Five countries now ring the Caspian, where two stood only a decade ago. The Soviet Union’s breakup left regional economies in tatters; it also spurred the biggest oil rush of the past quarter century.

Double Map Supplement: Caspian Sea

See never before published photographs from this assignment in our Visions Gallery.

Dogs? Not really. Wild? Definitely. Only distantly related to any of the world’s other canids, these bush hunters live in sociable packs but suffer a bloodthirsty reputation.

Survivors swore the Whydah was packed with plunder when a nor’easter swamped her off Cape Cod in 1717. Now salvagers searching for the loot have hit archaeological gold: artifacts offering a treasure trove of insights into the lives of pirates.

Visit our “Pirates of the Whydah” museum exhibit online.

Meet the Whydah Pirates in our Web exclusive.

Read the complete NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC article.

In the river-gouged plains of eastern Montana folks tough as branding irons find community—when they want it.

In return for sustenance, ants pollinate and guard plants. But when ants ravage crucial nutrients, plants retaliate. Rarely captured images illustrate relationships both symbiotic and hostile.

Did ancient fish haul themselves ashore on fins that later became limbs? Probably not, according to new discoveries suggesting that the legs animals use to walk on land originated in the Devonian period for life in the water.

Cuba; The Rebirth of Old Havana; A Dinosaur Named Sue; John Glenn: Man With a Mission; Tam Dao—Sanctuary Under Siege; Ancient Art of the Sahara; Deep Soul of the New River