“Hiding In The Shadows”. This Baby Sandhill taking refuge under Moms wings while sitting on her second egg. I witnessed this baby being born earlier that day,and the next morning saw the other one hatch,what a sight to see. Photo location: Deland, Florida. (Photo and caption by Scott Helfrich/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Beautiful, strange and occasionally alarming pictures from the shortlist for this year’s Wellcome image awards – which celebrate the very best in science photography and imaging – from an x-ray of a bat to a micrograph of a kidney stone. The exhibition opens on 12 March at three science centres and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Photo: Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of an Arabidopsis thaliana flower, also commonly known as thale cress. Some of the anthers are open, revealing pollen grains ready for dispersal. Arabidopsis was the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced and is widely used as a model organism in molecular and plant biology. Horizontal width of image is 1200 microns. Magnification 100x. (Photo by Stefan Eberhard/Wellcome Images)

A) 1st place WINNER – Roy Rimmer. “This rat was in an outdoor set I made, the set up is two meters long and a meter wide made of Perspex,it has a plywood front with holes cut in for my camera and flash guns, I placed two rusty paint cans in the set up and the rat would leap from one can too the other, I had to use flash to freeze the action”.

An owl peeps out from behind a rusty piece of farming equipment in Teddesley Park, Staffordshire, UK in the last decade of July 2025. (Photo by David Akers/Solent News & Photo Agency)

A Pelican attempts to take a persons belongings while they are sat in St James' Park, London on Monday, August 11, 2025. Temperatures will soar above 30°C in parts of the UK in the coming days, with another heatwave possible in some areas. (Photo by Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images)

A model is reflected in the mirror applying makeup during the Mr. and Mrs. Kibera leadership contest, on International Youth Day, in Nairobi, Kenya, Tuesday, August 12, 2025. (Photo by Brian Inganga/AP Photo)

Bujang, a 35-year-old male orangutan rescued from a circus in Sumatra, washes his face on a sanctuary island surrounded by a river where non-releasable orangutans are protected for life at the Samboja Lestari Orangutan Rehabilitation Center run by the non-profit Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation in Samboja, East Kalimantan, on July 12, 2024. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)

Ravers dance around Love Mobiles during the 22nd edition of the Lake Parade in Geneva, Switzerland, 20 July 2024. (Photo by Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA/EFE)