The Smithsonian Wildlife Photo Archive

The Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion has launched Smith­son­ian WILD, a new web site that lets you search through its col­lec­tion of over 202,000 images culled from sev­en ongo­ing wildlife stud­ies. Researchers in remote loca­tions across the globe have set up “cam­era traps” – auto­mat­ed cam­eras trig­gered by motion sen­sors – and left them to record what­ev­er wildlife pass­es by. The result­ing images, be they of giant pan­das in Chi­na, bark­ing deer in Thai­land, or roughed grouse on the Appalachi­an Trail, aren’t near­ly as pret­ty or clear as those we’ve grown accus­tomed to see­ing in nature mag­a­zines and HD prime­time spe­cials. But their raw­ness is part of their appeal: Click­ing through these gal­leries imparts a sense of real-time excite­ment, as if we too have been crouched in the jun­gle for hours, wait­ing to catch a glimpse of some­thing wild.

via Boing­bo­ing

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Vari­ety, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.