A golden huddle by Minqiang Lu, China. Two females and a male golden snub-nosed monkey huddle together to keep warm in the extreme cold. Threatened by forest loss and fragmentation, this endangered species is confined to central China. Restricted to living high up in the temperate forests, these monkeys – here in the Qinling mountains in Shaanxi province – feed mostly in the trees, on leaves, bark, buds and lichen. In heavy wind and snow, Minqiang walked up the mountain carrying his equipment. He stayed for half an hour in temperatures of –10C opposite the tree where the group was huddled before achieving this eye-level composition. (Photo by Minqiang Lu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

These brave models show no fear as they pose with bears, tigers and wolves in scenes straight from the pages of a fairy tale. The snaps show the models cuddling up to the deadly animals and even taking naps with the often unpredictable creatures. Here: “Marina with a bear”. Stepan, a 700-pound grizzly bear, was adopted by a Russian couple when he was just 3 months old. (Photo by Olga Barantseva/Caters News Agency)

Fossil records indicate that this early lizard, Megalania (Megalania prisca or Varanus priscus), was a whopping seven metres in length. They were part of a megafaunal assemblage that inhabited southern Australia during the Pleistocene. The youngest fossil remains date to around 50,000 years ago. The first aboriginal settlers of Australia might have encountered them and been a factor in their extinction. (Photo by Sky TV/The Guardian)

A British Airways passenger plane flies in front of the moon above London, Britain, May 3, 2018. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

CANADA: Stanley Ferdinand filets large trout he caught in Great Bear Lake in Deline, Northwest Territories, Canada September 8, 2016. (Photo by Pat Kane/Reuters)

An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier assigned to the Mobile Strike Force Kandak fires a RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher during a live-fire exercise supervised by the Marines with the Mobile Strike Force Advisor Team on Camp Shorabak, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 20, 2013. The Marines with the Mobile Strike Force Advisor Team instructed and mentored their ANA counterparts on how to properly utilize their weapons systems. (Photo by SSgt Ezekiel R. Kitandwe/RCT 7)

A sniper of the French “Brigade d'Intervention” takes up his position at the top of the Arc de Triomphe during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris on July 14, 2016. France holds annual Bastille Day military parade with troops from Australia and New Zealand as special guests among the 3,000 soldiers who will march up the Champs Elysees avenue. They will be accompanied by 200 vehicles with 85 aircraft flying overhead. (Photo by Stephane De Sakutin/AFP Photo)

Japan's Shingo Kunieda celebrates with trophy after winning the men's wheelchair tennis final against Argentina's Gustavo Fernandez at the French Open in Paris on June 4, 2022. (Photo by Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)