Macaque monkeys crowd together in their cage at a monkey farm on February 3, 2016 in Xinye county, Henan province, China. The area boasts a centuries-long and lucrative history of raising and training monkeys for performance. In Xinye, villagers are seeing an increase in business with the lunar calendar's “Year of the Monkey”. Farmers say most of the monkeys are bred and raised for domestic zoos, circuses, and performing groups, but add that some are also sold for medical research in China and the United States. Despite the popularity of the tradition, critics contend the training methods and conditions constitute animal cruelty. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

A golden huddle by Minqiang Lu, China. Two females and a male golden snub-nosed monkey huddle together to keep warm in the extreme cold. Threatened by forest loss and fragmentation, this endangered species is confined to central China. Restricted to living high up in the temperate forests, these monkeys – here in the Qinling mountains in Shaanxi province – feed mostly in the trees, on leaves, bark, buds and lichen. In heavy wind and snow, Minqiang walked up the mountain carrying his equipment. He stayed for half an hour in temperatures of –10C opposite the tree where the group was huddled before achieving this eye-level composition. (Photo by Minqiang Lu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

Police memebers stand guard as a group of women protest in front of the police headquarters after knowing that the body of María Belen Bernal was found murdered in a police officers' school and which main suspect – Bernal's husband police lieutenant German Caceres – is at large, in northern Quito, on October 1st, 2022. According to the prosecutor's office, at least 573 femicides have been registered in Ecuador's population of 17.7 million since 2014. In the first months of 2022 there had been 206 murders of women, according to Geraldine Guerra from the Aldea NGO that tracks femicides in the country. (Photo by Rodrigo Buendia/AFP Photo)

A group of boys toss their friend into the water at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, Massachusetts, United States on June 25, 2024. New England temperatures reached into the high 80's(F) and low 90's(F) this week after a heatwave brought temperatures close to 100(F) last week. Heat domes causing heatwaves have been hitting the US over the past week with high alerts placed in the I-95 corridor on the East Coast. The National weather service has predicted above-normal temperatures for most the US for the month of July. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Taken by photographer, Denis Budkov, 33, the Plosky Tolbachik is one of a cluster of volcanoes located in the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia. After taking a lucky group of tourists to the crater of the flat volcano, the Russian photographer managed to get less than 300 metres away from the spurting jets of lava. Photo: The underground entrance to the volcano resembles a scene from the latest Hobbit movie. (Photo by Denis Budkov/Caters News)

Potoos (family Nyctibiidae) are a group of near passerine birds related to the nightjars and frogmouths. They are sometimes called Poor-me-ones, after their haunting calls. There are seven species in one genus, Nyctibius, in tropical Central and South America.
These are nocturnal insectivores which lack the bristles around the mouth found in the true nightjars. They hunt from a perch like a shrike or flycatcher. During the day they perch upright on tree stumps, camouflaged to look like part of the stump. The single spotted egg is laid directly on the top of a stump.

Californian photographer and conservationist Octavio Aburto had spent years photographing the school in Cabo Pulmo National Park, Mexico – and had been trying to capture this exact shot for three years. “Together with my friend David Castro, we were diving with a large group of Bigeye travellies at Cabo Pulmo National Park, Mexico. Thousands of fish forming a ball during the reproduction courtship. In the afternoon, these fish congregate to form a large spawning aggregation around the reefs of the National Park”. (Photo and caption by Octavio Aburto)