An elephant “kisses” a visitor during a show at an elephant training school in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province, April 18, 2015. Some 16 elephants live at the school and give four 30-minute performances everyday for visitors. (Photo by Wong Campion/Reuters)

A reveller takes part in an annual block party known as “Cordao de Prata Preta”, one of the many carnival parties to take place in the neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro, February 6, 2016. (Photo by Pilar Olivares/Reuters)

Afghan protesters beat a policeman after a suicide attack that targeted crowds of minority Shiite Hazaras during a demonstration at the Deh Mazang Circle of Kabul on July 23, 2016. Islamic State jihadists claimed responsibility for twin explosions July 23 that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 61 people and wounding 207 others in apparently their deadliest attack in the Afghan capital. The bombings during a huge protest over a power transmission line could deepen sectarian divisions in a country well known for communal harmony despite decades of war. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

A visitor looks at a sculpture by a Chinese artist Chen Wenling at the "Sculpture by the Sea" exhibition which runs along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk in Sydney on October 22, 2015. The world's largest annual free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition runs from October 22 – November 8 this year and features over 107 sculptures by artists around the world. (Photo by Saeed Khan/AFP Photo)

A picture made available on 20 October 2015 shows a foreign tourist posing for a souvenir photograph with a figure of a tiger head at a private zoo on Phuket Island, Thailand, 17 October 2015. Each day hundreds of tourists, including young children, visit the private tiger zoo where visitors are allowed to touch and pose for photographs with unchained tigers inside their enclosures. (Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)

A diver wearing a Santa Claus costume feeds a sunfish to attract visitors at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo on December 17, 2014. Christmas attractions will be held till Christmas Day. (Photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP Photo)

French artist Christophe Guinet, also known as “Mr Plant”, works on his plant shoe creation “Wood”, part of the artistic project “Just Grow It”, in his art gallery in Marseille, November 25, 2014. Guinet transforms name-brand Nike sneakers, cult footwear for urban youth, into vegetable compositions, creating a collection of artwork with trainers modified with tree bark, foam and flowers. (Photo by Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters)