A masked Bulgarian dancer takes part in the second competition day of the 24th International Festival of Masquerade Games “Surva” in the town of Pernik, Bulgaria Saturday, January 31, 2015. Some 5,000 people are expected to take part in the three-day festival devoted to an ancient Bulgarian pagan rite. Surva is performed by costumed men, some in sheepskin, or other colorful garments, bells and masks, who walk around and dance to scare away the evil spirits, in hope to provide a good harvest, health, fertility, and happiness. (Photo by Valentina Petrova/AP Photo)

The sea otter mother with her three day old newborn pup ontop of her to keep it dry and warm while it sleeps. This devoted mother otter kept her newborn pup dry as she let the baby ride on her belly. Nature photographer Suzi Eszterhas, 40, spotted the adorable pair of southern sea otters swimming in Monterey Bay, California. The mother lifted the pup out of the water and on to her belly to keep it warm and dry and also blew air into the pup's fur to groom it. Ms Eszterhas was shocked to see the otters come closer to where she was standing and the mother left her child to float alone in the water. (Photo by Suzi Eszterhas/Minden Pictures/Solent News & Photo Agency)

People release floating lanterns during the festival of Yee Peng in the northern capital of Chiang Mai, Thailand November 14, 2016. Yi Peng refers to the full moon day in the second month according to the Lanna lunar calendar (the twelfth month according to the Thai lunar calendar). Swarms of Lanna-style sky lanterns are launched into the air where they resemble large shoals of giant fluorescent jellyfish gracefully floating through the sky. The festival is meant as a time for tham bun, to make merit. Khom loi are made from a thin fabric, such as rice paper, stretched over a bamboo or wire frame, to which a candle or fuel cell is attached. When the fuel cell is lit, the resulting hot air is trapped inside the lantern and creates enough lift for the khom loi to float up into the sky. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

Highly commended, mammals: Gelada after the storm – Marco Gaiotti (Italy). “Gelada baboons are the only monkey species in the world that feed on grasses. They are native to the tableland of Ethiopia. Every morning large family groups wander from their sleeping places in the steep rock face, up to 1,000 metres high, to the feeding grounds at the tablelands. This image clearly depicts their feeding strategy: they pull out bunches of grass, sort the stalks and then lift them to their mouth. This shot was taken towards the end of the rainy season after a heavy storm”. (Photo by Marco Gaiotti/2019 GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

Environmental activist Rob Greenfield walks around Beverly Hills, California on May 16, 2022 wearing a suit filled with every piece of trash he has generated living and consuming like a typical American for one month to raise awareness about how much garbage just one person generates. (Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP Photo)

A relic hunter dubbed “Indiana Bones” has lifted the lid on a macabre collection of 400-year-old jewel-encrusted skeletons unearthed in churches across Europe. Art historian Paul Koudounaris has hunted down and photographed dozens of gruesome skeletons in some of the world's most secretive religious establishments. Photo: Albertus in the church of St George in Burgrain, Germany. Incredibly, some of the skeletons, which took up to five years to decorate, were even found hidden away in lock-ups and containers. (Photo by Paul Koudounaris/BNPS)

A Vietnamese artist acting as a medium, performs the “Hau Dong” ritual at Viet Theatre in Hanoi January 16, 2016. For the first time, Vietnamese drama director Viet Tu has brought the ritual from religious temples to the theatre partly to draw tourists. The “Hau Dong” is a ritual where a medium puts on special costumes and tells stories of gods and heroes while being accompanied by “Chau Van” music, as part of the act of Dao Mau – the worship of mother goddesses in Vietnam. It is believed that the medium is capable of having a direct contact with spirits during the ritual. (Photo by Reuters/Kham)

As pancake day has creped up on us once again, a Japanese chef has combined our favourite things; cute animals and sugar. Keisuke Inagaki has been a chef at his restaurant La Ricetta in Zama City, Japan, for the last 18 years. He rose to Instagram fame from his Pokemon and anime pancake art, and the time around heis created a lifelike animal series. The 46-year-old chef began making pancakes in 2011 to raise spirits after the devastating nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Here: A pancake that looks like a cat, in Zama City, Japan. (Photo by Keisuke Inagaki/Barcroft Images)