Behaviour: Mammals category. Giant Gathering by Tony Wu, USA. Dozens of sperm whales mingled noisily off Sri Lanka’s northeast coast, stacked as far down as Tony could see. This was a congregation of dozens of social units, like a gathering of the clans. Aggregations like this could be a critical part of the whales’ rich social lives but are rarely reported. Some two thirds of the population was wiped out before commercial whaling was banned in 1986. This kind of major gathering could be “a sign that populations are recovering”, says Tony. (Photo by Tony Wu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017)

Aerial view of villagers drying chili peppers at a rural cooperative on August 21, 2024 in Bozhou, Anhui Province of China. (Photo by Yang Zhongqin/VCG via Getty Images)

1st prize in the People Observed Portraits Stories category. Carla Kogelman, the Netherlands. The photo shows Hannah and Alena, two sisters living in the rural village of Merkenbrechts, Austria. (Photo by Carla Kogelman/World Press Photo)

A customer shops at an Alibaba rural service centre in Jinjia Village, Tonglu, Zhejiang province, China, July 20, 2015. E-commerce growth in the countryside now outpaces that in major cities, though fewer than one tenth of online purchases made on Alibaba platforms were shipped to rural areas in the first quarter of this year. Alibaba estimates the potential market at 460 billion yuan ($74 billion) by next year. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

Rescue workers stand near dead bodies washed ashore in Ton Sai Bay in Thailand's Phi Phi island in this December 28, 2004 file photo. On December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.15 quake off the coast of Indonesia's Aceh province triggered an Indian Ocean tsunami that killed around 226,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries. (Photo by Luis Enrique Ascui/Reuters)

Villagers cry for their relatives who were killed in an earthquake during a funeral in Longmen village, in Lushan county in southwest China's Sichuan province, on April 21, 2013. Rescuers and relief teams struggled to rush supplies into the rural hills of the area after an earthquake left at least 180 people dead and more than 11,000 injured. (Photo by Associated Press)

Robot inventor Wu Yulu sits on a rickshaw driven by a robot which he invented in his village in rural Beijing's Tongzhou district, China, 17 November 2016. The 54-year-old Chinese farmer living in rural Beijing's Tongzhou district invented 63 robots in the past 30 years. Wu, who only received primary school education, plans to give up the agricultural work for his robot products. He regularly participates in exhibitions, transfers patent rights and teaches at the university to earn money. (Photo by Wu Hong/EPA)

“Chameleons (family Chamaeleonidae) are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of lizards. They are distinguished by their parrot-like zygodactylous feet, their separately mobile and stereoscopic eyes, their very long, highly modified, and rapidly extrudable tongues, their swaying gait, the possession by many of a prehensile tail, crests or horns on their distinctively shaped heads, and the ability of some to change color. Uniquely adapted for climbing and visual hunting, the approximately 160 species of chameleon range from Africa, Madagascar, Spain and Portugal, across south Asia, to Sri Lanka, have been introduced to Hawaii, California and Florida, and are found in warm habitats that vary from rain forest to desert conditions”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A woman with the latest fashion accessory, a chameleon. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images). Circa 1926