At the 50th anniversary of the Hartford Automobile Club a 1914 Mercer with an economical wind screen, looking like a large magnifying glass, designed to offer minimum wind resistance. Brass is used instead of chrome for the “shiny” parts, circa 1955. (Photo by Three Lions)

A new species of monkey found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and identified as Lesula (Cercopithecus lomamiensis) is seen in this undated photograph from an article published September 12, 2012 in the science journal PLOS One. The monkey was first seen in 2007 by researchers John and Terese Hart of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale Research Project. The finding of C. lomamiensis represents only the second new species of African monkey to be discovered in the past 28 years, according to the research article. (Photo by Hart J. A., Detwiler K. M., Gilbert C. C./Reuters)

Close Encounter of the Insect Kind: “Check out the awesome face on this praying mantis. I can't get over the mouth, it's like something from a science fiction movie. Of all photographic styles macro is definitely my favorite. I am constantly amazed, in every photo that I take, by the intricate level of detail that exists on even the smallest of creatures. It's a stark reminder that a very complex and infinitely beautiful world exists just beyond our human-sized level of perception. Photo taken in Donnybrook, Queensland, Australia” – Andrew Young. (Photo by Andrew Young/National Geographic Photo Contest via The Atlantic)

“The fennec fox or fennec (Vulpes zerda) is a small nocturnal fox found in the Sahara of North Africa. Its most distinctive feature is its unusually large ears, which serve to dissipate heat”. – Wikipedia. (Photo by In Cherl Kim)

On August 31, 2012, a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth's magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, causing aurora to appear on the night of Monday, September 3. (Photo by NASA/GSFC/SDO via The Atlantic)

“Michael Mathias Prechtl (April 26, 1926, Amberg – March 19, 2003, Nuremberg) was a German artist, illustrator and cartoonist. He served as a soldier on the Eastern Front during World War II and spent 1945-49 as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union”. – Wikipedia

Photo: “Der Gestiefelte Kater (Puss in Boots)”, 1997. Artwork by Michael Mathias Prechtl