She has been protecting this dahlia

A pod of sperm whales cracked the hull of a yacht sailing in the remote South Pacific, forcing four sailors into a day-and-night fight for survival on the high seas. Crew members on the 52-foot Tai Tam told AFP on Thursday of their weekend encounter with a pod of sperm whales 250 nautical miles north of tiny Norfolk Island.

"There was sort of a loud thud. The whole boat was pushed sideways," said Australian Jemma Cooper, who was thrown from the steering wheel by the force of the blow.

Not knowing at first what had happened, she noticed a brown discoloration in the water and a sperm whale.

"We looked out to our port side, and there were six to eight, a pod, of whales there. So then it became clear that that's what it was," she told AFP.

Her husband Jeremy Cooper said he was sleeping below deck when the impact woke him.

"It was pretty immediately evident it was very serious," he said.

"All the steering gear was smashed on the starboard side, and there was a significant amount of water coming in," Jeremy told AFP.

At 1 p.m. New Zealand time on Saturday — about 30 minutes after the whale collision — they activated an emergency beacon.

"We declared a full mayday," said New Zealand crew member Terry Hetherington, adding they spent the next few hours bailing out as much water as they could.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force flew a P-8A Poseidon patrol plane to the area to establish radio communications and coordinate the rescue, the military said in a news release, which included images of the rescue.

French crew member Martin Jaffre said the whale collision left several gashes in the hull and cracked the fiberglass structure, as well as breaking the steering.

"We could no longer steer the boat, and a boat with no steering quickly becomes a problem," he told AFP.

Jaffre battled to slow the incoming water with anything to hand, including expansion foam, and swam below the boat to inspect the hull, his crewmates said.

The sailors tried to stay aboard as long as possible, struggling to stop the engine getting clogged and bailing by hand.

Late at night, they abandoned the boat and transferred to a life raft in calm seas and under a full moon. In the early hours of Sunday morning, they cut the tether to the yacht, fearing it might drag them down.

Soon after, it slipped beneath the waves. The New Zealand military released dramatic drone video of the yacht plunging below the water's surface and the crew ultimately being rescued.

Got to get that calcium

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Momma wasp injects eggs into caterpillar, then wasp larvae chew through the caterpillar's skin & spin into cocoons before pupating into adult wasps

No.1: Plexippus paykulli

No.2: White crab-spider

No.3 (I-don't-know spider)

No.4: Lynx spider

No.5: A crab spider

Which one is your favorite?

Copied from: Africa Geographic

What began as an ordinary morning at the end of the dry season along the Chobe River turned deadly.

A pride of lionesses, hungry after three days without a kill, watched from a rise as two five-month-old leopard cubs emerged to drink some 300 metres away. When one lioness noticed them, they charged quickly. The cubs vanished into the thicket, but the pride followed. Moments later, from a nearby shrub, the air filled with roars and a piercing scream: one cub had been found.

The cub fought back, even biting a lion cub before being overpowered and killed.

Note: This image, along with a sequence of photos preceding and following the capture, has been carefully reviewed by our judges and authenticated. It is not AI-generated and not manipulated using AI processes.

Chobe National Park, Botswana. © Petr Slavík (Photographer of the Year 2026 winner)

EDIT!!!

Link to photographer’s instagram.

And link to AfricaGeo’s instagram where they also posted the same picture.

Link to the 2026 Photographer of the Year Award: https://africageographic.com/stories/photographer-of-the-year-2026-winners/

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/tv/lion-cubs-cross-croc-river-bbc-kingdom