戈迪·梅格罗斯 (GORDY MEGROZ)
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遍布佛罗里达州的被称为“柏树圆顶”的微型湿地生机勃勃。在佛罗里达大沼泽地国家公园的这处圆顶内部，空气凤梨（Tillandsia air plants）从树上生长而出。
文字：迈克尔·阿德诺 (MICHAEL ADNO) | 摄影：马克·斯通 (MAC STONE)
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当
我 第一次 邂逅 它们 时，，，
地平线上升起时，远处的树木看起来像一座柠檬绿色的体育场。这个高耸的形态是一个标志，预示着一种孤立且近乎秘密的湿地，它是南佛罗里达州一场持续了 6,000 年且至今仍在进行的舞蹈的遗迹。这些被称为柏树圆顶的奇特聚集地通常在远离道路的地方被看到，它们标志着大沼泽地中枢神经系统的边缘——那条从奥基乔比湖（Lake Okeechobee）延伸至佛罗里达南部顶端的 50 英里宽的河流。对大多数人来说，它们是深藏在亚热带边境地带的一群未知群岛。那些进入过圆顶的人会告诉你，那里有点阴森，甚至带有超现实感。三月，我在迈阿密以西 50 英里的名为“鳄鱼钩”（Gator Hook）的岩石地带徒步。在穿过一簇簇小树后，我冒险进入了一个柏树圆顶的核心地带，这是一个困扰了我数十年的生态之谜。
从空中看，佛罗里达的大柏树国家保护区（Big Cypress National Preserve）像一片点缀着圆顶的亮绿色月球表面。在圆顶中心，积水可以深到让柏树种子无法生根。
从小我就知道它们那种像甜甜圈一样的形状，小时候随父母在萨拉索塔 (Sarasota) 和基韦斯特 (Key West) 之间旅行时，就能看到远处那些圆顶。我曾凝视远处那些奇异的树阵，好奇内部是什么样子。后来，我开始定期前往佛罗里达群岛。我开始在佛罗里达大沼泽地 (Florida Everglades) 西部的乔科洛斯基 (Chokoloskee) 岛社区垂钓，
熟悉海岸北部的偏远地带，并在流域的遥远地带徒步寻找兰花。十年前，我开始撰写关于那个地方的文章，在那里花费了更多时间，但即便我对其越来越熟悉，那些遥远的圆顶依然显得神秘。现在，大赛普拉斯国家保护区 (Big Cypress National Preserve) 附近的一场大火促使我向东前往一条名为环路 (Loop Road) 的碎石灰岩地带。即便在干季，这里也可能被一层缓慢流动的水覆盖，有时深达四英尺，但由于南佛罗里达州正处于极端干旱之中，我得以深入到比平时徒步能到达的更深远的偏远地带。
当我向南转向圆顶时，我看到蝴蝶兰和空气植物栖息在圆顶边缘的树上。当我穿过标记边缘的矮柏树林，进入这片阴凉的半英亩湿地时，我
[[IMG_XXXX]] 短吻鳄在柏树圆顶中可以充当令人惊讶的“工程师”，它们在淤泥中打洞，扩大水流和鱼类聚集的区域。这只母亲短吻鳄在佛罗里达大沼泽地国家公园的柏树根下守护着她的幼崽。
被巨大的落羽杉（Bald cypress）包围，它们的基部让人想起古老的红杉，上面散布着青色和洋红色的地衣，树皮上垂挂着空气植物，正开始绽放出精致的紫红色、黄绿色和薰衣草色的花簇。我这时想起了第一次独自徒步进入大赛普拉斯保留地北部的圆顶时的情景。那是纯粹的惊奇与恐惧交织的感觉，一种被美洲豹或水蝮蛇盯着的感觉。那片由兰花和凤梨科植物点亮、充满新鲜感的绿色阴影之池，一直留在我的心中，像一个我守护的秘密。
大约有车库那么大，倒映着上方飘过的云朵。在水池周围，一群池苹果树在风中摇曳，我想知道水里潜伏着多少只短吻鳄。在这里，我仿佛置身于另一个世界，处于一个瞬间就让人感到神圣的空间中。随着雷声在更西边轰鸣，我终于在了解为什么佛罗里达大沼泽地中这些复杂、孤立的口袋区域对我来说一直如此神秘。但很快，当我开始发现它们意想不到的奇迹时，那种模糊的着迷逐渐演变成了完全不同的东西。
在佛罗里达大沼泽地——一个面积是特拉华州两倍、由近十个不同栖息地组成的区域——有许多东西等待被发现。
一场小雨开始落下，圆顶中央浅浅的水池
VA.
柏树圆顶的形成
北卡罗来纳州
南卡罗来纳州
如今佛罗里达州最常见的静水沼泽类型，柏树圆顶大约形成于 6,000 年前。1900 年代初的大规模伐木砍掉了许多树木，但一些幸存下来的树龄现在已有数百年。圆顶至今仍在发育，它们出现于水分聚集且每年至少维持 200 到 300 天的自然洼地中。
查尔斯顿 (Charleston)
乔治亚州 (GEORGIA)
萨凡纳 (Savannah)
阿拉巴马州 (ALABAMA)
密西西比州 (MISSISSIPPI)
大西洋 (ATLANTIC OCEAN)
杰克逊维尔 (Jacksonville)
路易斯安那州 (LOUISIANA)
佛罗里达州 (FLORIDA)
有利于柏树圆顶形成的栖息地
奥基乔比湖 (Lake Okeechobee)
萨拉索塔 (Sarasota)
大赛普拉斯国家保护区 (BIG CYPRESS NAT. PRESERVE)
草水保护区 (GRASSY WATERS PRESERVE)
100 mi
100 km
迈阿密 (Miami)
乔科洛斯基 (Chokoloskee)
大沼泽地国家公园 (EVERGLADES N.P.)
s
y
e
K
a
d
基韦斯特 (Key West)
i
r
o
l
F
1 2 3
石灰岩基岩溶解，沉积物沉入新创造的空间。
酸性水渗入地下。
无论是逐渐还是突然地，出现一个洼地。水聚集，柏树萌发。
逐渐溶解导致表面下陷
近表层的空洞可能会突然坍塌
表面层
石灰岩
戴安娜·马克斯 (DIANA MARQUES)、克里斯蒂娜·费伦兹 (CHRISTINE FELLENZ) 和 布拉德·斯克里伯 (BRAD SCRIBER)，国家地理杂志工作人员。来源：埃塞克斯大学的考特尼·卡梅隆 (CORTNEY CAMERON)；美国林务局；美国农业部 LANDFIRE
令人心潮澎湃。这里有生存了数千年的史前鱼类，在时间的洗礼下几乎没有改变。还有以幽灵和雪茄命名的迷人兰花。这是少数几个短吻鳄与鳄鱼共存的地方之一。相比之下，柏树圆顶 (Cypress domes) 很少能像该流域的其他元素那样获得同样的关注、研究或保护。
在东南部，它们高度集中在南佛罗里达。佛罗里达大学水资源研究所所长、生态水文学家马特·科恩 (Matt Cohen) 表示，与规模更大的湿地相比，这些“无名的小型湿地”在生态上的重要程度要高出几个数量级。大约 6,000 年前，在曾经覆盖南佛罗里达的海水最终退去后，佛罗里达大沼泽地 (Florida Everglades) 的生态系统开始形成。在此之前不久，柏树的第一批迹象便已出现。
但近年来，一系列关于圆顶的发现阐明了它们的重要性。它们发挥着重要的物理、生物和化学作用，并为濒危物种提供了避风港。尽管圆顶出现在美国的部分
这个名字源于关于基帕里索斯 (Cyparissus) 的古代起源神话，那个男孩不小心杀死了一头驯鹿，在悲痛中化作了一棵柏树。这个故事使得
圆顶效应 树木在水边较低……
甜甜圈效应 一些圆顶有一个中心开放区域，那里的水太深，柏树无法发芽
……而在水更深、土壤更肥沃的地方生长得更高
池杉 (Pond cypress), Taxodium ascendens
50-60 英尺高
(圆顶中心的成年树)
土壤
夏季
(雨季)
冬季
沙土
(旱季)
砂质粘土
石灰岩
4
在大约 100 年的时间里，随着飘落的柏树叶分解，它们创造了更多的土壤，使柏树网络能够扩张。圆顶中的水分在一年中通常波动几英尺——或者在冬季完全干涸——为动植物提供了宝贵的栖息地。
树干宽处的一个弯曲处可以标记夏季通常的高水位线。
柏树膝根 (cypress knees，一种气生根) 的功能尚未被完全理解。目前主要的假设是它们有助于氧气摄入或维持结构稳定性。
柏树圆顶，例如在迈阿密以北约 80 英里的赛普拉斯溪自然保护区 (Cypress Creek Natural Area) 中的这一个，以其类似抛物线的轮廓点缀着地平线——这反映了树木在土壤最深的中心位置生长最高。火灾可能会清除边缘较小的柏树，从而维持圆顶独特的形状。
从顶部看
圆顶在景观中起到了海绵的作用，捕捉洪水和其他径流。在佛罗里达大沼泽地国家公园一个圆顶内看到的水生植被，在水流排入比斯坎 (Biscayne) 含水层之前，有助于过滤水中的沉积物、氮和磷；该含水层为南佛罗里达的 500 多万人提供饮用水。
当 8 月和 9 月雨季高峰期的水位达到顶峰时，像佛罗里达长吻鱼这样的鱼类可能会出现在圆顶内。
土壤。最终，基岩中的那个洼地在整个冬季蓄住了更多水分，使树木得以繁茂生长，而短吻鳄和涉禽等生物在干旱期间也能找到更多的栖息地和食物。这种情况持续了数百年，然后是数千年，直到那些最初萌芽的柏树在水池边缘演变为茂密的圆形林分，而水池中心可能会变得过深，导致树木无法再生。从上方看，它们像是有麻点的林冠或霓虹色的甜甜圈，但从侧面看，它们呈现出起伏的形状：最靠近中心的树木最高且通常最成熟，向边缘方向则陡然降低为矮树。
“柏树圆顶是自我创造的，”科恩说道。“你有多少机会能真正思考‘生态系统本身就是其工程师’这个概念？”这些生态奇观已成为自然界如何适应环境的标志：南佛罗里达州的圆顶是由基岩中的洼地在干季蓄水而形成的，同时也可能是美国短吻鳄的作用——它们在干季寻找这些洼地，进一步挖掘土壤，从而成为了佛罗里达大沼泽地的协作工程师。
将这些树木转化为哀悼与永恒的象征——考虑到它们是地球上最古老的活树之一，这十分恰当。如今，人们认为美国东南部现存最古老的柏树至少可以追溯到 2,000 年前。
科恩解释了柏树圆顶中心的树木是如何通过挖掘水池而长得更高的：落叶在积水中产生的酸就像“火箭燃料”一样，随着时间的推移在石灰岩中蚀刻出更深的洼地，从而收集更多的水和土壤。我了解到这一过程随后创造了更肥沃、更深层的土壤，而离中心越远，土壤的营养和深度就越低，因此树木也越小。周期性地席卷佛罗里达大沼泽地部分地区的火灾（例如 3 月的大柏树林火灾）摧毁了圆顶边缘的树木，有助于塑造其球形外观。我了解到，我在地面上看到的相同曲线，在土壤和喀斯特基岩的侵蚀中以抛物线反射的形式在地下得到了呼应。
蒂穆库亚人使用柏树制作独木舟，而塞米诺尔人和米科苏基人则用它们建造房屋。由于心材具有极高价值，林业公司对其进行了贪婪的砍伐，以至于到 20 世纪初，佛罗里达州大部分古老的柏树林已经消失。
研究这些湿地超过 20 年的科恩告诉我，随着季节更替，雨季来去，树木与地面之间开始了长期的相互作用。柏树落下的叶子在水中分解，产生碳酸，从而侵蚀
在大柏树国家保护区中，短吻鳄聚集在柏树林带（cypress strand）中，它是圆顶的近亲。这两类湿地在干季都会吸引野生动物。但与规模较小、呈圆形的圆顶不同，林带的功能更像是一条河流。
柏树圆顶栖息着 300 多个植物物种，包括兰花、空气植物、蕨类植物和大沼泽地雏菊（如图所示，春季在 Everglades 国家公园的一个圆顶内盛开，此时林冠尚未长满叶子）。
科恩表示，像这样的小型洼地湿地是“景观中令人惊叹的栖息地马赛克”，佛罗里达州约三分之一的极危生物在其生命周期的某个阶段生活在这里。它们是蝾螈和青蛙（食物链的关键组成部分）的避风港，也是在南北美洲之间往返的候鸟的中转站：这里是少数在春季和秋季能看到一群燕尾鸢盘旋的地方。当你进入圆顶那染着翡翠色的阴影中时，内部的植物可能与其他圆顶中的截然不同。“这在某种程度上是一个特性，而不是缺陷，”科恩告诉我。这种多样性反映了每个圆顶内部培育的独特生态系统。
在较大的湿地中具有相似规模的。 “它们真的被低估了，”研究佛罗里达州圆顶独特水文学的科学家考特尼·卡梅伦说道。
尽管如此，针对这些区域的监管保障仍少于其他湿地。2023年，最高法院取消了对那些与海洋、湖泊、溪流或河流没有“连续地表连接”的湿地的联邦保护。据某些估计，全美境内曾受1972年《清洁水法》保护的湿地中，有超过半数现在可能面临风险。受州法律保护或位于大柏树国家保护区（Big Cypress）或佛罗里达大沼泽地国家公园（Everglades National Park）等国家公园内的柏树圆顶林（cypress domes）依然安全；但在佛罗里达州以外，大量圆顶林现在可能会被夷为平地并填埋，从而消除该地区一些最关键的栖息地。“这种存储能力和栖息地的逐渐丧失会产生后果，”科恩说道，“这是‘千刀万剐’式的死亡。”
这些圆顶林具有至关重要的蓄水能力，能够“剧烈地改变洪水的流动方式”，实质上截获了强降雨和地表径流，在南佛罗里达州开发猖獗的背景下，这使它们的价值日益增加。但他指出，当这些区域受到保护并被允许自然运行的时候，它们就像海绵一样，存储水分并与为数百万人口提供饮用水的含水层进行交换。圆顶林是氮、磷和沉积物被拦截、中和并存储的首批场所之一。它们富含泥炭的土壤也是卓越的碳汇。保护一英亩这样的林地所带来的环境效益，远比保护一个空间
一个绿洲：这是涉水鸟类以陷入池中的鱼类为食的自助餐厅，是它们所支撑的数百种植物的避难所，也是鳄鱼的港湾——鳄鱼能帮助创建这些圆顶林，并依赖它们生存。
我在南佛罗里达州徒步走进不同的圆顶林的时间越多，感受到的敬畏之情就越深，我也越能体会为什么这种体验像是进入了某种神圣或具有历史意义的地方。这种赋予大沼泽地特质的强烈多样性，以及由水与火、土壤与基岩之间的交织而创建的令人眼花缭乱的不同生态系统地图，变得愈发清晰。科恩告诉我，正是这种狂野的多样性构成了大沼泽地的核心跳动——他将其称为“水文异质性”。我假装听懂了。但在探索了足够的圆顶林之后，我能看出每一座林地有多么不同：一座林地里分布着各式各样的空气植物，另一座被粉色地衣浸染，呈现出一种幻觉般的特质，还有一座则长满了黄绿色的蕨类植物。每一座都承载着这种原始的感觉。关于为什么每一座圆顶林如此不同的谜团，反而加深了这种感觉。
在南佛罗里达州，气候变化以微妙且有时剧烈的方式影响着我们生活的每一个方面和每一个季节，柏树圆顶林正因冬季更干燥和夏季更炎热而受到威胁。今年，佛罗里达州的研究人员透露，这些树木正在通过提高水分吸收效率来适应气候变化，这可能是它们在面对该地区不可避免的转变时具有韧性的信号。圆顶林可能是抵御危机的堡垒，不仅是因为它们的碳存储能力，还因为在干季，它们变成了
我记得有些林冠上出现了猛禽或涉水鸟类，有些林中响起了猫头鹰的叫声，琥珀色的光柱被树木的绿色藤蔓所勾勒，单宁酸水因叶片的颜色而染上色调。我想起当我们深入自然时，我们所有人都会参与的一场仪式。在薄雾中，另一个世界似乎地显现，或者更准确地说，我们的世界地清晰了起来。在雷声轰鸣以及更西边山火燃烧的背景下，我站在环路（Loop Road）附近的那个圆顶林中，思考着它还隐藏着什么样的秘密。j
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N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
FROM the EDITOR
ONE OF THE things I am often struck by in our stories is how so many of them are the product of persistence. The people whose work we bring to life in these pages are tenacious. The time, effort, courage, and sheer dedication they exhibit make great things happen, and I believe we are all beneficiaries, in one way or another, of the passion that animates what they do.
