Wanwisa, a Lao Yi Lai Heng Chinese opera performer waits backstage at the Plub Plachai temple on January 25, 2012 in Bangkok, Thailand. The traditional Chinese art form involving music, singing, martial arts and acting has a history of more than 500 years. There are about 30 members working with the group doing specials shows all week to celebrate the Chinese New year. The Chinese opera is popular in many parts of China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Macau. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Skoda caused a huge stir with its car made out of cake. The advert features an army of bakers creating a Fabia out of an array of tasty baked treats, while Julie Andrews sings about her favourite things in the background. The chassis is built from huge slabs of sponge cake. Its paintwork is marzipan. Golden Syrup lubricates the engine. And the roof is finished with sugar.

“Ой, да не вечер” – the Russian national song. It is also known under the name “Stepan Razin's Dream”. It is sung on behalf of Cossack Stepan Razin ((1630–1671) was a Cossack leader who led a major uprising against the nobility and Tsar's bureaucracy in South Russia) who tells the bad dream foretelling trouble. Sings: Pelagea Sergeevna Efimova (born 14.06.1986 in Novosibirsk, Russia).

A Tibetan rider fires his weapon as he perfoms his riding skills at the Qinghai Yushu Horse Racing Festival on July 27, 2007 in Yushu County of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, northwest China. The Horse Racing Festival of Tibetan nomads in Yushu Prefecture falls in late July and early August on the Tibetan calendar. During the festival, various equestrian skills will be performed along with singing, dancing and costume shows. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

Frank A. Rinehart, a commercial photographer in Omaha, Nebraska, was commissioned to photograph the 1898 Indian Congress, part of the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition. More than five hundred Native Americans from thirty-five tribes attended the conference, providing the gifted photographer and artist an opportunity to create a stunning visual document of Native American life and culture at the dawn of the 20th century. Photo: Little Bird, Arapahoe, 1899. (Photo by Frank A. Rinehart)

The Greater Sage-Grouse is certainly a formidable-looking bird. Being the largest grouse in North America and having tail feathers, which look like giant spikes, make for a ferocious sight. These birds are well known for their complicated courtship rituals, in which the males perform a special “strutting display” to attract the females. Another distinct feature of the Greater Sage-Grouse is two large yellow throat sacs (gular sacs), which are inflated by the males during the courtship display. Unlike pelicans, whose gular sacs are used to store fish while hunting, the throat sacks of the Greater Sage-Grouse are merely for display.

Employee of ornithological flight support service Nika Ryzhova-Alenicheva holds her hawk, which is used to control fauna to avoid bird strikes during takeoffs and landings, at Domodedovo airport outside Moscow, Russia September 2, 2016. (Photo by Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)