High quality wildlife photography can make remote nature feel up close and personal. Most people don’t see dangerous predators like tigers in their natural habitat, but through photos and videos, they can feel connected to the big cats and be inspired to learn more about them. But wildlife photography is far from roaming the forest with a camera. It took National Geographic Explorer and photographer Prasenjeet Yadav nearly four months to track, study, and photograph rare black Bengal tigers in India’s Simlipal National Park. His efforts were rewarded when one of these great photos became the cover of National Geographic for October 2025.
Capturing a Rare Similipal Black Tiger
Prasenjeet Yadav said that the epic photoshoot goes by without him. Credit: Instagram
Similipal Tiger Reserve is a national park full of forests, hills, rivers, grasslands, and more. It supports more than 1,000 plant species, including 94 species of orchids, according to WWF. Some of India’s most endangered animals live there, including Asian elephants, gaurs, pangolins, fishing cats, crocodiles and cobras.
Most notably, the Similipal Tiger Reserve is home to rare species of Bengal tigers. About half of the population has pseudo-melanism, a genetic mutation that increases their dark streaks. Some have more black fur than orange or white, earning the nickname“black tigers“. However, this reserve is huge, which makes these big cats even more difficult to find. It took Yadav and his team about 120 days of tracking and studying before the final professional photoshoot. These researchers include forest officials and geneticists who are trying to unravel the mystery of how these tigers change their stripes.
Before becoming a photographer, Yadav was a molecular scientist at India’s National Center for Biological Sciences. It was there that he first learned about black tigers. He eventually left his position to pursue wildlife photography and filmmaking. Interestingly, his former lab discovered the reason for these black tigers. In a 2021 study led by a team at the National Institute of Biological Sciences, they discovered how tigers in the Similipal reserve were born, resulting in genetic mutations. The scientists also tested DNA samples from tigers outside the reserve, and remarkably, none had a copy of this mutation. This emphasizes the true uniqueness of these black tigers. However, it is not clear whether genes cause effects outside the lines. Anything can happen with future generations of breeding.
Meeting the Famous T12
Credit: Naveen Patnaik
Yadav saw another difference between black tigers and their exotic brethren. Overall, Yadav gets the tigers “They are usually not camera shy. They are usually curious rather than afraid,” he explained during an interview with National Geographic. But the black tigers were mischievous and avoided the cameras because of their human scent. Yadav used his previous experience capturing snow leopards to come up with a plan. “What I started to do was to hide those cameras and leave one camera on the track, but at the same time I added another camera. [an] an unexpected place all the time.” So every time a tiger passed by (about every 15 to 18 days), it passed “change camera positions.”
Although Yadav is the credited photographer for this shoot, he is quick to acknowledge the rest of his crew, such as the field team, the Odisha forest department, researchers from the Wildlife Institute of India, and National Geographic photo engineer Tom O’Brien. Most of the time was spent waiting and listening to the natural surroundings when the tigers roared.
In one notable moment, Yadav came face-to-face with the most famous tiger in the Similipal Tiger Reserve. “It was the afternoon of the 50th day when, suddenly, a blackness broke in front of our truck,” he wrote in National Geographic. He soon stopped to see T12, an old black male tiger. The 10-year-old big cat is so innocent that many people in the forest department have never seen it. And while Yadav was tracking and photographing, other research groups were working on a breeding program that would bring in non-Similipal mates of T12 and others into his genetic environment.
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“This is Similipal’s blessing to me…”
Wherever he went, Yadav kept his camera close, just in case. After 120 days, his efforts paid off when he met a black tiger and photographed the October cover of National Geographic. This was Yadav’s lifelong dream, and he is grateful for bringing attention to rare black tigers.“From a story point of view, I’m really happy… because this story needs attention.”
Yadav added that he never thought of taking such a beautiful picture. “…I had a picture in my mind, but the one that came into it [second to last] The day was better than I could have imagined. I know I am not a very spiritual person, but that day I felt very spiritual… This is Similipal’s blessing to me. It saw me working hard [the] 120 days ago and this is how I say goodbye.”
Read more: A mother tiger gave birth to a lifeless cub – the keeper was left stunned by her reaction
