15+ Unexpected Sights From Nature That Seriously Startled Us

This chameleon is catching the first (or last) of the day's light. More importantly, from this angle, it looks like the lizard is catching the sun itself.

Palm trees can get pretty tall, but I had no idea they could get this tall. For the record, this is, in fact, the tallest palm tree in the world.

This Greenland shark is close to four centuries (!) old. That means it was swimming the world's oceans before the United States existed.

This pic from Namibia's Lower Ugab Valley shows the power of plate tectonics. You can literally see the different layers of the Earth's crust and how they've folded.

This pic doesn't show anything spectacular, but the composition just blows me away. The lighting, the mist, and of course the prancing deer — it's all perfect.

Mount Roraima, seen here, is a table-top mountain. It's strange to see a mountain that's so uniformly flat on top, and with some vertical drops off the side.

Foxes are beautiful animals in any context, but this melanistic fox is a rare sight indeed. I love how the eyes smolder in its dark face.

Cherry blossoms are a gorgeous sight, but they're usually seen on relatively small trees. This 200-year-old tree in Japan is one of the most beautiful in the world.

Pics like this show that the Grand Canyon is so much more than just a massive hole in the ground. There are so many peaks and valleys, it's hard to keep track.

This rhino and this bird seem to have a pretty good understanding with each other. I wonder if this is an ongoing or a new friendship.

When you take away the light pollution, it's truly jaw-dropping how much of the Milky Way becomes visible in the night sky.

This pic of Lake McDonald in Montana would be stunning by itself, but what really sets it apart is the multicolored hue of the rock bed.

This mountain peak might not look like much without the moon, but in this context it looks exactly like a wolf howling.

Many caves are cramped, claustrophobic spaces, but some of them are bigger than a cathedral. Just look at the scale of this cave.

This pic shows, better than most, the dramatic difference even a small cloud can make when it casts its shadow.

This slightly curled fallen leaf is casting a shadow in the low light of the sun that looks just like a dragon.

We're used to seeing praying mantises do their little praying pose, but this mantis just looks overjoyed to be alive.

A diver spotted this, which you can see if you stare at the middle of the pic long enough. It's a flounder that's virtually invisible against the seabed.

This carrot looks more like an extra from Saturday Night Fever than a carrot. It even stands up by itself.

The water on the left is from flooding in Australia, while the water on the right is the ocean. It's wild how clear the line is between them.