Photo of the Day 418

Resting Bushman, Tsumkwe, Namibia, 2001

Photograph by Chris Johns

Bushmen, like this hunter resting in Tsumkwe, Namibia, have had a key advantage over other early societies: their ability to survive without surface water. They know where to find liquid-bearing melons and tubers. They also bury ostrich eggs filled with water during the wet season and recover them later, during the dry. This arcane knowledge allows the Bushmen to live where others could not.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Bushmen: Last Stand for Southern Africa's First People," February 2001, National Geographic magazine)