Joel Sartore's Trip to the Zoo

National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore took a trip to the zoo and was amazed by the wildlife he encountered.

So what to do?

I went to the zoo.

Actually, I went to several. And of course, I took my camera along. I'd feel naked without it.

I thought I'd do studio-type portraits of anything that would hold still. Sometimes the shooting went very well. Take turtles, for example. They'd just shell up and look at me.

But sometimes it was pure misery. Small primates never, ever hold still. I wonder how they sleep at night. The same holds true with naked mole rats, by the way. Very squirmy. And some animals hated my paper backgrounds.

But through it all, I couldn't stop marveling at the diversity I was seeing. Every niche in nature is filled. Adaptations to all manners of wet and dry, hot and cold, predator and prey. Animal bodies have become tools for eating, hiding, mating, for staying alive.

But if you can see past their looks, you'll soon notice the similarities between us and them. Zoo animals get bored and hungry, excited and angry. They have good days and bad. They are just like us, actually, except they're often better behaved.

What zoo animals give us is a rare glimpse at the most amazing creatures. To think that an armadillo makes his own armor, or that a pallid sturgeon uses its nose to find food and a mate in dark roiling water. That's miraculous to me.

And what do zoos give the animals? Survival. For many species, zoos are modern day arks. The black-footed ferret? She and her entire species wouldn't be here without the help of intensive captive breeding efforts. Same story with the Wyoming toad, the California condor and many others.

Of all the things that I've seen at zoos though, none have moved me more than the amphibians.

They're so varied, and yet so small and delicate, with a permeable skin that allows all manners of toxins in. It's a wonder they've survived at all.

Biologists expect we'll lose half of all amphibian species within the next 10 years. I think folks would want to know that.

After all, if you think about it, there's as much grace and beauty in a Mandarin newt as there is in the roar of a lion. What a warm thought to make it through these final days of winter.

And so I go. And I stare. And I wonder. And I know it's time well spent. After all, the view is tremendous. I can see the whole world in the eye of a frog.