Polar bear twins make their first public appearance with their mother “Freedom” at Ouwehands Zoo Rhenen, in Rhenen, The Netherlands, 19 February 2015. The twins, who were born in November 2014, have not been named because their gender has not yet been determined. (Photo by Bart Maat/EPA)

Using body paint and a woodland like location, Gesine appears to have created a model to look just like a red panda, Dortmund, Germany, October, 2016. An artist brings animals to life using body paint and contorted models. At first glance, these images could be mistaken for portraits of wildlife in their natural habitat were created with paper and paint. However, they are actually the incredible works of illusion by talented body painter Gesine Marwedel, who paints models to creates realistic animals. (Photo by Gesine Marwedel/Barcroft Images)

Two Scottish shorthair cats dressed with red hats are pictured during a cat exhibition in Bishkek, on October 16, 2016. Cat lovers from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan took part in the exhibition. (Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP Photo)

Irwan bathes a domesticated crocodile at his house in Bogor, Indonesia on January 22, 2018. Irwan found it as a baby and now it has been living with Irwans family for 20 years. Indonesia is known as a hotbed of exotic pet domestication and trade. People have been known to keep endangered animals such as slow lorises, eagles and pangolins, angering conservationists and animal rights activists. (Photo by Eko Siswono Toyudho/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Run by the Society of German Nature Photographers (Gesellschaft Deutscher Tierfotografen), the prestigious annual contest celebrates the best wildlife photography from members in Germany. Here: Landscapes, second place: Florian Smit, “Rainforest” (Danum valley, Borneo). (Photo by Florian Smit/2019 GDT Nature Photographer of the Year)

“Misty Rainbow”. A rainbow appears over tea fields in Tangerang Selatan, Indonesia. (Photo by Dani Agus Purnomo/Royal Meteorological Society’s Weather Photographer of the Year Awards)

The Pied Piper of Hamelin, actually city tourism employee Michael Boyer, leads local children dressed as rats through a quiet street on November 19, 2012 in Hameln, Germany. The Pied Piper (in German: Der Rattenfaenger), is one of the many stories featured in the collection of fairy tales collected by the Grimm brothers, and the 200th anniversary of the first publication of the stories will take place this coming December 20th. Boyer, a U.S. citizen who has lived in Hameln for 15 years, and city children regularly perform a reenactment of the Pied Piper tale throughout the summer months. The Grimm brothers collected their stories from oral traditions in the region between Frankfurt and Bremen in the early 19th century, and the works include such global classics as Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel. (Photo by Sean Gallup)

Commended. In late May, about a quarter of a million snow geese arrive from North America to nest on Wrangel Island, in northeastern Russia. They form the world's largest breeding colony of snow geese. Photographer Sergey Gorshkov spent two months on the remote island photographing the unfolding dramas. Arctic foxes take advantage of the abundance of eggs, caching surplus eggs for leaner times. But a goose (here the gander) is easily a match for a fox, which must rely on speed and guile to steal eggs. “The battles were fairly equal”, notes Sergey, “and I only saw a fox succeed in grabbing an egg on a couple of occasions, despite many attempts”. Surprisingly, “the geese lacked any sense of community spirit”, he adds, “and never reacted when a fox harassed a neighboring pair nesting close by”. (Photo by Sergey Gorshkov/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer)