A man wearing a headgear walks along with his child on a street in Banda Aceh on July 25, 2023. (Photo by Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP Photo)

France's Simon Billy gets ready to practice speed skiing on the Chabriere ski slope in Vars, on March 29, 2017. (Photo by Jean-Pierre Clatot/AFP Photo)

Dancers audition for a post as cheerleaders of the Miami Dolphins, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, March 3, 2016. Brazilian dancers audition in the first international cheerleader recruitment for the Miami Dolphins in Rio de Janeiro. The Dolphins will also hold auditions in Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and South of Florida. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

A woman stands in front of a mask-clad lion statue outside a department store in Tokyo's Ginza district on January 18, 2022, as Japan reported a record high of new Covid-19 infections fuelled by the Omicron variant. (Photo by Philip Fong/AFP Photo)

Photo taken on March 30, 2021 shows visitors enjoying pear flowers and orchid in full bloom at Santaishan Forest Park in Suqian, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Photo by Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

Relatives gather to demand that the government take action to secure the return of their relatives on the 33rd day of Israeli attacks on November 08, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by Nir Keidar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A) 1st place WINNER – Roy Rimmer. “This rat was in an outdoor set I made, the set up is two meters long and a meter wide made of Perspex,it has a plywood front with holes cut in for my camera and flash guns, I placed two rusty paint cans in the set up and the rat would leap from one can too the other, I had to use flash to freeze the action”.

The National Geographic Photo Ark is a travelling exhibition of photographer Joel Sartore’s quest to create a photo archive of biodiversity around the world. So far, Sartore has captured studio portraits of more than 6,000 species – a number that he hopes to double. On 1 July, the ark will open at Melbourne zoo – the first time it has been exhibited in the southern hemisphere. More than 50 portraits will be on display, including many of Australian endangered animals being protected by programs at the zoo itself. These captions have been edited from text supplied by Melbourne zoo. Here: Barking owl. (Photo by Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark/The Guardian)