With its huge eyes, comical name and diminutive size, Mark R. Smith’s image of a baby Hawaiian bobtail squid can’t help but raise a smile. A curiously endearing creature, the cephalopod is just 1.5cm across, its mantle cavity bearing more than a passing resemblance to a rather natty shower cap. But it is also a beautiful example of symbiosis – nature’s version of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” – for on the underside of the squid is a light organ which houses bioluminescent bacteria. The squid offers the bacteria protection and food, while the bacteria emit a glow – a handy trait that the squid uses to offset its silhouette, helping it to evade predators in the depths below. Mark R. Smith’s entry combines several images of a Hawaiian bobtail squid with different focus lengths to create a final picture with greater depth of field than normal. (Photo by Mark R. Smith/Wellcome Images/Macroscopic Solutions)

An Afghan girl who practices taekwondo poses for a photo in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, October 31, 2022. The ruling Taliban have banned women from sports as well as barring them from most schooling and many realms of work. A number of women posed for an AP photographer for portraits with the equipment of the sports they loved. Though they do not necessarily wear the burqa in regular life, they chose to hide their identities with their burqas because they fear Taliban reprisals and because some of them continue to practice their sports in secret. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

A reveller wearing a bearskin costume poses during the Bearskin Parade in Comanesti, Romania, on December 30, 2022. More than two hundred “bears” and dozens of musicians, surrounded by police and tourists, took part in the end-of-the-year parade. Young men and women dressed in real bearskin and traditional costumes paraded to chase away the evil spirits of the coming year. In all regions of Romania similar events exist but it is in this historical region of Moldova that they are the most developed. Comanesti has become the centre, attracting more and more troupes of dancers every year. (Photo by Daniel Mihailescu/AFP Photo)

Bangladeshi farmers busy to processing jute in Dhamrai outskirts of Dhaka on July 06, 2020. (Photo by Zabed Hasnain Chowdhury/ZUMA Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Cosplayers wearing face masks pose for a picture at the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy) in Shanghai, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, China on July 31, 2020. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

In this April 13, 2018 photo, motorcycle taxi driver Ricardo Medina, 60, transports vegetable vender Rigoberto Herrera Mendez, left, and coconut vendor Osvaldo Ochoa in Campo Florido, east of Havana, Cuba. The three men expressed hope that new government leadership will improve things, saying the country cannot move backwards. “We survive life with our work”, said Medina. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

Many of the 12 million people who entered the US through New York’s Ellis Island wore traditional dress from their homelands. Here: A Ruthenian woman circa 1906 from the region historically inhabiting the kingdom of the Rus, incorporating parts of modern-day Slavic speaking countries. Her outfit consists of a shirt and underskirt made from linen embroidered with traditional floral-based patterns. (Photo by Augustus Francis Sherman/New York Public Library/The Guardian)

A Russian Su-35S combat aircraft and a Tu-95ms strategic bomber fly in formation above a church during a rehearsal for the flypast, which is part of a military parade marking the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, in Moscow, Russia on May 4, 2022. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)