the eruption. Although discovered years ago, they were impossible to read, but now technology, including AI, is making that a reality.
We also bring you this month a glimpse into the wild world of Joel Sartore, whose photos we often share in the magazine. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Joel’s Photo Ark project, an endeavor that is the very embodiment of persistence, an attempt to document every animal species living in the world’s zoos, aquariums, and wildlife sanctuaries. Joel’s work is no mere stunt or vanity project: His mission in capturing the essence of these remarkable creatures, many of which are endangered, is to inspire us to protect them. He has photographed more than 18,000 animals so far. If that’s not commitment, I don’t know what is.
This issue offers a case in point. Our cover story takes a fresh look at the ancient communities—Pompeii, famously, but there are othersdestroyed by the monumental eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. That catastrophic incident is one of history’s most studied natural disasters, but thanks to the persistence of archaeologists and researchers, we are still uncovering finds that present new insights. One of my favorite parts of our feature details the painstaking work researchers are doing to decipher the writing on fragile papyrus scrolls that miraculously survived
I hope you enjoy the issue.
PHOTO: MARK THIESSEN, NGM STAFF
V O L U M E 2 5 0 N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C N U M B E R 0 2
6 O U R W O R L D | 1 2 I N F O C U S
64
REVEALING EVERY ANIMAL ON EARTH
Wildlife photographer Joel Sartore is on a quest to make intimate portraits of some 25,000 animal species. Twenty years into his Photo Ark project, global biodiversity has never been so in need of a champion.
18
116
THE DAY THE WORLD EXPLODED
A SINGUL AR LO OK AT AN ELUSIVE GIAN T PANDA
Cutting-edge science is prompting surprising revelations about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the Roman settlements it destroyed—and changing our understanding of the people who lived there.
For one photographer, weeks of slogging through a Chinese wilderness led to an extraordinary close-up.
86
HIDDEN HIGHWAYS OF THE NIGHT SKY
118
MYSTERY FORESTS OF THE MARSHL AND S
58
THE QUEST TO SAVE THE WORLD’S RAREST ORCHID S
In Florida’s gatorstrewn backcountry,
94
THE RISE OF
stands of strangely tiered cypresses have long been an ecocuriosity, but scientists are coming to realize their incredible value.
In Colombia, a maverick flower collector is pulling endangered orchids back from the brink of extinction.
MORO CCO’S HORSEWOMEN
For centuries, only men practiced the equestrian sport of tbourida. Now a cohort of trailblazing women is recruiting a new generation of fierce female riders.
1 3 4 F R O M T H E VAU LT
ON THE COVER At Oplontis, a seaside resort buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, a marble sculpture of the goddess Nike, recovered from the ruins, is now on display. Photograph by PA O L O V E R Z O N E
Our WORLD
B E H I N D T H E S C E N E S W I T H N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
“The first time I saw Zahia’s troupe shooting, I was full of adrenaline—it was like me being on top of that horse.”
The new Museum of Exploration uses projected video to highlight the species photographed by Joel Sartore.
This month’s profile of wildlife photographer and National Geographic Explorer Joel Sartore (“Revealing Every Animal on Earth,” p. 64) marks the 20th anniversary of his Photo Ark project, an ambitious quest to capture portraits of every species in human captivity. Over two decades, Sartore has photographed some 18,000 animals. This summer the project comes to life at the new National Geographic Museum of Exploration, in Washington, D.C., where an exhibition will feature giant projections of Sartore’s photos—along with interactive explanations of how the images have become powerful tools for the protection of species at risk. Meanwhile, National Geographic Books has published an anniversary edition of Photo Ark: Animals of Earth
PHOTOS: REBECCA HALE, NGM STAFF (EXHIBIT); MARWA ELMAITE
To document big changes in the Moroccan sport of tbourida, photographer Chantal Pinzi (above) embedded with teams of rifle-toting horsewomen—including one led by legendary rider Zahia Aboulait—for this month’s feature (“The Rise of Morocco’s Horsewomen,” p. 94).
that pairs Sartore’s portraits with new essays by the writer Sy Montgomery. Reserve tickets for the Museum of Exploration at natgeo.org/moe.
A U G U S T P A G E . 6
National Geographic’s docudrama series Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston unveils the latest insights into the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, also the subject of the cover feature (“The Day the World Exploded,” p. 18). We asked host and Executive Producer Hiddleston—a classics student at the University of Cambridge before becoming an award-winning actor—what fresh lessons Pompeii offers.
The show dramatizes the lives of everyday people before the eruption. Why?
What surprised you most? I had always presumed that the volcano erupts and the city’s buried, and there was nothing they could do. But not everyone was buried. And that image of a fullscale humanitarian crisis where you have hundreds if not thousands of refugees who are fleeing and looking for a new homethat’s a very resonant contemporary image, and I hope it’s one that inspires great empathy.
That’s what Pompeii evokes for me. It’s not about the statues of the high-status figures, the generals and the consuls and the emperors. The plaster casts [of victims of the eruption, made by archaeologists] are ordinary people. Fathers and mothers and children and teachers and uncles and the family dog. And I find that’s what’s so moving.
PHOTO: PAOLO VERZONE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Why does this era endlessly fascinate us?
Hiddleston and crew
meet with survival psychologist Sarita
We tell stories about the past to understand something about our present, and a place like Pompeii is a gateway where the 2,000 years that exist between us compress, so it all feels like it happened yesterday.
Robinson inside a Pompeii villa.
THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED FOR LENGTH AND CLARITY.
Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston is streaming on Disney+. Check local listings.
Technologies like lidar and high-res CT scanners are helping usher in a new golden age of dino research, with scientists uncovering as many as 50 previously unknown species a year. This special issue reveals how these new discoveries are changing our understanding of the prehistoric giants we thought we knew.
N E W O N N E WS STA N D S
Dinosaurs: A New Look
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OUR WORLD
These contributors have received funding from the National Geographic Society, which is committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world. Learn more about the Society’s support of Explorers at natgeo.com/impact.
Paolo Verzone
“The Day the World Exploded,” p. 18
For this month’s cover story, Verzone photographed artifacts from Pompeii and other sites destroyed by Mount Vesuvius. Many were sourced from museum storerooms; others are now in the hands of researchers who are using innovative technologies to unravel ancient mysteries.
“The Mystery Forests of the Marshlands,” p. 118
A South Carolina-based photographer, Stone has been at work documenting the Florida Everglades for more than 15 years. In this issue, he takes readers inside forested wetlands called cypress domes. For one shot, he waded in alligator-filled waters to score a breathtaking close-up of the creatures.
Where a Photographer Found Botanical Bliss
Growing up in Cali, Colombia, Juanita Escobar saw plenty of orchids—her mother had a side job cultivating and selling the elegant plants. But Escobar had never encountered anything like the explosion of colors she found shooting this issue’s story on Daniel Piedrahíta, a Colombian orchid collector turned maverick conservationist (“The Quest to Save the World’s Rarest Orchids,” p. 58). At Piedrahíta’s sprawling sanctuary, Escobar hardly knew where to point
PHOTOS: LUCA ZANETTI (TOP); REBECCA HALE, NGM STAFF
“How I Got the Shot,” p. 116
her camera. “Your eyes are constantly hyperactive,” she says.
An Explorer since 2022, Missoula, Montana-based Green ventured far from home to take his photograph in this issue. In China’s Giant Panda National Park, Green and his team installed camera traps to capture one of the country’s most iconic creatures in the wild.
Writer Alexandra Marvar, who also visited Piedrahíta’s conservatory, used watercolors to capture details of the orchids in her reporter’s notebook.
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I N F O C U S
J U S T I N F R O M O U R P H O T O G R A P H E R S
W I L D L I F E
In the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), these month-old elephant seals take one of their first dips in the ocean. Photographer Matty Smith was there to document the moment the mothers depart this famous breeding ground and return to the South Atlantic, leaving hundreds of babies, newly weaned, to fend for themselves. “The pups were super friendly, trying to climb on me, trying to climb on my camera,” Smith says. These playful pups live off their blubber reserves until they learn to swim and start hunting for fish.
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In his workshop in Malta, Mario Pandolfino, a 76-year-old toymaker and inventor, poses with his son, Matthew, 41, an artist and set designer. Photographer Valery Poshtarov made this portrait as part of a series he calls Father and Son. He’s traveled to 15 countries, asking his subjects to hold hands, something they may not have done in decades. “I’m giving them this safe space,” he says, “to build or rebuild a connection.”
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Bornean clouded leopard, Neofelis diardi borneensis
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Near Baja California in Mexico, a group of striped marlins corral hundreds of smaller fish into a dense formation known as a bait ball, before feasting on their prey. Photographer Brooke Pyke used her underwater camera to capture “these majestic, agile hunters” as they chased the fish to the surface, she says, much like dogs herding sheep. As the marlins took turns swooping in to feed, a few sea lions joined the fray, diving headlong into the ball and dispersing the fish.
Originally nicknamed the Garden City of India for its farms and parks, Bengaluru has been transformed by the tech industry into the country’s version of Silicon Valley. National Geographic Explorer Sayan Hazra photographed this recently designed pocket of native plants in the growing metropolis as part of his project documenting green spaces in urban areas. “The cultivating, planting, watering, fertilizing, and pruning” of these gardens, Hazra says, goes largely unnoticed by most residents. But this invisible choreography supports an essential source of biodiversity and calm in the booming city.
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It was one of history’s most dramatic moments—but the eruption of Mount Vesuvius wasn’t a single disaster. New evidence reveals how three settlements in the shadow of the volcano faced three distinct fates, reshaping our understanding of how ancient Romans lived and died.
