flamingos flying over tanzania’s lake natron, a salt lake which is home to three quarters of the world’s three million lesser flamingos, as well as toxic multicoloured extremophile cyanobacteria that thrive in water so hypersaline it would strip away human skin. for the flamingos, however, the tough skin and scales on their legs prevents burning, leaving them uniquely free to drink from the near boiling freshwater found from springs and geysers at the lake’s edges. (x, x, x, x, x)