Hira Punjabi, from Maharashtra, India, took this stunning photo of a parakeet attacking a tree-climbing lizard, which has won the SINWP Bird Photographer of the Year 2024, in aid of RSPB. She had to wait by the same tree for four days to get the perfect action shot. (Photo by Hira Punjabi/SINWP via SWNS)

Protestors disperse color paint during a protest against the government, at central square, during an anti-government protest in Skopje on June 6, 2016, in a series of protests dubbed Colourful Revolution. Macedonia's president on June 6, 2016 said he was revoking all the controversial pardons he had granted in April to dozens of people implicated in a huge wiretapping scandal. President Gjorge Ivanov had on April 12 said he was halting probes into 56 Macedonians suspected of involvement in the scandal – a surprise decision that sparked international condemnation and angry street protests. (Photo by Robert Atanasovski/AFP Photo)

Grand prize winner: environmental photographer of the year 2023; also 1st place in the humanity v nature category; and winner of the 2023 public award. Lopé national park, Gabon, 2021. An angry elephant tries to defend itself after it was hit by a train that crosses paths the animals use within Lopé national park. Park officials decided the elephant was too severely injured to be saved. After it was killed, the park director distributed the meat to local people. As the forest loses its carrying capacity to sustain its megafauna, this kind of human-wildlife conflict is increasing. (Photo by Jasper Doest/Environmental Photography Award)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 30, 2014, a dragonfly sits on the nose of a Gharial, rare crocodile-like creatures, in the River Chambal near Bhopepura village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The narrow 250-mile stretch of the Chambal is a place of crocodiles and jackals, of river dolphins and the occasional wolf. Hundreds of species of birds, storks, geese, babblers, larks, falcons and so many more, nest along the river. Endangered birds lay small speckled eggs in tiny pits they dig in the sandbars. Gharials, rare crocodile-like creatures that look like they swaggered out of the Mesozoic Era, are commonplace here and nowhere else. (Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)

With "Art Eggcident," Dutch artist Henk Hofstra demonstrates what it would look like if God threw giant eggs down at us. The eight large, sunny side up eggs measure almost 100 feet wide in diameter. The installation took place in Leeuwarden, a city in the north of the Netherlands.
"I hope it becomes a meeting place with room for art," says Henk. "Art that is different than a framed picture on the wall or a boring bronze sculpture. Art that shows us a different look, surprises us, or makes us angry or happy. Art that allows photographers to grab their cameras and arouses journalists. Art that evokes emotion, or provokes wild laughter."

A Common Blue Morpho butterfly lands on the arm of Garbiella as it and hundreds of other butterflies from around the world fill the bird aviary for the next month at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in San Diego, California March 13, 2015. Called the Butterfly Jungle, the exhibit has over 30 species of butterflies. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

A goose has terrorized students at the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK, on May 22, 2013. The bird built its nest near a block of student apartments and attacks anyone who goes near the nest. (Photo by Caters News/The Grosby Group)