Life in Color: Orange

Photograph by Chris Johns
A balance of playful yellow and passionate red, orange commands attention
without overwhelming. This often flamboyant color brings to mind citrus and sunsets,
fall leaves, and jack-o'-lanterns. Orange has even been found to stimulate appetite
and creativity in humans.Here, three giraffes in Botswana's Okavango Delta stretch their necks above the horizon before a glowing orange sky.


Photograph by Todd Gipstein
Sunset casts a spurred boot in silhouette in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Such icons of the Old West still have a proud place in everyday New Mexican life.


Photograph by Todd Gipstein
An orange-tinged sunset provides the backdrop for a sailboat
on Lake Michigan. This 321-mile-long (517-kilometer-long)
body of water is the only Great Lake located entirely within the United States.


Photograph by James Stanfield
Knobby haystacks dot a wheat field in Malazgirt, Turkey,
as sunset bathes two workers in hazy orange light.

Photograph by James Amos
Molten glass is turned into insulation at the Johns-Manville
Corporation in Berlin, New Jersey. The orange-hot fluid is forced
through holes in a palladium sheet to form long, thin fibers.


Photograph by James Blair
Vibrant tulips brighten the Samuels Bulb Garden at
St. Louis's Missouri Botanical Garden. Established in 1859,
the garden is an internationally recognized center for botanical
research and a year-round urban oasis for flower fans.


Photograph by Medford Taylor
Orange sunset colors the sand around Australia's famed dingo fence,
a 3,355-mile (5,400-kilometer) barrier that crosses the country's desert
interior and separates cattle and sheep from predatory wild dogs.


Photograph by James Stanfield
The dusty-orange, beehive-shaped huts of Tall Mardĭkh,
Syria, were built some 200 years ago by an ancient method
which has since been lost. The shape and materials of these mud-brick
dwellings help them remain cool in summer and warm in winter.



Photograph by Norbert Rosing
Birds fill an orange sky over Germany’s Wattenmeer National Park.
This coastal wetland, covered by the sea at high tide,
is home to some 3,200 different animals and a popular stopover
for many migratory birds.


Photograph by Todd Gipstein
Scores of orange koi fish crowd a pond in Oahu, Hawaii.
Prized by collectors, koi are an ornamental variety of freshwater
carp originally raised in Japan.


Photograph by Tim Laman
A tubastraea coral waves its wispy, orange tentacles near
Sangeang Island, Indonesia. Coral reefs cover less than
one percent of the ocean floor, but they support one out of
every four marine creatures.


Photograph by Michael Nichols
The pastel-orange of the Grand Canyon's sandstone walls
dominates the view from the vantage known as SB Point.
The canyon’s rock layers display a geological history some
two billion years old.


Photograph by Michael Nichols
Scorpians have survived for hundreds of millions of years
by being extremely adaptable. Some, like this orange-colored
species in the Grand Canyon, dwell in desert climes,
while others inhabit the tropics, temperate forests,
and even Himalayan high peaks.


Photograph by Raymond Gehman
The moon rises over Big Meadows on an autumn evening in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park. Some 450 families in the Blue Ridge Mountains were relocated when the park was created in the 1930s.


Photograph by Michael Yamashita
A burning orange sun sets behind a fringe of pampas grass
in Japan. Japan's nickname, "The Land of the Rising Sun,
" is derived from the Chinese ideograph meaning "place of
the sun's origin."



Photograph by David Doubilet
This toxic orange Godiva nudibranch was photographed in
the Raja Ampat islands, Papua, Indonesia. There are
over 3,000 known species of these colorful sea slug relatives,
and new ones are discovered nearly every day.


Photograph by Joel Sartore
Two brightly colored sun conures relax on a branch at
the Bramble Park Zoo in Watertown, South Dakota.
These South American parakeets are common in captivity,
but wild populations have crashed due to unregulated trapping.


Photograph by Joel Sartore
An extreme close-up shows the delicate hair of an orange
baboon tarantula, a resident of the Great Plains Zoo in
Sioux Falls, South Dakota. This large, aggressive species is
native to Africa.