Images from a snake slaughterhouse at Kapetakan village in Indonesia’s West Java province. Wakira, who is known as “Boss Cobra”, owns the slaughterhouse that produces snake meat and skin. Snake meat is believed by some to be a remedy for skin diseases and asthma, as well as an aid to increase virility. The snake skins, measuring in the hundreds of metres, are sold to bag factories in the West and Central Java provinces on a monthly basis. The price of a bag made from snake skin costs between 150,000 rupiah ($ 15.60) and 300,000 rupiah ($31.20), depending on its size. That snakeskin handbag you’ll buy is costing a hell of a lot more.
Animal rights activist, stained with fake blood, perform during a protest against the use of animal skins in the clothes and fashion industry, in Madrid, Sunday, December 10, 2017. (Photo by Francisco Seco/AP Photo)
Participants compete to do nothing during the Space-out competition at World Expo 2025 on September 27, 2025 in Osaka, Japan. For 90 minutes, participants sat in silence, trying to remain in a dazed state without distraction. The winner was determined not by activity but by calmness maintaining the most stable heart rate amid the lively crowds of the Osaka Expo site. (Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)
Visitors wear shirts with an image of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong at the Shanghai World Expo site in Shanghai, May 2, 2010. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)
A Sphynx cat at the 2017 Grand Prix Royal Canin international cat show at the Crocus Expo Exhibition Centre in Moscow, Russia on December 2, 2017. (Photo by Sergei Savostyanov/TASS/Barcroft Images)