Words by S A M K E A N Photographs by P A O L O V E R Z O N E
In A.D. 79, Mount Vesuvius blew its top, raining ash over the Campania region of Italy,
near modern-day Naples, and burying surrounding commu-
nities beneath as much as 60 feet of volcanic debris.
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Systematic excavations of Pompeii began in 1748, and while approximately two-thirds has since been unearthed, a swath of the ancient city remains unexcavated.
A scum of ash was thickening on the surface of the Gulf of Naples, and black fumes were swallowing the sky above. Here, in a waterfront warehouse in the Roman town of Oplontis, five dozen people cowered in terror. Some clutched gold coins and jewelry—family wealth snatched up in panic. Others gripped common iron tools and little more. One young woman hugged her swollen belly, terrified for the unborn child inside. Their ages and social classes varied widely, but they’d likely all gathered in a storeroom on the water’s edge for the same reason: to await a rescue boat they were increasingly fearful would never come.
Herculaneum was mostly spared the lapilli but got pummeled by pyroclastic currents that carbonized organic materials like papyrus and entombed the city beneath 60 feet of stone. Oplontis, situated between Pompeii and Herculaneum, was hit by both, preserving an elaborate frescoed villa as well as the skeletons of dozens of victims.
No one waiting for help in that storeroom made it out alive. By the time any rescue boat could have arrived, the men, women, and children huddled there would already have been buried beneath 30 feet of debris, where they remained for the better part of 2,000 years.
Since the first systematic excavations of the Vesuvius region in the 18th century, scholars have puzzled over the lives of the victims. Modern researchers, armed with tools like artificial intelligence and advanced DNA analysis, are uncovering what earlier generations could only guess at. Discoveries from these three sites are shining new light on life in the Roman Empire. In Oplontis, the skeletons in the storeroom promise rare insights into class and gender dynamics. In Pompeii, a buried latrine is spurring a firstof-its-kind genomic study about ancient diet and health. And in Herculaneum, researchers have gleaned clues about the era’s philosophy and moral codes from a cache of carbonized scrolls that have recently been rendered readable with virtual unwrapping technologies.
What happened that day in A.D. 79 began with a single event, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. But each settlement in the volcano’s shadow—including the most famous, Pompeii—experienced a distinct catastrophe depending on its location relative to the volcano and the timing, speed, and direction of the material Vesuvius spewed. A handful of lucky folks within those communities escaped. But many suffered agonizing deaths: some when pebble-size pumice called lapilli rained down for hours, collapsing buildings onto them; others when superheated avalanches of ash, gas, and rock known as pyroclastic currents scorched everything in their path. The commercial hub of Pompeii largely escaped the pyroclastic currents but disappeared beneath more than 10 feet of wind-borne lapilli. Heaps of ash then hardened around the dead, leaving cavities that, when filled with plaster in later centuries, produced the now iconic casts of their death throes. The posh coastal retreat of
What’s emerging is a coherent story about a world not so distant from our own—a thriving society preoccupied with social inequities, health and wellness, and what it means to lead a fulfilling life.
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Two thousand years after Vesuvius erupted, preserved artifacts are
still offering researchers new insights into different
Roman Empire lifestyles. This marble statue of Nike (Victory) was found at the
upscale Oplontis A villa.
In the first century A.D., tens of thousands of people lived in this fertile region of central Italy nestled near Mount Vesuvius. Catastrophe struck in A.D. 79 when the volcano violently erupted, ravaging the countryside. Devastation was dependent on location, wind, and topography. Today researchers continue to delve into ruins for more discoveries.
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Extent of Roman Empire in A.D. 79
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A prominent city
Five miles southeast of Vesuvius, this urban area was key to commercial and political operations for the surrounding agricultural region.
A coastal suburb
Four miles south of the volcano, two villas anchored the settlement—one opulent and the other an agricultural distribution center.
G u l f o f N a p l e s
SCALE VARIES IN THIS PERSPECTIVE. DISTANCE FROM HERCULANEUM TO POMPEII IS EIGHT MILES (13 KM). MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK AND PATRICIA HEALY, NGM STAFF SOURCES: TINITALY, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF GEOPHYSICS AND VOLCANOLOGY; FLORIAN SEILER, SALVE PROJECT, GERMAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, BERLIN; UNIV. OF TÜBINGEN; LIBERA ESPOSITO, FRANCESCO FIORILLO, MICHELE GINOLFI, GUIDO LEONE, UNIV. OF SANNIO, BENEVENTO; ITINER-E, NATURE SCIENTIFIC DATA; NASA/JPL; GREEN MARBLE; USGS
One eruption, three communities, three different outcomes
OPLONTIS
The suburb was a hub for industry, with an agricultural distribution center (likely for wine) and apartments known today as Oplontis B. It was destined to disappear beneath ash and rock.
Apartments
Storage
Filling wine vessels
Villa of the Papyri: grand e
A fishing village as well as a bastion of culture, Herculaneum was home to the grand estate Villa of the Papyri, which contained a library of scrolls that would succumb to a searing avalanche.
Leather cases for scrolls
Casa della Regina Carolin
Shrine
The city blended private and public life under the same roof. Elite homes like Casa della Regina Carolina were used for social gatherings and business affairs—until pumice and ash entombed it all.
Former atrium, converted to a dining room
SOURCES: CAITLÍN EILÍS BARRETT, CORNELL UNIV.; CASA DELLA REGINA CAROLINA PROJECT; JOHN R. CLARKE, UNIV. OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, MICHAEL L. THOMAS, UNIV. OF TEXAS AT DALLAS, OPLONTIS PROJECT;
SOPHIE HAY, ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK KENNETH LAPATIN, J. PAUL GETTY MU
Time of day Noon Noon
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ERUPTION EFFECTS
Volcanic ash helped preserve skeletal remains, which were found intact with jewels and coins. Nearby were foodstuffs.
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Courtyard
Phases of falling debris and heat from currents likely killed at least 60 people.
Ash from pyroclastic current
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Layers of pumice lapilli
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Currents of ash and gas carbonized organic materials—preserving wooden furniture, foods, fabric, and scrolls.
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na: elite villa
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Trapped in shallower layers of pumice and ash, most human remains and organic materials decomposed.
Crumbling roofs and hot currents crushed, asphyxiated, or heatshocked more than 1,100 people.
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Kitchen Latrine
Bakery
OF POMPEII; MANTHA ZARMAKOUPI, UNIV. OF PENNSYLVANIA; SEUM; CLAUDIO SCARPATI, UNIV. OF NAPLES FEDERICO II
There were warning signs before the eruption: Steam rose from Vesuvius’s summit, the earth trembled. Then a column of ash and stone burst into the sky. Over the next 30 hours, fragments of pumice, called lapilli, covered the towns below and superheated avalanches of gas and ash known as pyroclastic currents raced down the mountainside.
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Graphics and maps by F E R N A N D O G . B A P T I S T A , P AT R I C I A H E A LY, and M A T T H E W W. C H W A S T Y K
Gulf of Naples
F A L L I N G D E B R I S
SECOND DAY
From midday into the evening, most debris from the eruptive column blew southeast, blanketing the terrain with lapilli.
In the morning, the column collapsed, triggering the intense pyroclastic currents that charged down Vesuvius’s slopes.
Wind direction
In 1974, construction crews sinking pylons for a school gymnasium in the town of Torre Annunziata struck something unexpected. Instead of bedrock, they discovered an ancient Roman warehouse, which included that storeroom full of skeletons. It was a remarkable archaeological find: people from all walks of life, all killed in the same disaster and perhaps in the same instant. By the time of their death, Oplontis was a well-established suburb of Pompeii with one of the most elaborate villas in the entire Vesuvius region, a site now known as Oplontis A. An inscription on a clay amphora there links Oplontis A’s owners to the Poppaea, the family of Roman emperor Nero’s second wife. The home’s grandeur is still overwhelming today: marble sculptures
and fo and “m of Tex excav Projec ing sp more, rooms wing omin to som gas fr in A.D like h a 40-f detrit ern sh
Eruption column climbed to 21 miles
Debris
60-mile-anhour groundhugging currents
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Apartments
Storage
THE WEALTHY AND PED TOGETHER
ountains, a 200-foot swimming pool, masterpiece frescoes,” says University
xas professor John R. Clarke, who leads vations as co-director of the Oplontis
ct. The mostly intact frescoes, depictphinxes, centaurs, peacocks, figs, and
Shrine
, have been found in many of the 103 s discovered here so far; the villa’s west is still being excavated. But there are ous signs if you look closer. Damage
me frescoes marks where superheated rom pyroclastic currents tore through D. 79. Other walls show violent bulges,
ernias. And while the villa once sat on foot cliff overlooking the Gulf of Naples, tus from the eruption pushed the modhoreline out half a mile.
Detailed “osteobiographies”
of skeletal remains found at the Pompeian suburb of
Oplontis could help illuminate
the complexities of Roman social and gender dynamics.
Among the most lavish villas of the Vesuvius region was Oplontis A, pictured here, a resplendent home with a 200foot pool and marble sculptures like this one of a satyr lunging at Hermaphroditus.
When Vesuvius erupted, pumice and ash rained over Oplontis, protecting its famed fresco of Hercules in the Garden of Hesperides (right) from oxidation and erosion once superheated torrents of rock, ash, and gas called pyroclastic currents swept in.
Around 300 yards east sits a large warehouse now known as Oplontis B. It stood two stories tall, with more than 70 rooms arranged around a central courtyard; townhouses with shops surrounded it. Some 1,600 clay amphorae turned up, many stacked upside down to dry, suggesting merchants bottled wine there. Piles of now carbonized pomegranate skins, commonly used in leather tanning, hint at other crafts. But the most prized discovery from Oplontis B lay in a dark, cavelike storeroom on the ground floor. Because the bodies of the Oplontis victims were buried by ash topped off with pyroclastic material, their bones remained intact. Whereas ancient cemeteries were often segregated by class, the freak destruction of Oplontis preserved a diverse array of people in one spot, leaving behind one of the most scientifically valuable assemblages of Roman dead.
That same airtight seal carbonized organic material like pomegranates (below) used in leather tanning.
Today Oplontis B’s courtyard looks bucolic, with stately columns and mossy stones. A block of amphorae sits to one side, fused together in volcanic deposits. However, the upper story is too unstable to visit, and has been taken over by noisy pigeons. For years the place was easy to overlook, but Valeria Amoretti, a bioarchaeologist who heads the Applied Research Laboratory at Pompeii, sees something rich in these ruins. “We are so focused on Pompeii,” she says. “Sometimes we forget to take a look at the suburbs.”
student researchers, Valentina Giacometti, pulled out several bags. One held half a jawbone, another the shattered fragments of a spine. Giacometti has spent years laying the pieces out on tables, fitting them back together. While earlier excavators counted 54 victims, Amoretti’s crew has identified at least 60—including toddlers and unborn children. They were found in two distinct clusters: Roughly 20 victims were positioned deep within the barrel-vaulted room, clutching tools and lanterns. The rest were near the door, perhaps first in line for a rescue boat, and laden with coins and jewelry, including gold necklaces, a silver snake bracelet, and an emerald- and pearl-encrusted pendant. To some, this disparity suggests two social groups: laborers and enslaved people in the
Despite good intentions, excavators in the 1980s failed to document the storeroom skeletons in the detail scientists would today. They didn’t always distinguish carefully between bodies lying atop each other, and bones from individuals became mixed up. The situation left behind—scores of specimen bins full of skeletal parts in plastic bags—has become a literal puzzle to sort out.
The remains now reside in Amoretti’s lab, where her team is reassembling the skeletons piece by piece, work that could deepen our understanding of gender, class, and the prevalence of violence in the ancient world. On a recent visit, one of Amoretti’s graduate
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back, merchants or elites at the front. Even in the face of death, it seems, the hierarchies of Roman life held firm.
data in hand, other researchers can also explore social and gender dynamics. If female skeletons bear marks of manual labor, that would broaden understandings of the work they performed in Roman society. If any of the jewelry-laden bodies show signs of malnourishment in childhood, that could point to an enslaved person who later rose in statusevidence of class mobility that modern minds rarely associate with enslavement.
This class division remains a theory, although work emerging from Amoretti’s lab could put that supposition on secure footing. Once Giacometti has sorted out which bones belong to which individuals, the team can compile what scholars call osteobiographies—personal histories of people as inscribed on their bones. As one example, Giacometti tilts a teenage boy’s skull, pointing out faint ripples on his front teeth, a possible sign of childhood malnutrition. Scars on weight-bearing bones can reveal a life of physical toil. On other victims, Giacometti has noted repeated fractures and blunt-force trauma—maybe a tally of violence. With the
Over the past few decades, archaeology has broadened its horizons to document the lives of vulnerable and overlooked populations. The Oplontis skeletons afford a rare opportunity to compare the bones of men and women from different social strata—a bustling blend of merchants, laborers, enslaved people, and wealthy elites, united in violent death.
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Early excavations revealed Oplontis A’s remarkably
intact frescoed porticoes. Archaeologists later explor-
ing Oplontis B made an equally arresting discovery:
a storeroom with a raft of skeletons, remains that
are now under the care of the Applied Research
Laboratory at Pompeii.
