A ghost crab lies in wait under a thin blanket of wet sand at Loango National Park. Established in 2002, the park is designed to allow visitors access to this remarkable stretch of wilderness on Africa's western coast without interfering with the wildlife that teem along its shores.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Gabon's Loango National Park: In the Land of the Surfing Hippos," August 2004, National Geographic magazine)