A visitor takes a selfie with a backdrop of sunflowers in full bloom at the E-World Sunflower Garden in Daegu, 237 kilometers southeast of Seoul, South Korea, 13 July 2024. (Photo by Yonhap/EPA)

Afghan wrestlers compete in a bout of traditional mud wrestling competition during the Friday weekend at a field in Chaman-e- Huzuri ground in Kabul on October 21, 2022. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

Indian women wearing traditional attire take a “selfie” with an Indian man dressed as King 'Mahabali' during the Hindu harvesting festival Onam celebrations in Bangalore, India, 28 August 2015. Local people put flower mats in front of their houses, to welcome the King Mahabali, a past ruler of Kerala southern India, during the ten-day festival. (Photo by Jagadeesh N. V./EPA)

Vervet monkeys Higgins, left, and Andor fight playfully atop a car in the Park 'N Fly parking lot which lies adjacent to the swampy mangrove preserve where the monkey colony lives, Tuesday, March 1, 2022, in Dania Beach, Fla. For 70 years, a group of non-native monkeys has made their home next to a South Florida airport runway, delighting visitors and becoming local celebrities. (Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo)

In this photo provided by Tasnim News Agency, relatives weep over the body of an earthquake victim, in Sarpol-e-Zahab, western Iran, Monday, November 13, 2017. An earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale rocked northern Iraq and Iran, the U.S. Geological Survey said on Sunday evening. Photo by Farzad Menati/Tasnim News Agency via AP Photo)

A painted figure is seen on a wall of the home of the mother of Robert E. Crimo III, the 21-year-old suspect facing seven counts of first-degree murder in an attack on a Fourth of July parade, in Highland Park, Illinois, U.S. July 6, 2022. (Photo by Cheney Orr/Reuters)

A performer plays the violin as a passerby wears a mask in Times Square as Manhattan is shrouded in haze and smoke which drifted south from wildfires in Canada, in New York City, New York, U.S., June 7, 2023. (Photo by Maye-E Wong/Reuters)

Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)