THE COASTAL RETREAT WITH AN ANCIENT LIBRARY FINALLY YIELDING ITS SECRETS
The items looked like trash—nothing but scorched bundles of old cloth. But when diggers excavating a villa in Herculaneum in 1750 took a closer look, they were surprised to realize that they’d actually found papyrus scrolls. The scholars brought in to examine the scrolls—estimated to number between 650 and a thousand, some whole and some in fragments—were both thrilled and frustrated. On the one hand, they represented the only known library to survive from antiquity, a sensational find. Yet the scrolls were so delicate that they could barely be handled safely, much less unwrapped and read. A veritable time capsule from the past, only we lacked the tools to open it.
technologies, the stories and accounts recorded in these age-old scrolls are beginning to trickle out.
We normally think of natural disasters destroying objects; rarely do we consider how they preserve them. When Vesuvius erupted, hot pyroclastic currents swallowed up and sealed off Herculaneum, eventually forming 60 feet of overlying rock. Organic material there—wax tablets, wooden cradles, loaves of bread—didn’t decay so much as bake into carbonized fossils. The scrolls met the same fate. Today all but a few of them reside in Naples, locked in cabinets deep inside a national library. Most look warped and charred, others look as if somebody stepped on a burrito, then
At least until recently. Thanks to new
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Pyroclastic currents from Vesuvius, reaching 750
degrees Fahrenheit, baked organic matter in an instant—
reducing papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum’s Villa of the Papyri library to carbonized, coal-like husks before sealing them under ash.
Recent technological advances have allowed papyrologists like Rossella Villa to read the Herculaneum scrolls scorched by Vesuvius. Here she prepares a work from Greek philosopher Philodemus, written some 100 years before the eruption, for spectral scanning at the National Library of Naples.
These ancient scrolls, which would crumble or turn to ash if physically unrolled, are virtually unwrapped using a combination of 3D imaging and artificial intelligence. Photogrammetry equipment also helps digitize them. The one below, written in Latin between the end of the first century B.C. and the eruption in A.D. 79, is about the legendary Battle of Actium, where Octavian’s maritime fleet, led by Marcus Agrippa, defeated the combined fleets of Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
blowtorched it. Their tight black wrappings are incredibly delicate—as fragile as butterfly wings, a conservator once said.
topics like theology and morality. Despite a few triumphs, most attempts at unrolling only destroyed the papyri without yielding much, and officials finally banned all such attempts a quarter century ago. The equivalent of thousands of pages of text—more than the collected works of Shakespeareseemed destined to remain forever mute.
Over the centuries, scholars tried several times to coax the scrolls open, using everything from infusions of mercury to a machine that tugged the ends with silk threads and deposited the crumbling flakes onto adhesive pig-bladder membranes. From this work, they learned that the collection consisted mostly of Greek-language works by Philodemus, a first-century B.C. Epicurean philosopher known for his musings on
Then, in the early 2000s, a computer vision specialist at the University of Kentucky named Brent Seales developed a plan to virtually unwrap the scrolls. He would first capture 3D images of their internal layers using x-ray
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tomography, similar to a hospital CT scan. Software would then “segment” the scan into patches, flatten them for easier reading, and scour them for ink. Over the past several years, Seales has expedited the laborious process by training AI programs to do various tasks, including detecting and enhancing ink, which can impart a distinct texture to papyrus, like dried mud.
partnered with two Silicon Valley financiers in 2023 to launch the Vesuvius Challenge, which offered cash prizes for hitting certain milestones, like reading the first letters. Seales can still recall the thrill he felt nine months later, when a trio of college and Ph.D. students successfully excavated 2,000 Greek letters across 16 partial columns of textmaking those passages visible for the first time in two millennia. “The rocket was lit,” he remembers thinking.
He also publicly released his team’s images of the scrolls, inviting programmers worldwide to tinker with the ink-detection algorithms. To incentivize this work, he
Dozens more scrolls have since been scanned and fed into Seales’s program, though
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Two thousand years later, the carbonized scrolls from Herculaneum are readable again. A portion of this one describes Cleopatra contemplating death.
Herculaneum’s millennia-old papyrus scrolls were too charred to open—until scientist Brent Seales and his team invented a way to read them. Here’s how they virtually unwrapped one.
PAPYRUS No. 1667
The scroll is 3 ft long unwrapped.
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Bracing the scroll
Case
Synchrotron
The team 3D printed a protective case to keep the carbonized scrolls from crumbling.
Researchers used a massive particle accelerator called a synchrotron to x-ray the scroll with a precision beam, creating a 3D scan at the cellular level.
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Scroll
360-degree rotation
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Section
An algorithm helped virtually flatten out creases to remove distortions from the crinkled papyrus.
An AI program identified layers of papyrus within the scanned scroll, then put those layers into smaller sections for ideal legibility.
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Ink relief
The team trained an AI model to recognize ink textures on papyrus to uncover markings.
The resulting image clearly showed individual letters—ready for papyrologists to read and interpret.
"the good things"
Papyrus
GRAPHIC: FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA AND PATRICIA HEALY. SOURCES: BRENT SEALES AND CHRISTY CHAPMAN, UNIV. OF KENTUCKY. IMAGES COURTESY THE NSF-FUNDED EDUCELAB AT THE UNIV. OF KENTUCKY AND THE VESUVIUS CHALLENGE; PAOLO VERZONE
it’s not as if whole texts just magically pop out now. Due to ancient damage, papyri are often missing words or whole columns. And the AI has limits: It scrutinizes each pixel and declares it ink or not-ink but cannot recognize letters, much less interpret passages. That work falls to scholars like Federica Nicolardi, a papyrologist and professor at the University of Naples Federico II who served as a judge on the Vesuvius Challenge.
life, including music, bread, and even capers. The scroll offers glimpses of the author’s character as well: He disparages those who disagree with him as “stupid” and “fools.” This was no-holds-barred philosophy. Recently, Nicolardi determined that one scroll on theology by Philodemus was titled “On Gods, Book 8.” Books 1 and possibly 3 were known before this, but no others—meaning her team has seemingly proved, in a single stroke, the existence of several completely unknown works, any of which could expand our knowledge of the Greek pantheon of gods. The scrolls could also illuminate the inner workings of ancient libraries. The ragged shapes of certain scrolls fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces, leading scholars to conclude that they were shelved side by side when pyroclastic currents from Vesuvius washed over and warped them. Knowing the contents of neighboring scrolls could in turn reveal the library’s filing system—by topic, by language, by genre, or by something else entirely.
The longest digitally unwrapped scroll, an astonishing 20 feet, initially presented a mystery. Given the holes in certain words, a researcher on Nicolardi’s team, Maria Chiara Robustelli, spent several minutes puzzling over each one—and when she finally did decipher them, the words seemed wildly out of place. “I was confused because I expected something different, philosophical words or something,” Robustelli says. Instead, she found terms like koureion (“barbershop”) and myropolion (“perfume shop”). Equally confounding was a phrase another scholar identified: methyskesthai (“to get drunk”). What kind of philosophy was this? Nicolardi’s team eventually traced the passage toCharacters, a work on ethics written by a student of Aristotle’s in the fourth century B.C. It came from a section on bdelyros (the “repulsive man”), which criticizes busybodies who start frivolous lawsuits or boast about drinking at social haunts like barbershops and perfumeries. The overall scroll, they determined, was a previously unknown portion of a larger work by Philodemus called On Vices. It dissects character flaws and moral failings, and offers guidance on becoming a better human being. This work seems to have a practical, everyday bent—a contrast to the often esoteric academic philosophy of modern times.
But why did the library’s owner possess so many works by a single author, especially a middling philosopher like Philodemus? Where’s the Aristotle, the Homer, the Herodotus? Philodemus is known to have moved to Italy later in life, and Nicolardi suspects the Herculaneum library might be his archive, passed down to friends or family. Finding drafts and different versions of his treatises among the scrolls would lend weight to this idea.
Or something truly unexpected could emerge. After a morning examining the blackened scrolls, Nicolardi goes around the table, asking what each team member’s dream discovery would be. They mention letters between famous philosophers, lost Latin epics, a catalog of the Herculaneum villa’s library. Nicolardi also wants to dig for additional scrolls at Herculaneum. “Part of the villa has never been excavated,” she notes, and it happens to lie next to where most of the original scrolls were found. More could easily turn up.
Another digitally unwrapped scroll considers whether scarce goods provide more pleasure than abundant ones. Its thesis remains unclear—members of Nicolardi’s team have a 20-euro bet on what the title will be—but the text discusses sensory perceptions and again draws on examples from daily
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No one knows who lived at the stately mansion in southern Pompeii now known as Casa della Regina Carolina, after the queen of Naples who sponsored initial excavations there in the early 1800s. The home was distinguished above all by its approximately 8,000-square-foot garden, a meticulously landscaped oasis near two busy theaters, with trees, vines, flowering plants, and private shrines for prayer and reflection.
Genetic archaeologists generally extract DNA from bones or other biological material, and have done so before at Pompeii. But a team co-led by Caitie Barrett, an archaeologist at Cornell University and a National Geographic Explorer, recently succeeded in taking DNA from soil samples of Casa della Regina Carolina’s garden—discovering evidence for olives and grapes. Future work, there and elsewhere, could identify rare varieties or lost cultivars, hinting at households with a taste for the exotic. More important, this work proved something fundamental: that fragile DNA has very likely survived within the ancient soil at Pompeii.
The home’s second story was destroyed during the Vesuvius eruption, and almost all decoration on the first floor’s walls has crumbled away. But the replanted garden remains a shady refuge amid the daily throngs of tourists, who hurry by without realizing the real treasure here lies below the surface.
Building on this study, Barrett and her colleagues now hope to piece together details
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Vesuvius’s eruption buried
Pompeii in pumice lapilli. Later, heat and lack of oxy-
gen carbonized the city’s
food, including this bread. These intact remains, along
with surviving DNA, are helping scientists better
understand ancient Rome.
Buried in up to 20 feet of pumice lapilli and ash, parts of Pompeii were remarkably preserved. This has brought
into rare focus the routines
and habits of ancient life, much of which unfolded here
at the central forum: the heart of political, economic, and religious activity.
about the home’s inhabitants—what they ate and drank, and potentially how they fell ill and cared for their sick. In fact, they’re already extracting genetic material from a spot less glamorous than the garden: the home’s latrine complex. Above ground, near the kitchen, two toilets occupied separate but adjacent rooms, like a modern restroom’s individual stalls. But below ground, pits collecting human waste were connected.
Last summer, the team partially excavated one of those pits, about a yard wide. (Asked whether her crew smelled anything funny as they dug, Barrett laughed and recalled “a urine smell—very faint, very subtle.”) Their samples are being analyzed by Flavio De Angelis and Eduardo Amorim, geneticists at Arizona State University who are searching for DNA from multiple organisms, including intestinal worms, to explore disease burdens in Pompeii. But their main focus is the gut microbiome: the diverse community of bacteria populating the human digestive tract that gets shed in stool. Two people’s guts can carry significantly different bacterial mixes depending on diet. Certain species thrive on milk, others on sugars, fats, or proteins. By measuring the relative abundance of each bacterium’s DNA in the latrine, the team hopes to reconstruct what the household ate and how varied their table was.
De Angelis and Amorim also hope their genetic analysis can provide insight into psychological ailments in the Roman era. The human gastrointestinal tract contains roughly 100 million neurons between the esophagus and rectum. Anything that affects them—including gut bacteria—could, in principle, affect brain function. “There is a direct connection between the gut microbiome and mental health,” says De Angelis.
The latrines may also yield human DNA, which could reveal details about the home’s inhabitants. Once a single grand home, the property had been divided into a larger unit and a smaller one by the time Vesuvius erupted. Each had its own latrine, and Barrett suggests that comparing DNA from both might reveal the relationship between the households. Finding similar DNA could suggest that the smaller one was an in-law suite. Mismatched DNA might indicate a rental property. Or the presence of many unrelated individuals could suggest something else. Perhaps the owner was an influential person receiving petitioners at home. “We’re interested in telling the story of everybody else who would have been part of this house,” Barrett says.
Studies among populations today have already identified associations between specific bacteria and conditions like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and also with diseases like Alzheimer’s. The team’s samples could reveal the presence of these ailments in the ancient world.
Although they lack the dazzle of Pompeii’s most famous artifacts—breathtaking frescoes,
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At the Pompeian house Casa della Regina Carolina, scholars are conducting unprecedented genomic studies of the garden and latrines, which could reveal more about ancient Romans’ health.
sculptures, candelabras—DNA data from Casa della Regina Carolina are just as revealing. While a latrine might seem “gross and unbeautiful,” Barrett says, “in many ways, we can learn more from things like toilets and trash heaps than we can from beautiful statuary.”
Empire running. The philosophy of the era, as reflected in the Herculaneum scrolls, includes instructions on practical, everyday matters. The wisps of DNA from latrines could reveal the sicknesses that darkened their days. These people were like us in so many ways, and if Vesuvius had stayed quiet, Pompeii and its sister cities might have thrived for years. Instead, the volcano destroyed them—and thereby preserved them for all of history. Even after 2,000 years, the most famous disaster in history continues to surprise us. j
Indeed, the discoveries emerging from Oplontis, Herculaneum, and Pompeii have deepened our understanding of everyone who lived there. The bones of laborers and enslaved people speak to the invisible, often backbreaking work that kept the Roman
JOURNEY DEEPER INTO POMPEII In National Geographic’s new docudrama series, actor Tom Hiddleston takes on the role of historical detective, joining some of the world’s leading Pompeii experts as they piece together untold stories from the Vesuvius eruption. Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston is streaming on Disney+. Check local listings.
