A fuzzy caterpillar on a basil plant in west Bengal, India on December 25, 2023. The caterpillar’s defence system is its hair, which has microscopic barbs that break off easily in the skin of would-be predators. (Photo by Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Erica Ash arrives at the BET Awards at the Microsoft Theater on Sunday, June 24, 2018, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP Photo)

Injured horses huddle together in Oklahoma City on Monday. (Photo by Chris Landsberger/The Oklahoman)

“Tea Hills”. Early-morning mist over the tea hills of Phu Tho province in Vietnam. (Photo by Vu Trung Huan/Royal Meteorological Society’s Weather Photographer of the Year Awards)

Each year Nikon Small World recognizes the excellence of photography taken under the microscope. The contest showcases the beauty and complexity of life. Anyone interested in microscopy and photography can enter the contest and in its 42nd year, Nikon Small World received 2,000 entries from 70 countries. Here: 11th Place; Scales of a butterfly wing underside (Vanessa atalanta). (Photo by Francis Sneyers/Nikon's Small World 2016)

Fossil records indicate that this early lizard, Megalania (Megalania prisca or Varanus priscus), was a whopping seven metres in length. They were part of a megafaunal assemblage that inhabited southern Australia during the Pleistocene. The youngest fossil remains date to around 50,000 years ago. The first aboriginal settlers of Australia might have encountered them and been a factor in their extinction. (Photo by Sky TV/The Guardian)

Guests pose during a VIP media preview ahead of the opening of The Museum of Selfies in Glendale, California, U.S., March 29, 2018. Tommy Honton, the museum’s co-founder, says: “We don’t want this to be an elite art world, ivory tower thing. Art doesn’t have to be hard to understand – it can be for everyone”. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

Damselflies covered in dew rest on a wild flower by the Po River, northern Italy on August 15, 2016. (Photo by Alberto Ghizzi Panizza/Barcroft Images)