Bouboule, an English bulldog rests in its hotel room at Actuel Dogs on April 19, 2011 in Vincennes, France. Opened in November 2010 by Devi and Stan Burun, Actuel Dogs is a five-star luxury hotel for dogs with four single rooms and two suites. With the aim of meeting the dogs' needs, the hotel offers activities including doggy walks, doggy rando (hiking), doggy jogs, doggy velo (running next to a bike) and other services such as dog massage. The hotel also caters to the needs of people living in small appartments or who don't have the time to walk their dogs. (Photo by Franck Prevel/Getty Images)

Tom Nevins guts a feral pig sow during hunting on Silver Plains Station on October 8, 2011 outside of Coen, Australia. Feral pigs are recognised as environmental and agricultural pests reported to have a population of up to 23.5 million over around half of Australia. The Cooktown Hog Hunt is held annually with this year's hunting window open from registration at 2pm on Friday to the end of weigh in at 2pm on Sunday afternoon. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Surfers surf at Surf Snowdonia in Conwy, North Wales, September 3, 2015. The surf park, which cost $22.8 million, opened on August 1 and is the world's first commercial artificial surfing lake, according to the company.The pool is 300 metres (980 ft) long and 110 metres (360 ft) wide, containing a total of six million gallons of water. A bi-directional snowplough-shaped wave-generation mechanism, towed on a cable between the two central towers, moves up and down the pool on a three-rail track, generating the waves. (Photo by Andrew Yates/Reuters)

Bjorn, aged 5, smiles as he poses with a Owl butterfly during an event to launch the Sensational Butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London, Britain March 23, 2016. The exhibition opens to the public on March 24 and runs until September 11. (Photo by Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

These timeless postcards offer an eye-opening glimpse into life in Japan in the early 20th century. Taken from hand-colored photographs, the postcards showcase the still beauty of the country, depicting a nation on the cusp of modernization. The images feature solemn fishermen, bustling streets, temples and shrines: a country yet to be influenced by Western culture. The tinting effect brings out the rich colors of the natural surroundings, with trees, flowers and cherry blossoms jumping from the original black-and-white images. Here: Toyokuni Shrine Nakanoshima, Osaka, Japan. (Photo by New York Public Library/Caters News)

Axel Erlandson (December 15, 1884 – April 28, 1964) was a Swedish American farmer who shaped trees as a hobby, and opened a horticultural attraction in 1947 advertised as "See the World's Strangest Trees Here," and named "The Tree Circus."
The trees appeared in the column of Robert Ripley's Believe It or Not! twelve times. Erlandson sold his attraction shortly before his death. The trees were moved to Gilroy Gardens in 1985.

“The most serious health problem in the U.S. today is obesity.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But that pronouncement about obesity’s primacy in the hierarchy of national health problems is not new. Rather, it’s the opening line to a remarkable article published 60 years ago in LIFE magazine. This photographs made by Martha Holmes to illustrate that March 1954 article, titled “The Plague of Overweight.” Photo: Dorothy Bradley (left), photographed for LIFE magazine article on obesity, 1949. (Photo by Martha Holmes/Time & Life Pictures)

The National Geographic Photo Ark is a travelling exhibition of photographer Joel Sartore’s quest to create a photo archive of biodiversity around the world. So far, Sartore has captured studio portraits of more than 6,000 species – a number that he hopes to double. On 1 July, the ark will open at Melbourne zoo – the first time it has been exhibited in the southern hemisphere. More than 50 portraits will be on display, including many of Australian endangered animals being protected by programs at the zoo itself. These captions have been edited from text supplied by Melbourne zoo. Here: Barking owl. (Photo by Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark/The Guardian)