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Discoveries emerging from the Vesuvius region are deepening our understanding of Roman wellness, class hierarchies, and gender roles. For instance, this Pompeian house belonged to Julia Felix, a businesswoman who owned a massive estate and commercial complex with luxury baths, apartments, and shops.
The National Archaeological Museum of Naples is known for its dazzling collection of mosaics, statues, and frescoes recovered from the ashes of Vesuvius—but its storerooms hold an even greater trove. There, in areas generally off-limits to the public, National Geographic gained access to thousands of fragile archaeological treasures from Pompeii and Herculaneum that capture the customs and joys of ancient Roman life.
Frozen Mid-Game
This die made of bone is fused together with a hodgepodge of items in hardened volcanic material. Some objects are unidentifiable, while others, like nails, are clearly visible.
Vintage Wine
Numerous wine jugs, including bronze amphorae, from the region were preserved in Vesuvius’s volcanic ash, revealing a vibrant wine culture that holds strong today. Vessels on the shelves to the left were also used to serve mulsum, a honeyed wine favored by wealthy elites.
A Fresco Saved
Featuring a classic Greek-style theater mask, this fresco was detached from a Pompeii wall possibly by 18th-century master restorer Joseph Canart, who removed murals in large single, unbroken pieces by cutting them out and mounting them on slate supports.
T R A I L B L A Z E R
THE QUEST TO
the World’s Rarest
In the face of an extinction crisis, one maverick botanist is turning his vast flower collection into a resource for science.
Words by
A L E X A N D R A M A R V A R
Photographs by
J U A N I T A E S C O B A R
THE BLOSSOMS OF the long-tail Masdevallia feel eerily similar to flesh. Tentacular tails hang from their petal-like sepals, which are shaded maroon, coral, and yellow—the palette of rotting fruit. A fly could mistake them for a feast. For tens of millions of years, this peculiar orchid, native to Colombia’s fast-disappearing cloud forests, has survived thanks to its power to attract a pollinator. Today that pollinator is a 64-year-old man in reading glasses.
Daniel Piedrahíta owns 25,000 orchids—among the world’s largest private, noncommercial collections—but right now, in a greenhouse outside of Medellín, Colombia, he is focused on this one alone. He gently pinches one of its tails, tilts its face upward, and with the tip of a wire, moves a pinhead of pollen from the center of one bloom to another. If this pollination process takes, a pod will form, filled with as many as a million dustlike seeds. Piedrahíta will pluck it, wrap it in foil, and deliver it to researchers in Medellín, who will try
Daniel Piedrahíta inspects an array of epidendrum orchids, a few of the 3,500 species represented in his orchid collection, in one of his greenhouses in La Ceja, Colombia. As extinction threatens orchid species, the collector has built up what he calls a “genetic bank.”
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N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
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COLOMBIA
to grow this wild, wily plant in a lab.
SOUTH AMERICA
With habitat loss and black-market trade threatening extinction for an estimated half of the world’s 30,000 known orchid species, private collections like Piedrahíta’s offer an invaluable resource: genetic stores for research, propagation, and potential reintroduction. The only problem? Private collectors are often guarded, protective of hard-won knowledge about cultivation techniques and hesitant to invite scrutiny over where their specimens came from.
Caribbean Sea
VENEZUELA
Medellín Alma del Bosque
Bogotá
PACIFIC OCEAN
COLOMBIA
ECUADOR BRAZIL
400 mi 400 km
PERU
Not Piedrahíta. In a subculture of collectors who prize orchids for their rarity, he is devoted to coaxing some of his rarest specimens into abundance. At Alma del Bosque—or “soul of the forest,” the arboretum and education center he opened last year—he is pollinating orchids and sharing his seeds and techniques with messianic zeal, part of a vanguard of collectors aiming to undermine black markets and ensure a supply of seedlings for future restoration projects. Partners at three Medellín labs are using his seed stock to propagate orchids that have never before been massproduced—“the only chance,” Piedrahíta says, “to not lose these species.”
Orchids found at Piedrahíta’s Alma del Bosque reserve, clockwise from top left:
The Rothschild’s slipper orchid is native to Borneo’s Mount Kinabalu, where it is critically endangered. Found in the Peruvian Andes, the Queen Masdevallia has flowers with long, tail-like appendages. The orchid hybrid Paphiopedilum Clair de Lune was created by breeders nearly a century ago. Venus slippers like this Paphiopedilum Pinocchio have a pouchlike lip to trap insects and release them coated with pollen.
A commercial flower grower for the past 30 years, Piedrahíta caught orchid fever in the early 2000s, not long after he and his wife founded a hydrangea farm in the town of La Ceja, a hub of Colombia’s cutflower industry. The country is home to nearly a fifth of the world’s orchid species, more than any other country, and most of its varieties are epiphytes—plants that attach to trees using specialized roots rather than growing out of soil. Piedrahíta started noticing them on birding trips in the Colombian wilds and was captivated by their cunning adaptations. Some masquerade as female insects so convincingly that males attempt to mate with them, emerging dusted in pollen. Others lure pollinators by mimicking the scents of chocolate, rotting
fruit, or carrion. Piedrahíta was fascinated by the diligence orchids demand from a grower: In the time it may take a loblolly pine to grow two stories tall, an orchid seedling might produce a single flower. “When it finally blooms,” Piedrahíta says, “it truly feels like magic.”
His first time at a regional orchid show, he bought out a vendor’s whole booth—some 250 plants. With hydrangea profits funding his new hobby, hundreds of orchids became thousands, acquired from commercial growers, traded with other obsessives, and occasionally rescued from a fallen branch.
NGM MAPS
Today Piedrahíta estimates his collection represents what he calls a “genetic bank”
of some 3,500 species—around a tenth of the family Orchidaceae. After years of keeping his orchids in greenhouses, he unveiled Alma del Bosque last summer, a massive pavilion beneath a 52-foot roof, with tours available for the public. Like Jurassic Park, its big black doors swing open to reveal an engineered wonderland: 11,000 square feet of tiered gardens and displays, with
companion plantings and water features to create microhabitats in which a range of orchids can thrive.
Alma del Bosque is also the headquarters of Piedrahíta’s project to cultivate a new generation of conservation-minded orchidists. Over the past five years, he’s taught hundreds of students, in person and online, the orchid world’s once guarded
N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
secrets, driven by the belief that every new grower cultivating uncommon orchids is helping disincentivize poaching in the wild. With his mentorship—and his pollen and seeds—several of his students have gone on to launch their own nurseries. One of them, 24-year-old Santiago Arango, now runs Medellín’s Culto Orquídeas, with a staff of four, some 9,000 plants for sale, and customers all across Colombia. “People prefer to buy plants from the lab than to buy plants extracted from nature,” Arango suggests. Meeting that demand, he says, “is the responsibility of all of us commercial cultivators.”
Piedrahíta also provides his seeds to researchers at Medellín’s CES University who are using them to develop techniques for in vitro propagation of rare orchids. Their current focus is a showy ivory specimen known as the white nun, Guatemala’s national flower. It was poached nearly to extinction in most of its native habitat, although a reintroduction program is underway in Guatemala, using seedlings grown by a collector there. Piedrahíta hopes lab-grown plants made from his seed stock can help turn the white nun from a poacher’s prize into a nursery staple—and that the same techniques might eventually support restoration efforts for other species in Colombia.
Using lab-grown orchids to replenish wild populations is still new science, tricky in part because the plants need sufficient genetic diversity to reproduce. But there have been glimmers of promise. In Florida, ghost orchids reintroduced to the Big Cypress Basin in 2018 have survived though not yet reproduced. In the United Kingdom, just last summer, a restoration program active since the 1990s yielded that country’s first wild-grown lady’s slipper orchid in nearly a century.
Piedrahíta is taking a long view, preserving threatened species to lay the groundwork for when the science catches up. “I’m a stubborn pioneer,” he says. He has learned that loving orchids requires nothing if not patience. j
Piedrahíta displays his collection at Alma del Bosque, the sanctuary he opened last year in the western Colombian Andes.
Alma del Bosque is roughly an hour’s drive from Medellín, near the town of La Ceja. Book tours in advance at almadelbosque.com.
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REVEALING
ON EARTH
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Joel Sartore’s expanding archive
relies on a global network of wildlife
sanctuaries like Iowa Bird Rehabilitation in
Des Moines, where he befriended this turkey vulture, a permanent resident.
CHRIS BUCK (BOTH)
PHOTO ARK is photographer Joel Sartore’s crusade to document the complete spectrum of our planet’s animal kingdom, one species at a time. That makes Sartore the modern-day Noah of this almighty zoological project, supported by the National Geographic Society, that’s celebrating its 20th anniversary. And if you know him, this fits. Sartore has got a secular, science-driven kinship with his predecessor: Noah didn’t favor any of God’s creatures for cosmetic reasons, and neither does Sartore. His operation, based in Lincoln, Nebraska, just does its job, chipping away at its task, gathering up all of the species, great and small, splendid and unsightly, as many as it possibly can, before it’s too late.
Sartore has built the trust of biologists and conservation groups over decades of photographing different species in remote places, like this walrus-packed beach in Alaska’s Togiak National Wildlife Refuge, where he pretended to take a snooze.
ERIN HARVEY
The first animal that Sartore brought aboard the Photo Ark, so to speak, back in 2006, was a naked mole rat—a bald, bucktoothed rodent that he photographed in the kitchen of Lincoln Children’s Zoo. Such a humble, homely creature turned out to be an apt start, says Sartore, a
National Geographic Explorer. Of the more than 18,000 animal images he’s accumulated since, mainly of creatures living in sanctuaries or under human care, the vast majority “are just not on
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anybody’s radar. They’re not polar bears or tigers. They’re minnows and they’re sparrows and they’re things that live high up in the trees or in the soil. They’re not things that get photographed much.”
For every far-flung voyage to snap a photograph of, say, some majestic bird of paradise in New Guinea, Sartore and his scrappy team will make multiple stops along the way to shoot an insect
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Early in his career, Sartore faced off with a caiman in Bolivia’s Madidi National Park, before he began focusing on animals in human care to build the Photo Ark.
JOEL SARTORE WITH ROSA MARIA RUIZ
he finds most interesting,” Sartore says). His wife, Kathy, pitches in with the thicket of scheduling and also functions as a sort of external hard drive for Sartore’s decades of travel memories. Among other staff, he employs a database manager in Lincoln and a couple of self-trained taxonomists and self-described “zoo nerds.”
under a porch light or a moth that happened to land on someone’s shoulder. Every marathon trip is a sprint, because many of the Ark’s inclusions are just barely staving off extinction. Some vanished soon after Sartore reached their sole survivor, like Toughie, a Panamanian tree frog about the size of a fist, that lived to be at least 12 years old in a silver trailer called the FrogPOD that was permaparked at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Toughie’s species, the Rabbs’ fringe-limbed tree frog, along with dozens of others in the mountains of Panama, has been wiped out over the past 20 years by something called the chytrid fungus. Toughie escaped to Atlanta, but his species’ unique mating call vanished from the night chorus back in Panama before anyone could record it. A sound—a type of communication—was gone forever.
phone. Less than two years later, in 2016, Toughie died. The previous year, his image from the Photo Ark had been projected onto the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, along with an audio broadcast of his barking call, for an audience of the pope. It’s a tale that Sartore returns to often in lectures and at conferences and fundraisers as the Photo Ark’s legend has grown in the conservation community. It’s also a mantraan orienting rationale of sorts for the entire project—that he repeats just as often: Because this is what extinction looks like.
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COUNTRIES VISITED
From Chile to Madagascar
to Kazakhstan, Sartore has traveled to
Pierre de Chabannes, a former drummer and wildlife photographer based in France, joined the Ark team in 2015 after a single record-setting day of shooting at a bird sanctuary outside Paris: During the marathon session, he helped Sartore identify and photograph 51 different species of birds, the most Sartore had logged in one go. “The aviaries [at this location] are made only for displaying a huge number of birds,” de Chabannes says, “[so] there’s no names on them at all.” He wound up spotting each species by sight, then cross-checking for matches against the wish list on Sartore’s laptop. “I kept birds coming for, like, seven hours,” he says. “I didn’t even have dinner.”
more than a third of the world’s nations to capture the animal kingdom’s diversity.
Every image in the Ark represents Sartore’s best effort to put paddles to our hearts, to jolt them by confronting us with irrevocable death. He knows just how hard it is to deny the soul of a creature when it’s staring right into yours.
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POUNDS OF GEAR
The Ark team
brings plenty of equipment to photo shoots,
including multiple cameras, light stands, shooting tents, and black and white back-
On the day of Toughie’s shoot, Sartore asked his caretaker, an amphibian conservationist named Mark Mandica, how it felt “to be in charge of the last of something. And he said, ‘Every morning when I go into work, Joel, I’m sick to my stomach because I’m afraid this is going to be the day.’ ” One rainy morning a few months later, Mandica had just arrived outside the FrogPOD when he heard a sound he’d never heard before“like a dog barking,” Sartore saysand he knew it could only be one thing. “Frogs like to call and breed in the rain,” Sartore explains, “and it could probably smell the wet air, hear the rain.” Mandica managed to record about 10 seconds on his
NE PLOT POINT IN Noah’s story that the Bible really skates past is how exactly he went about tracking down all those distant species and managing the sheer logistics of getting everyone aboard before the weather
grounds. (Even, sometimes, a plexiglass
On the drive back to Paris, while de Chabannes was behind the wheel, “Joel was flashing his computer screen at me whenever I had a little bit of time, and I would tell him the scientific name and conservation status for all those species.” Sartore stayed up until dawn double-checking de Chabannes’s memory and didn’t spot a single mistake. The next morning, he asked de Chabannes to come aboard the Ark as one of its taxonomists.
tank.)
turned foul. If Sartore’s version is any clue, it must’ve been quite an operation.
