15 Stunning Wildlife Photos: Safari Animals, Pandas, Penguins, and Whales

Wildlife photos stay in search after summer travel: safari trips, whale watches, and zoo-versus-wild debates. These 15 licensed pictures cover Serengeti lions, Indian tigers, pandas, penguins, whales, and a monarch. Credit sits under each photo.

1. Lion, Serengeti

A male in tall grass. Tanzania’s Serengeti is still the first result for “safari photo.”

Photo: Giles Laurent / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

2. African elephant

A bull in open country. Tusks and ears are the silhouette people save from East and Southern Africa.

Photo: Bernard Dupont / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0

3. Giraffe, Mikumi

A tall profile against Tanzanian bush. Giraffes photograph cleaner than most safari mammals.

Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim / Wikimedia Commons / GFDL 1.2

4. Cheetah, South Africa

A male looking left. Speed is the story; the face is what people actually click.

Photo: AfricanConservation / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

5. Bengal tiger, Sanjay Dubri

A tiger in an Indian reserve. Tiger safari searches spike whenever a viral cub photo circulates.

Photo: Tisha Mukherjee / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

6. Giant panda

Black-and-white in bamboo. Still one of the most searched animal portraits on Earth.

Photo: J. Patrick Fischer / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

7. Red panda

The Himalayan tree-dweller, not a cub version of the giant panda. Rust coat, ringed tail.

Photo: Sunuwargr / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

8. Mountain gorillas

The Susa group in the Virunga highlands. Rwanda and Uganda treks book out months ahead.

Photo: d_proffer / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0

9. Polar bear, Alaska

White fur on Arctic ice. Arctic cruise and Churchill searches still pair with this silhouette.

Photo: Alan Wilson / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

10. Emperor penguins, Antarctica

Adults and a chick on Snow Hill Island. The colony photo people mean by “penguin.”

Photo: Ian Duffy / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0

11. Atlantic puffin

Orange beak, cliff nesting. Iceland, Maine, and UK islands share this bird in summer searches.

Photo: Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

12. Humpback whale, Cabo San Lucas

A breach off Baja. Winter whale-watch season is already in flight-search roundups.

Photo: Juan Cruzado Cortés / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0

13. Giant otters

A family in South American water. Not sea otters — longer, louder, and rarer.

Photo: Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

14. Macaws

Scarlet, blue-and-gold, and military macaws together. Amazon color without a collage layout.

Photo: LancerEvolution / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0

15. Monarch butterfly

Close-up of a male. Migration to Mexico is the autumn wildlife story after Labor Day.

Photo: Derek Ramsey / Wikimedia Commons / GFDL 1.2

All 15 photos are from Wikimedia Commons. If you republish, keep the photographer credit and license link under each image.