Marco Guerra & Yasmina Alaoui's Amazing Body Art

Decorate your desktops with ‘Sand’

Courtesy: National Geographic Society

Wild Mammal 'Dingo' Profile

The dingo is legendary as Australia's wild dog, though it also occurs in Southeast Asia. The Australian animals may be descendents of Asian dingoes that were introduced to the continent some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago.

These golden or reddish-colored canids may live alone (especially young males) or in packs of up to ten animals. They roam great distances and communicate with wolf-like howls.

Dingo hunting is opportunistic. Animals hunt alone or in cooperative packs. They pursue small game such as rabbits, rodents, birds, and lizards. These dogs will eat fruits and plants as well. They also scavenge from humans, particularly in their Asian range.

Dingoes breed only once a year. Females typically give birth to about five pups, which are not independent until six to eight months of age. In packs, a dominant breeding female will kill the offspring of other females.

Australia is home to so many of these animals that they are generally considered pests. A famous "dingo fence" has been erected to protect grazing lands for the continent's herds of sheep. It is likely that more dingoes live in Australia today than when Europeans first arrived.

Though dingoes are numerous, their pure genetic strain is gradually being compromised. They can and do interbreed with domestic dogs to produce hybrid animals. Studies suggest that more than a third of southeastern Australia's dingoes are hybrids.

Courtesy : National Geographic

World's Oldest republic 'San Marino'

San Marino Information and History

Originally a medieval city-state, the world's oldest republic perches atop a mountain in north-central Italy. San Marino takes pride in its finely minted coins, ceremonial guard, and postage stamps. Well-preserved castles and sweeping vistas of the Adriatic coast enchant 3.5 million visitors a year.

ECONOMY

Industry: tourism, banking, textiles, electronics.Agriculture: wheat, grapes, corn, olives; cattle.Exports: building stone, lime, wood, chestnuts, wheat, wine, baked goods, hides, ceramics.

NG’s Best Wild Animal Photos of 2008

(Courtesy: National Geographic Society) Stalking India's Hemis National Park, a snow leopard lives up to its name in U.S. photographer Steve Winter's award-winning National Geographic magazine image.

On October 30, 2008, "Snowstorm Leopard" was named best overall photo in the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which is organized by the Natural History Museum of London and BBC Wildlife Magazine. "This is the hardest story I have ever done because of the altitude and the steepness of the mountains," the U.S. photographer told National Geographic. "At night it was 30 below zero.

" Over ten months Winter's 14 "camera traps" shot more than 30,000 frames in pursuit of the endangered cat.

Man and whale size each other up in the winner of the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition's underwater category, announced on October 30, 2008.

The photo was taken by Brian Skerry on assignment for National Geographic magazine off New Zealand's Auckland Islands, where a "pristine population" of southern right whales, in Skerry's words, was discovered only ten years ago. The U.S. photographer said he had deployed his assistant Mauricio Handler (pictured) as bait for this friendly 70-ton giant.

"The whales were highly curious of us. Many of these animals had never seen a human before," Skerry told National Geographic News.

A black colobus monkey has its fur singed in preparation for sale at an illegal bush-meat market in Gabon.

The image won the One Earth Award, which "seeks to highlight the interaction between humans and the natural world," at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition on October 30, 2008.

"They singe the fur off, then sell the animals naked but intact," U.K. photographer David Maitland explained. The shot was taken in Gabon's capital city, Libreville, where sea turtles, crocodiles, porcupines, antelopes, and other protected animals were openly on sale.

"It was only afterwards that I realized how strong this image was," Maitland said. "It was very upsetting to be there."

An aptly named winner of the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest, "Deadlock" was captured in the dead of night in a Belizean rain forest.

U.K.-based David Maitland observed from midnight to 3 a.m. as a rare Morelet's tree frog doggedly refused to become supper for a cat-eyed snake--and still didn't see the conclusion.