Sartore’s core Ark team includes his family. Son Cole, 33, will take over when his knees give out, he says. For now, Cole does tons of technical work—building out sets, rigging lights, testing shots, capturing video—as well as the occasional shoot (“usually the animals
But what really keeps Sartore’s
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calendar full with shoots for six months out of the year is his staggering global network of sources and contacts. Name any species of animal you want to find—Sartore knows a guy, or a gal. The names of institutions in cities worldwide come tumbling out of him in conversation.
6
MONTHS OF STENCH
That’s how long the stink lingered after a pygmy hippo at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium sprayed Sartore’s background with feces and urine.
Sartore’s network is the human architecture that keeps the Photo Ark sailing onward, but he assembled it long before the idea occurred to him, over the course of 17 years working for National Geographic. The project began as a bittersweet by-product of family hardship: In 2006, Kathy was diagnosed with breast cancer, and the treatment required seven months of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries. The Sartores had three young kids, 11, nine, and two. Joel wasn’t going anywhere. Already he’d been feeling a gnawing sense of futility about the work he was doing, the seed of something you can hear more palpably in his voice now—a hint of exasperation that still, after all this time, so few people are seriously reckoning with what’s at stake.
Among the more than 18,000 animals that Joel Sartore has photographed are some of the most threatened species on Earth. During the 20-year project, some have disappeared, others are rapidly slipping toward extinction. Here are a small number of the ever growing category of vulnerable animals—photographed with Sartore’s urgent hope that portraits might galvanize protection.
Photographs by Joel Sartore
During those first few months of his wife’s treatment, while he was at home caring for his family, his thoughts kept turning to John James Audubon, the famed ornithologist, who’d painted several species of birds that soon went extinct, and now those paintings are the only documentation we have left. One day it struck him: What if he made his own version of Audubon’s paintings, a series of portraits, a single image for each animal? Like an ark. An idea to
Marked by striking
orange collars, these primates are
hunted for their meat in Vietnam.
PHOTOGRAPHED AT ENDANGERED PRIMATE
RESCUE CENTER, NINH BINH, VIETNAM
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LEVELS OF THREAT
Species extinction risk, reflected on the International Union for Conservation’s Red List, is based on criteria including size of population reduction, range decline, and number of mature individuals. The threatened animals in this grid are classified as follows:
High risk of extinction in the wild
Very high risk of extinction in the wild
Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild
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11
12
13
14
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Bornean rhinoceros Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni
The Photo Ark team travels the globe to gain access to critically endangered animals like Pahu, a female Bornean rhinoceros. This smallest rhino species in the world no longer has sufficient numbers to breed in the wild, making Pahu among the rarest creatures in the Ark.
PHOTOGRAPHED AT KELIAN SUMATRAN RHINO SANCTUARY, INDONESIA
PHOTOGRAPHED AT 1. PARAGONAH, UTAH; 2. WORLD BIRD SANCTUARY, ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MISSOURI; 3. SEAWORLD, SAN DIEGO; 4. UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA’S INSTITUTE FOR MARINE AND ANTARCTIC STUDIES, HOBART, TASMANIA; 5. PRIVATE COLLECTION, TENNESSEE; 6. SAN DIEGO ZOO; 7. SNAIL EXTINCTION PROTECTION PROGRAM, HONOLULU; 8. MANAGEMENT OF NATURE CONSERVATION, ABU DHABI; 9. NATIONAL MISSISSIPPI RIVER MUSEUM AND AQUARIUM; 10. TAMAN SAFARI PRIGEN, INDONESIA; 11. KUKRAIL GHARIAL AND TURTLE REHABILITATION CENTRE, LUCKNOW, INDIA; 12. AMPHIBIAN FOUNDATION, ATLANTA; 13. SAN LUIS NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE; 14.BATU SECRET ZOO, INDONESIA; 15. ZOO ATLANTA; 16. HOUSTON ZOO
keep him busy—to keep him sane, productive—became a passion project, then a full-time occupation, then a life’s calling.
the Photo Ark and its potency in the fight against extinction.
Sartore photographed Earth’s last Rabbs’
And every so often, the Ark shows up just in time to be a savior. Sandra Sneckenberger, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service based in Vero Beach, Florida, had spent years trying to rally support for the imperiled Florida grasshopper sparrow—an ordinary brown bird from afar, she says, but “a work of art” up close. Meanwhile, the sentinel species’ numbers kept dropping, at one point as low as about
fringe-limbed tree frog at the Atlanta Botanical Garden two
Now, at 64, two decades into the work, he’s thinking about how to keep it going with so much left to be done. Old species go extinct, and sometimes new ones splinter off or sprout up. Eighteen thousand photographs is a drop in a bottomless bucket. It helps, though, that the project is a global institution now. Everyone in the conservation world knows about
years before it died in 2016. A projection
of the portrait made it all
the way to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.
JOEL SARTORE
75 individuals, and “just pennies were being spent. It just wasn’t getting any traction.” Out of desperation, she emailed Sartore. He replied within five minutes.
landmark photo? Does it really matter?) And Sartore isn’t above putting his thumb on the scale in order to lend some attention to a species whose existence might depend upon it.
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Over more than two decades with the Fish and Wildlife Service, Sneckenberger has worked so often with Sartore that she jokes she’s the “Florida branch” of the Photo Ark. The sparrow was one of their earliest collaborations. Within a year of the shoot at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park, she says, her team received more than one million dollars in funding to rescue the sparrow, and its plight even reached the cover of Audubon magazine. “We [are] doing captive breeding, genetics—all these things that were absolutely not possible,” she says. “Without [Joel], I’m sure that there would be no Florida grasshopper sparrow.”
WILDLIFE FACILITIES PHOTOGRAPHED
And so, at some point it was decided: Photo Ark entry number 18,000 would be the critically endangered red handfish, a reef species decimated by habitat destruction. “[It] walks on the ocean floor, little bitty thing”about three inches long—“like a frogfish or scorpion fish,” Sartore says. “It’s really cool-looking and cute as can be.” But only about 520 remain, and many of them are at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, which is where one of them posed for Sartore, scampering along the bottom of a little plexiglass container. An image in the Photo Ark can’t offer the same divine reassurance that a ride aboard Noah’s ark provided. It’s more like a Hail Mary—one last long shot. But he chose the red handfish because this is what survival looks like.
Sartore photographs his subjects at rehabs and sanctuaries in addition to zoos. Sometimes he joins researchers working in the field.
1,215
PHOTOGRAPHED SPECIES THAT ARE ENDANGERED OR EXTINCT*
HORTLY AFTER the calendar turned to 2026, Sartore and the core Ark team departed for a three-week trip across Australia, from Alice Springs Desert Park in the center of the outback to a lab in Hobart,
Threatened creatures like the yellowtailed woolly monkey, starry sturgeon, and Chinese pangolin occupy a special place in Sartore’s archive.
So much of the Ark’s mission is a race to capture something before it’s lost, but every now and then, Sartore’s photographs represent a rediscovery, a chance at rebirthlost but now found. Like the Lord Howe Island stick insect, a fourto-five-inch “tree lobster” native to the sheer cliff face of Ball’s Pyramid, about 500 miles northeast of Sydney. Long believed extinct, the Lord Howe stick insect was miraculously rediscovered by a team of researchers in 2001 during a frightful night climb and later reintroduced to
Tasmania, collecting animals at their standard sprint-against-theclock pace. “We reached out to 135 locations,” Sartore says, “and we ended up going to 36.” At some stage along the way, the Photo Ark crossed another milestonespecies number 18,000—but when you’re moving so fast and logging so many animals, things get fuzzy. (Which creature was the
*INCLUDES ANIMALS ON THE IUCN RED LIST THAT ARE ENDANGERED, CRITICALLY ENDANGERED, EXTINCT IN THE WILD, AND EXTINCT
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Young grizzly bears trained for the movie industry inspect Sartore in the Los Angeles Basin during a National Geographic assignment in 2000.
JOEL SARTORE
the world through Sartore’s camera lens. Or consider another coproduction with Sneckenberger: the Florida bonneted bat, which has thick round ears and a snout. It looks more like a bulldog than a bat. Some had feared the creature to be extinct as recently as 1979, but Sartore’s photograph for the Ark, also taken this year, is visual testament of the bat’s fragile resurrection.
Sartore sends his collaborators a how-to guide ahead of every shoot for the Photo Ark so that he can move efficiently, get the shot fast, and minimize stress on the subject. The strategies vary by species—but if it’s a cat, he has probably packed Zyrtec, because he’s allergic.
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And what about species number 19,000? Or the next major milestone, number 20,000? Sartore keeps a mental list of animals he and his colleagues often refer to as their “drop-everything” species. In other words, they’d drop everything in their lives for the opportunity to meet them in the flesh. Number two on his list: the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, a blue-faced, puffy-lipped primate (definitely go look it up) native to northern Vietnam. And number one: the Javan rhino, found only in Indonesia’s Ujung Kulon National Park on the far western tip of the island of Java.
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“There’s been 60 or less my entire life,” he says. The Indonesian government, though, has been making noises about launching a breeding center, a development with drop-everything potential. “So we shall see. I’m patient. We’re willing to wait years to get access to animals. At the Photo Ark,” he says, “we play the long game.”
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Sartore estimates that even at his breathless pace, banking a reasonably representative sample of the Earth’s animal species will take at least another 25 years. Sounds like he and Cole have their work cut out for them. j
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Sartore gets acquainted
with white pelicans at Iowa Bird Rehabili-
tation. Besides visiting zoos and aquariums,
he goes to wildlife rehabbers, birdband-
ings, bioblitzes, and more. “The whole point is to show the world what biodiversity looks like while there’s still time to save it,” he says.
CHRIS BUCK
N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C
P O R T F O L I O
The HIDDEN HIGHWAYS of the
Words by T O M VA N D E R B I LT Photographs by P E T E M A U N E Y
IT ALL STARTED WITH FIREFLIES. In the early 2010s, photographer Pete Mauney was at his home along the Hudson River, in the town of Tivoli, New York, and he had a simple but frustrating goal: to make the perfect image of the lightning bugs in his backyard. In his attempt to capture their frenetic, flickering, seemingly random flights,
Mauney used a process borrowed from the art of astrophotography called image stacking. It’s essentially what an iPhone camera does on low-light mode when it blends a series of underexposed photographs together to negate the noise. It should have been straightforward. But as he opened his lenses to the night sky and undertook this
collaborative effort between man and firefly (“albeit with my collaborator being unaware of it,” he jokes), he faced a persistent, vexing problem: What should he do about the annoying airplanes that kept getting in his pictures?
For hours at a time, Mauney positions his cameras in places like Newark Liberty International Airport’s long-term parking lot and captures planes streaming in and out of the busy terminals.
This problem, it turned out, was also a revelation. As a teenager in Montclair,
P O R T F O L I O
New Jersey, Mauney would hike up the cliffs overlooking the town and watch the steady flow of airplanes coming in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport. He idly contemplated capturing the air traffic on film. “But I didn’t have money or technology or really anything at that point,” he says. Now, almost four decades later, with the tools and know-how, he realized he could return to that ridge and finally capture the stream of planes.
These days, planes are nearly as common in the sky as stars. After a brief dip in air travel during the pandemic, the numbers of passengers and flights have bounced back to record-setting highs, with more people than ever soaring through the clouds. At one point in July 2024, nearly 15,000 passenger planes were in the sky at once—and that’s not even counting all the single-engine aircraft, helicopters, drones, military jets, and so on. But with the naked eye, we generally see just one at a time cutting through the clouds, thousands of feet overhead.
To turn this scattered, scarcely visible traffic into dramatic tracings of light, Mauney stations his camouflaged cameras on tripods in set positions for hours and captures hundreds or even thousands of exposures, later stacking the images in postproduction to create a single shot. Some images reveal traffic patterns, with bending bands from aircraft all taking the same departure route before veering toward their destinations. Others, such as those with the occasional Christmassy
Newark is the 14th busiest airport in the United States, with roughly 1,100 planes departing each day.
The long exposure time required to capture a night’s worth of air traffic means Mauney’s cameras occasionally pick up ground-level movement too, such as cars or these holiday lights in Carteret, New Jersey.
A U G U S T
streaks of green, white, and red, show physical navigational tools pilots still rely on in the digital age—green lights always shine on the starboard wing, red lights on the port side, and a white taillight on the rear. Then there are the images where straight bands from arriving airplanes converge with the curved orbits of stars.
