Visitors to West Midlands Safari Park in Bewdley, UK on October 17, 2023 are enjoying the bright October sunshine ahead of the storms to come. A curious giraffe meets eye to eye with a car full of happy visitors while licking the car windscreen with his long tongue. (Photo by Lee Hudson/Alamy Live News)

Merit: A Night at Deadvlei. The night before returning to Windhoek, we spent several hours at Deadveli. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the sand dunes in the distance, but the skies were still dark enough to clearly see the milky way and magellanic clouds. Deadveli means “dead marsh. The camelthorn trees are believed to be about 900 years old, but have not decomposed because the environment is so dry. (Photo and caption by Beth McCarley/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Sport category, winner: Yuan Peng. Liu Bingqing and Liu Yujie are twin sisters who have studied and trained in gymnastics since their early childhood in Jining, China. (Photo by Yuan Peng/Sony World Photography Awards)

Aeroflot employees with a puppy at the canine service of Aeroflot at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow Region, Russia on October 2, 2020, that has started to train service dogs to detect COVID-19 in people. (Photo by Vladimir Gerdo/TASS)

A Spanish national police officer uses his club to hit a protester during a demonstration called the Catalan pro-independence left youth group “Arran” on October 19, 2019 in Barcelona, a day after nearly 200 people were hurt in another night of violent clashes in Catalonia. The deterioration came on the fifth consecutive day of protests in the Catalan capital and elsewhere over a Spanish court's jailing of nine separatist leaders on sedition charges over a failed independence bid two years ago. (Photo by Josep Lago/AFP Photo)

Nigel Cox and Kevin Jay paint with light using fibre optic whips on the beach at Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, United Kingdom on July 25, 2023 with a superhero fighting theme. (Photo by Kevin Jay/Picture Exclusive)

A demonstrator takes part during a rally against Chile's government on the second anniversary of the protests and riots that rocked the capital in 2019, in Santiago, Chile, October 18, 2021. (Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

A woman is soaked as she runs down the street as revellers take part in a water fight on Khao San road on the eve of Thai New Year, locally known as Songkran, in Bangkok on April 12, 2023. (Photo by Jack Taylor/AFP Photo)