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Tiger Close-Up, 1995

A wary tiger flashes a toothy snarl in this extreme close-up. Tigers are thought to have evolved in China more than a million years ago, prowling west toward the Caspian Sea, north to Siberia, and south across Indochina and Indonesia. Today, three of the original eight tiger subspecies are extinct, and hunting and habitat loss have reduced populations from hundreds of thousands of animals to perhaps fewer than 2,500.

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Making Room for Wild Tigers," December 1997, National Geographic magazine)

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Photograph by Michael Nichols