The lengthy nocturnal stretches make the work possible but also significantly trickier. While one might think airplanes would behave with a certain level of predictability and rhythm, Mauney notes that with long-exposure shots, just about anything can go wrong. To his eye, part of the appeal is that “I don’t control the subject
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matter,” he says. Air traffic controllers may change active runways because of strong wind gusts, or a curious law enforcement officer might stop by to ask some questions about what exactly Mauney’s up to. But for Mauney, it’s all a worthy part of his effort “to turn what I see as chaos into some form of order.” j
In this image of New York City, the curved lines show planes departing John F. Kennedy International Airport, while the lines cutting across the middle are planes headed for LaGuardia Airport.
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For centuries, the equestrian sport of tbourida was reserved for men. Now female riders are bringing the hard-charging tradition to a new generation.
Words by Aida Alami
Photographs by Chantal Pinzi
RISEOF MOROCCO’S
A tbourida performance
culminates with a team of rifle-toting riders firing a single synchronized shot.
Here, Noura Lebdaoui, second from left, restrains her
horse after firing. Lebdaoui
rides with one of Morocco’s few all-female troupes, challenging perceptions of
what was long considered a masculine tradition.
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When Zahia Aboulait was a young girl, she loved nothing more than tagging along
daughter’s passion, didn’t see a problem letting her ride. He lent her one of his long traditional robes, called a djellaba, and she wore it over her sweatpants and sneakers. When she pushed her luck further and asked for a gun, he gave her one and showed her how to load the black powder (no bullets). What Aboulait remembers about riding that day is how people in the crowd, who’d likely never seen a female rider, took photos of her by the hundreds.
In the 27 years since, women have gained a foothold in tbourida. These days, Aboulait is one of her country’s best known female riders, the leader of her own all-women troupe—one of no more than a dozen found across Morocco out of perhaps a thousand total troupes—and part of a small circle of veteran women who’ve helped change minds about what the tradition can look like. Now, even as tbourida videos surge on social media, putting the sport in front of new global audiences, Aboulait finds herself transitioning from a pioneer to a mentor, training the next generation of young women to carry on a custom with deep historical roots.
with her father to the rural Moroccan festivals called moussems, watching him perform with his tbourida troupe. Tbourida, a centuries-old equestrian tradition, is a spectator sport that finds teams of riders making a faux cavalry charge across a dirt track, leading their horses with taut, synchronized precision. The cavalcade ends when the riders—acting in unison, their horses at a gallop—raise a set of antique-style rifles and together fire a single thundering volley. The practice takes its name from the Arabic word for “gunpowder,” and although it’s performed elsewhere in North Africa, it is particularly beloved in Morocco. Aboulait’s father was a farmer who rode in a troupe as a hobby, and Aboulait, who rarely missed a moussem, loved every part of it: the smell of the horses, the crack of the muskets, the flowing and finely embroidered robes of the men.
Tbourida has been practiced in Morocco since at least the 16th century, evolving from a military exercise into a sport that blends the equestrian customs of the country’s Arab and Indigenous Amazigh populations. Recognized by UNESCO as a vital piece of intangible cultural heritage, it’s sometimes known as fantasia, an exoticizing nickname bestowed by the 19th-century French and largely derided in Morocco. Participants, both human and equine, typically don elaborate traditional garb, and riders carry slender, muzzle-loading rifles that evoke an earlier era. Any given performance lasts only a few
Back then, tbourida riders were almost exclusively men. But one day in 1999, a rider in her father’s troupe didn’t show up, and Aboulait, then 14 years old, asked to take his place. She’d been riding horses since she was six, and watching and learning tbourida about as long. Her father, who encouraged his
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Tbourida dates to the 16th century, and today’s riders honor the heritage with traditional attire that often includes antique-style North African Arab swords.
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‘It’s a tradition, a heritage that we have to preserve.’
—Ghita Jhiate
Ghita Jhiate clutches the reins of her horse, Zher, while bathing him before a tbourida performance. Stallions are typically used in the sport. For the past two years, Jhiate and Zher have ridden in a troupe, or sorba, led by Zahia Aboulait, one of the first riders to form an all-women tbourida troupe in the mid-2000s.
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Women’s sorbas began forming in
Morocco roughly 20 years ago, and today
the original female tbourida riders find
themselves mentoring a new generation.
In the capital, Rabat,
many riders in Bouchra Nabata’s sorba were too young to mount
a horse when she founded her troupe in 2007. Current mem-
bers include (clockwise from bottom left)
Doha Naji, Hiba Essallak, Marwa Essallak, Marwa Elmaite, Ikhlass Guemiri, Laila Nabata, and Mahjouba Nabata (in orange).
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20s. But she was still a teenager when she founded a sorba of her own, made up of women riders (troupes with both men and women remain rare). They encountered little outright resistance, Aboulait says, and though the occasional male rider can be hostile, many are supportive and courteous, offering to lend rifles or allow her sorba to ride first.
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Today Aboulait lives in Casablanca, where she works in business administration and raises three children. But in the summers, she travels the moussem circuit, leading a group of younger women whom she has personally picked and trained to be tbourida riders. As troupe leader, or muqadema, she is in charge of far more than riding at the front of the line. She’s responsible for matching her riders with suitable borrowed horses when they don’t have their own. She tends to the group’s wardrobe and finances. She leads training and warm-up sessions, ensuring her riders learn to maneuver their horses and rifles in perfect sync.
W. SAHARA (MOR.)
100 mi
100 km
seconds, a barrage of hoofbeats and anticipation building toward that one perfect salvo. When the synchronicity of horses, riders, and rifles is perfect, the crowd erupts. Troupes are judged on their precision, pageantry, and horsemanship.
For centuries, says Rutgers University sociologist Zakia Salime, tbourida was considered “a masculine performance,” an exhibition of warrior skills from which women were traditionally excluded. The first women’s tbourida troupes, Salime says, began forming in the mid-2000s. The shift was what she calls “a quiet revolution,” not the result of protest or agitation. Nor was it precipitated by any one change to rules or policy, says University of Nebraska-Lincoln anthropologist Gwyneth Talley, a National Geographic Explorer who has studied women’s tbourida troupes. The emergence of women riders did coincide, Talley points out, with a campaign by the first female president of Morocco’s national equestrian foundation, a member of the country’s royal family, to champion women’s participation in equestrian sports.
Tbourida, Aboulait stresses, is all about discipline—and the payoff for her sorba’s rigor comes in its consistently high scores. “We have a very good reputation,” Aboulait says. “We must protect it.”
For 26-year-old Ghita Jhiate, who’s been riding alongside Aboulait for two years, the muqadema is more than just a role modelshe is something like a legend. Growing up in urban Marrakech, Jhiate got to ride horses while visiting family in the countryside, but her father refused to let her take lessons when she was a teenager. That didn’t stop her fascination with tbourida, which Jhiate marveled at when her family went to moussems outside the city. And although Jhiate had never seen her ride, she’d heard
NGM MAPS
Aboulait kept riding with her father’s troupe, called a sorba, until she was in her
stories about Zahia Aboulait, the region’s first female muqadema. “And I would say, ‘I want to become Zahia,’ ” Jhiate remembers.
the prospect of posting pictures and videos to social media, where the short, colorful spectacle of tbourida plays well. Aboulait says she prefers troupe members who are in it for the work. Her sorba does take videos of its performances—not necessarily to post but to watch afterward, like game tape, studying what the members could improve.
In her 20s, Jhiate bought her own tbourida rifle, called a moukahla. She finally took riding lessons, then saved enough to buy her own horse, which she boarded outside Marrakech. She named him Zher, which means “luck.”
An online acquaintance shared Aboulait’s phone number, but Jhiate never worked up the courage to call. Then one day her phone buzzed, and when she looked down, she froze—it was the muqadema calling. Aboulait had heard about Jhiate through a rider they both knew. Would the young equestrian ride with Aboulait’s sorba at one of Morocco’s largest and most prominent festivals?
Before each ride, the group washes together, the Muslim ritual cleansing called wudu. Then the women say a dua, or prayer, asking for a safe ride. It’s important, Aboulait says, that they get on their horses with peaceful minds and with harmony among the riders. They wear sunscreen but not makeup, which Aboulait says would shift attention to individuals rather than the group. She mourns some of what she sees as modern erosions of the tbourida tradition. For example, she says, boys used to have to learn much more before being allowed to ride. Leaders of sorbas were expected to be ceremonious hosts in their moussem tents, providing guests with food. It’s not so much that Aboulait is nostalgic, she says, as that she is simply protective of standards.
Five days later, in the middle of the night, Jhiate arrived with Zher at the Moussem Moulay Abdellah Amghar, an annual week-long event where more than a hundred tbourida teams compete before crowds of thousands. She found Aboulait waiting outside a tent she shared with the troupe. They exchanged a few words, then Jhiate went to sleep beside a group of strangers. The next day, she rode for the first time alongside her hero—and the women she now considers sisters.
And after all these years, she doesn’t think of herself as being particularly revolutionary for having helped bring women into the sport. One of the beautiful things about tbourida, Aboulait says, is that it erases differences among its participants. At moussems, a roster of a hundred troupes might include only a couple composed of women, but she feels a kinship with all of her fellow riders. Tbourida brought her and her father together. These days it is cementing bonds between her and her young protégées. “Age, social, cultural,” she says. “Everybody speaks the same language.” j
Aboulait, Jhiate says, has taught her “what it means to be a rider.” She admires how her muqadema balances family, career, and an infectious devotion to the sport. “When we turn around and we find Zahia happy,” Jhiate says, “when we find her laughing, we are happier than her.”
Aboulait has purposely kept her troupe small. Some sorbas have over two dozen riders; hers currently has fewer than a dozen. These days, she says, she meets young people whose interest in the sport seems driven by
Left
The women of Zahia Aboulait’s sorbaincluding Ilham Mahfoud Salam, center left, and Siham Aboulait, center rightpray for safety before each show. Tbourida is typically performed at rural fairs called moussems, which honor a local saint.
‘It makes you proud.
Apart from the sporting aspect,
there is something Moroccan about it, something that belongs to us.’
—Zahia Aboulait
Below
Ikrati Talid rides in an all-women sorba based in the inland city of Marrakech. She often takes the role of lead rider, or muqadema.
In the Nabata family stable in Rabat, riders prepare for a training session. Male tbourida riders are more likely than women to own the horses they use, says anthropologist Gwyneth Talley, a National Geographic Explorer who’s spent time with the Nabatas’ sorba. Often, a muqadema must borrow horses for her riders.
Chaymae Saad Eddine, a rider with Aboulait’s sorba, adjusts her reins before a performance at a moussem in the coastal town of Sidi Rahal. Horses are adorned with lavish, often handembroidered tack.
Below
Hind Al-Rami, of Casablanca, formed her own all-female tbourida troupe with her sister. Al-Rami says taking part in tbourida estranged the sisters from their family, who feel women shouldn’t ride.
‘I’ve shared everything with my horse: my money, my expenses, my love, and even my moments of sadness.’
Right
Marwa Essallak (at left), Hiba Essallak (center), and Marwa Elmaite, who ride with Bouchra Nabata’s sorba, help fasten each other’s headscarves before a training session.
—Hind Al-Rami
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Aboulait’s troupe makes a rehearsal run at the Moussem Moulay Abdellah Amghar, one of the largest and most prestigious festivals for tbourida. Last year’s moussem welcomed 130 male and three female sorbas. Troupes with a mix of men and women are rare.
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Tbourida riders’ antique-style rifles are loaded with black powder. Saad Eddine and Lebdaoui, from Aboulait’s troupe, discharge rifles that misfired during a performance.
H O W I G O T T H E S H O T
A RARE Look at an ELUSIVE
To capture an image of China’s famous black-and-white bear, an inventive photographer first had to find one.
Photograph and words by
R O B G . G R E E N
“IN CHINA, IMAGES OF giant pandas are everywhere: on road signs, backpacks, key chains, storefronts, teacups. But seeing one in the wild is notoriously difficult—even in Giant Panda National Park. Last fall, I spent three weeks in the preserve, located in central China, with two forest rangers and three fellow photographers and National Geographic Explorers. Our goal was to set up two camera traps to document any of the 30 uncollared and untagged bears believed to live in the 125-square-mile Wanglang section of the park, a mountainous area with dense bamboo and old-growth conifer forests. Perfect for bears that crave solitude. Each day, we inspected bite marks on bamboo, panda droppings, and paw prints. Following those clues, I placed one camera trap facing a narrow gap between two trees, seemingly the only path a passing panda could take. Three months later, at 2:30 a.m., the phone rang. It was Xiaodong Sun, one of my partners in China. He told me to open my email, and—boom!—there it was: a young panda staring me in the face.” —AS TOLD TO GORDY MEGROZ
P A G E . 11 11 7 2 0 2 6
Mini-wetlands called cypress domes, found
throughout Florida, teem with life. Inside this one
in Everglades National Park, Tillandsia air plants
sprout from the trees.
Words by MICHAEL ADNO | Photographs by MAC STONE
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rising from the horizon, the trees in the distance looked like a lime-green stadium. The towering formation represented the telltale signpost for an isolated and almost secret sort of wetland, the remnant of a 6,000-year dance still happening in South Florida. Usually seen at a distance from the road, these curious assemblages known as cypress domes mark the edges of the Everglades’ central nervous system, the 50-mile-wide river that runs from Lake Okeechobee down to the southern tip of Florida. To most, they’re an unknown archipelago set deep in the subtropic borderlands. Those who have entered one will tell you they’re a bit spooky, otherworldly even. In March, I was hiking across rocky terrain on a trail 50 miles west of Miami called the Gator Hook. After picking my way through clusters of small trees, I ventured into the heart of a cypress dome, an ecological mystery that has haunted me for decades.