"I would love to have seen them go their separate ways, but I was exhausted," the photographer said. "The frog was all the time trying to pull the snake off, but the snake just wouldn't let go.

"This frog is actually incredibly rare, which lends to the bizarre nature of the whole encounter," he said.

French photographer Cyril Ruoso pursued the screams of hunting chimpanzees through dense forests in Tanzania's Gombe National Park--and captured this winner of the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, announced October 30, 2008, in London.

The central and dominant figure, unwilling to share his half of a wild pig, is a 31-year-old male known as Frodo, lead hunter of his group. "Frodo is a warrior," Ruoso said.

"He catches the prey 80 percent of the time."

Such a large catch is rare for Gombe's chimpanzees, which usually target small monkeys, Ruoso said.

"He would jump all over me, then run away," said Stefano Unterthiner of the black-crested macaque in this winning photo from the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. "He was always hanging around."

Unterthiner followed a group of the monkeys on Indonesia's Sulawesi island for six weeks, always wearing the same clothes, so they would recognize him.

The rare animals spend 99 percent of their time foraging in the forest and rarely venture along the shore, according to Unterthiner. Until recently the local tradition was to eat them for Christmas dinner, he added.

A snowy clash of white-tailed eagles during a Polish winter is among the winning images in the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, organized by BBC Wildlife Magazine and London's Natural History Museum.

After finding a dead moose next to a rail track, photographer Antoni Kasprzak waited five hours until the two birds, a juvenile and an adult, descended and began fighting over the carcass.

"The old, more experienced bird won, forcing the immature eagle to wait its turn more than an hour," Kasprzak said.

Terrorist Siege Has Ended in Mumbai (Gallery)

Even as the special forces and the police succeeded in freeing 200 people who were holed up inside the Oberoi and Trident Hotels for the third day, four Israeli and United States nationals held hostage in a south Mumbai Jewish religious centre were found dead when commandos stormed the building late on Friday evening.

A National Security Guards officer in the rank of a Major, who was not officially identified, gave his life in the attempt to rescue the four hostages held by terrorists at the Chabad-Lukovich religious centre in Nariman House in the Colaba area. The two terrorists who had taken over the centre were also killed.

NSG commandos had engaged in periodic exchanges of fire through Thursday in the course of efforts to rescue the Nariman House hostages. Early this morning, the NSG used a helicopter to lower commandos on to the roof of Nariman House. Several explosions were heard soon afterwards.

In the evening, the NSG, backed by specialists from the Indian Army’s Engineers Regiment, blew several holes in the building’s walls in an attempt to facilitate access into the premises.

When the NSG entered the building, though, they discovered the bodies of the terrorists and the hostages lying on the second, third and fourth floors of the five-storey building.

The dead hostages were officially identified as Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, the head of the Chabad-Lukovich centre, and his Israeli wife Rivka Holtzberg. Sandra Samuel, a Mumbai resident who worked as a cook for the Holtzenberg family, had helped their child, Zvi Moshe, escape the building soon after the terrorist attack began.

Earlier, NSG commandos succeeded in eliminating two suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists who had taken positions inside the Oberoi Hotel and Trident Hotel in the Nariman Point area. The NSG operation opened the way for the rescue of upwards of 200 guests and visitors who were trapped in the adjoining hotels during the fighting. Mumbai Police officials said the survivors included nationals of over 20 countries.

The police recovered the bodies of 24 people killed in the fighting, most of whom are thought to have died when terrorists burst into the building firing from assault rifles and lobbing grenades.

Six other bodies were recovered from the buildings earlier. NSG officials said two assault rifles, a pistol and several unexploded grenades were recovered from the two terrorists killed during the fighting. Around midnight, the NSG was still engaged in sanitising the building and conducting checks for hidden explosives.

Maharashtra Director-General of Police A.N. Roy said 155 civilians have so far died in the terror attacks which began on Friday. Another 318 people have been injured. However, speaking to journalists in the evening, Union Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal said the final death toll could go up to 200.