From above, Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve resembles a vibrant green moonscape flecked by domes. In the centers, the water can pool so deep that cypress seeds can’t take root.
I’d known their doughnut-like shape since I was a kid, spying the domes in the distance when I traveled with my parents between Sarasota and Key West. I’d see those curious arrays of trees in the distance and wonder what they looked like inside. Later, I made my own periodic pilgrimages to the Keys. I started fishing out of the island community of Chokoloskee in the western Everglades,
learning the backcountry north of the coast, and hiking into remote strands of the watershed looking for orchids. A decade ago, I started to write about the place, spending more time there, but as familiar as I got with it, those far-off domes still seemed mystical. Now, a fire burning nearby in the Big Cypress National Preserve pushed me east to a vein of crushed limestone called Loop Road. Even in the dry season, this area can be covered
in a slow-moving sheet of water, sometimes up to four feet, but with an extreme drought blanketing South Florida, I found my way much deeper into the backcountry than I’d normally be able to hike.
As I turned south toward the dome, I saw butterfly orchids and air plants perched on the trees along its rim. And as I entered the shady half-acre wetland through a break in the dwarf cypresses that mark its edge, I
Alligators can serve as surprising engineers within the cypress domes, burrowing into the muck and enlarging areas where water and fish can gather. This mother alligator guards her hatchlings under cypress roots in Everglades National Park.
was surrounded by gargantuan bald cypress trees, their bases reminiscent of ancient redwoods, littered with cyan and magenta lichen, their bark dripping with air plants just beginning to flower in delicate sprays of fuchsia, chartreuse, and lavender. I remembered then the first time I hiked alone into a dome north of the Big Cypress Reservation. That feeling of pure wonder and terror, a sensation of being watched by a panther or water moccasin. That green pool of shadows, lit up by orchids and bromeliads teeming with novelty, stayed with me, like a secret I kept.
about the size of a garage, reflected the drifting clouds above. Around it, a bundle of pond apple trees swayed in the wind, and I wondered how many alligators lurked in the water. I was in another world here, inside something that felt immediately sacred. As thunder growled farther west, I was finally learning why these intricate, isolated pockets of the Everglades had always felt so mysterious to me. But soon, as I started to discover their unexpected wonders, that shapeless fascination grew into something else entirely.
In the Everglades, an area twice the size of Delaware and composed of nearly a dozen different habitats, there’s a lot to find
A light rain began to fall, and the shallow pool of water in the middle of the dome,
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THE MAKING OF A CYPRESS DOME
NORTH CAROLINA
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The most common type of stillwater swamp in Florida today, cypress domes started forming about 6,000 years ago. Heavy logging in the early 1900s claimed many of the trees, but some that survived are now hundreds of years old. Still developing today, domes emerge in natural depressions where water collects and remains for at least 200 to 300 days a year.
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The limestone bedrock dissolves, and sediment settles into the newly created spaces.
Acidic water percolates through the ground.
Either gradually or abruptly, a depression appears. Water pools, and cypresses sprout.
Gradual dissolution slumps the surface
Cavities near the surface can collapse abruptly
Surface layers
Limestone
DIANA MARQUES, CHRISTINE FELLENZ, AND BRAD SCRIBER, NGM STAFF SOURCES: CORTNEY CAMERON, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX; U.S. FOREST SERVICE; USDA LANDFIRE
awe-inspiring. There are prehistoric fish that have traversed its borders for thousands of years, mostly unchanged by time. Spellbinding orchids named after ghosts and cigars. It’s one of the few places where alligators coexist with crocodiles. Cypress domes, on the other hand, rarely garner the same fanfare, research, or protections as other elements in the watershed.
Southeast, they’re heavily concentrated in South Florida. More than their larger counterparts, these “little no-name wetlands [are] orders of magnitude more important” ecologically, says Matt Cohen, an ecohydrologist and the director of the University of Florida’s Water Institute. About 6,000 years ago, after the seawater that once covered South Florida had finally retreated, the Everglades ecosystem started to take shape. Not long before, the first signs of the cypress tree appeared.
But in recent years, a host of revelations about the domes have clarified their significance. They play important physical, biological, and chemical roles, and provide a haven for endangered species. Although domes appear across parts of the American
The name comes from the ancient origin myth of Cyparissus, the boy who accidentally killed a tame stag and who in his grief was transformed into a cypress. The tale made
Dome effect Trees are shorter on the edges of the water…
Doughnut effect Some domes have a central open area where water is too deep for cypresses to sprout
…and grow taller in deeper water and richer soil
Pond cypress, Taxodium ascendens
50-60 ft tall
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Over about 100 years, as falling cypress leaves decompose, they create more soil and enable the network of cypress trees to expand. The water in the dome, which typically fluctuates by a few feet during the year—or can dry out entirely in the winter—provides valuable habitat for plants and animals.
A bend in the wide part of the trunk can mark the usual high-water level in the summer.
The function of cypress knees, a type of aerial root, isn’t fully understood. Helping with oxygen intake or structural stability are leading hypotheses.
Cypress domes, such as this one in Cypress Creek Natural Area some 80 miles north of Miami, dot the horizon with their parabola-like outlines—a reflection of how the trees grow tallest in the middle where the soil is deepest. Fire can eliminate smaller cypresses around the edges, maintaining the domes’ distinctive shape.
From top
Domes act like a sponge on the landscape, capturing floodwaters and other runoff. Aquatic vegetationseen here inside a dome in Everglades National Parkhelps filter sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus from the water before it drains into the Biscayne aquifer, which provides drinking water for over five million people in southern Florida.
When water levels reach their peak at the height of wet season in August and September, fish such
soil. Eventually, that depression in the bedrock held more water throughout the winter, enabling the trees to flourish as critters like alligators and wading birds found more habitat as well as forage during dry stretches. That continued for hundreds and then thousands of years until those once nascent cypress trees morphed into dense circular stands along the edges of a pool that can grow too deep for the trees to regenerate. From above, they can look like pockmarked canopies or neon doughnuts, but in profile, they reveal a rising and falling shape of taller, typically more mature trees closest to the center that precipitously drop back to dwarf trees along the rim.
“The cypress domes are self-creating,” Cohen said. “How often do you get to really think about this notion that an ecosystem is its own engineer?” These ecological oddities have become a sign of how the natural world adapts: The domes in South Florida are products of the depressions in the bedrock that held water in the dry season, and can also be a product of the American alligator, which searches out these sinks in the dry season, excavating the soil further and in turn becoming a collaborative engineer of the Everglades.
the trees into a symbol of mourning and immortality—which is fitting considering that they’re among the oldest living trees on the planet. Today the oldest surviving cypresses in the Southeast are thought to date back at least 2,000 years.
Cohen explained how the trees toward the center of cypress domes grew larger by excavating a pool with the “rocket fuel” that the falling leaves and resulting acid produced in the standing water—etching a deeper depression in the limestone over time, collecting more water and soil. I learned how that process then created richer and deeper soil, and how the farther you traveled out from the center, the soil lost nutrition and depth, hence the smaller trees. The periodic fires that tore through parts of the Everglades, like the Big Cypress blaze in March, decimated the trees along the domes’ borders, helping to mold their spherical shape. I learned how the same curves I saw above ground were echoed below in the soil and the erosion of the karst bedrock in a parabolic reflection.
The Timucua people used cypresses to make dugout canoes, and the Seminole and Miccosukee have built their houses with them. Valued for its heartwood, the tree was harvested so voraciously by the lumber industry that by the early 20th century, most of Florida’s old-growth stands of cypress had vanished.
Cohen, who has studied these wetlands for over two decades, told me that as the seasons passed and the rains came and went, a long interplay between the trees and the ground began. The leaves shed by the cypress trees decomposed in the water, generating carbonic acid that gnawed away
In Big Cypress National Preserve, gators congregate in a cypress strand, a close relative to a dome. Both types of wetlands attract wildlife during dry season. But strands, unlike their smaller, circular counterparts, function more like a river.
Cypress domes harbor more than 300 plant species, including orchids, air plants, ferns, and Everglades daisies, seen here blooming inside a dome in Everglades National Park in springtime, before the canopy has filled with leaves.
Small depressional wetlands like these are, said Cohen, an “incredible mosaic of habitats on the landscape,” where roughly one-third of Florida’s critically endangered creatures live at some point in their life cycles. They are sanctuaries for salamanders and frogs, key components of the food chain, and serve as way stations for migratory birds that toggle between North and South America: one of the few places where you’ll see a kettle of swallow-tailed kites in spring and fall. When you enter the emerald-tinged shadows of a dome, the plants inside can be very different from those in other domes. “That’s kind of a feature, not a bug,” Cohen told me. The diversity reflects the unique ecosystem cultivated inside each one.
of similar size in a larger wetland. “They’re truly underappreciated,” says Cortney Cameron, a scientist who has studied the unique hydrology of the domes in Florida.
And still, there are fewer regulatory safeguards for them than for other wetlands. In 2023, the Supreme Court eliminated federal protections for wetlands without a “continuous surface connection” to oceans, lakes, streams, or rivers. By some estimates, more than half of wetlands throughout the United States, once protected under the Clean Water Act of 1972, are now potentially at risk. The cypress domes protected by state laws or located in national parks such as Big Cypress or Everglades National Park remain safe, but outside of Florida, a whole host of domes can now be razed and filled, eliminating some of the region’s most critical habitats. “This incremental loss of storage and habitat has consequences,” Cohen said. “It’s death by a thousand wounds.”
The domes have the crucial ability to store water, which “dramatically alters the way floodwaters move,” essentially capturing heavy rainfall and runoff, and making them increasingly valuable given the rampant development in South Florida. But he noted how these areas, when protected and allowed to behave naturally, act like a sponge, storing water and exchanging it with aquifers that provide drinking water for several million people. The domes are one of the first places where nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment are retained, neutralized, and stored. Their peat-rich soils are remarkable carbon sinks too. Protecting one acre of these stands of trees has far more significant environmental benefits than protecting a space
an oasis: a buffet for wading birds feasting on fish trapped in their pools, a refuge for the hundreds of plants they support, and a haven for the alligators that can help create them and that depend on them for habitat.
The more time I spent hiking into different domes in southern Florida, the more awe I felt, and my sense of why the experience seemed like entering some holy or historic place grew. The intense diversity that lends the Everglades its character, the dizzying map of different ecosystems created by that dance between water and fire, soil and bedrock, became increasingly clear. It was that wild variety that Cohen told me formed the beating heart of the Everglades—what he called “hydrological heterogeneity.” I pretended to understand. But after exploring enough domes, I could see how different each one was, the catalog of air plants in one, the hallucinogenic quality of others soaked in pink lichen, the chartreuse ferns in another. Each held this primordial feeling. The mystery of why each dome was so different only deepened that feeling.
In South Florida, where climate change haunts every aspect of our lives and every season in subtle and sometimes volatile ways, cypress domes are under threat due to drier winters and hotter summers. This year, researchers in Florida revealed that the trees were acclimating to climate change by becoming more efficient in their uptake of water, a possible signal of their resilience in the face of inevitable shifts to the region. The domes may be a bulwark against the crisis, not only because of their carbon storage but also because in the dry season, they become
I remembered the canopy of some lit up with raptors or wading birds, the sound of owls in others, the amber columns of light shaped by the green tendrils of the trees and the tannic water colored by their leaves. I thought about the ceremony we all participate in the farther into nature we go. Out of the mist, another world seems to appear, or rather, our world appears with clarity. Beneath a peal of thunder and the wildfire burning farther west, I stood inside that dome off Loop Road and wondered what other secrets it held. j
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审计结论： 存在多处阻塞性缺陷 (Blocking Issues)，主要集中在数字遗漏、专有名词缺失以及段落/逻辑顺序混乱。
0027-9358、协议号 1000010298、邮政编码 1082, 20162, 25401 以及部分价格 119.00, 15.00）。1881 和 1884 在翻译预览中完全消失（或未在对应段落出现）。Adolphus Greely (极地探险家) 在翻译件中完全缺失，导致最后一页关于“生存故事”的逻辑断层。Aida Alami 等部分贡献者姓名在译文中未见。phone 这一单词孤立地放在段首，导致“不到两年后...”的衔接极其突兀）。MORO CCO’S HORSEWOMEN（原文拼写错误被原样保留，且未完全处理）。F R O M T H E VAU LT（保留了不必要的空格排版）。V O L U M E 2 5 0... 等页码/卷号部分仅做了部分翻译，保留了大量原始装饰性空格。| 维度 | 评级 | 备注 |
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| 忠实度 (Faithfulness) | ❌ 差 | 关键人物 (Greely) 和数字丢失严重 |
| 完整性 (Completeness) | ❌ 差 | 底部法律信息和部分段落被截断/遗漏 |
| 流畅度 (Fluency) | ⚠️ 中 | 语言流畅但逻辑衔接因原文截断而破碎 |
| 格式一致性 (Format) | ⚠️ 中 | 保留了过多不必要的英文空格字符 |
建议： 重新处理 PDF 文本提取层，特别是针对底部小字区域和跨页段落的合并，补齐所有遗漏的数字和专有名词。