A woman eats an ice cream as people sunbathe on the beach in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, January 26, 2024. Spain's weather agency says recent abnormally high temperatures for this time of year are set to continue in many parts of Spain on Friday and over the weekend, with an almost summer-like feeling in many coastal areas as people take to the beaches to sunbathe and some to have a winter swim. (Photo by Emilio Morenatti/AP Photo)

“Francois' langur is one of several species of leaf monkeys. Over 50% of its diet is made up of young leaves. It will also consume fruits (17.2%), seeds, flowers, stems, roots, bark and occasionally minerals and insects off of rock surfaces and cliffs. This langur consumes its favorite food, young leaves, at the highest rate during the dry season, April through September, also known as the young leaf-lean period”. – Wikipedia

Photo: An endangered baby Francois' Langur monkey called Laa Laa settles in following her July 6 birth at London Zoo, Regent's Park on August 5, 2004 in London. The bright ginger youngster was born to glossy black parents Max and Shaneka and has the typical orange baby coat which is in stark contrast against the black of her parent's and older brother Grub's fur. (Photo by Steve Finn/Getty Images)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.

Merit: A Night at Deadvlei. The night before returning to Windhoek, we spent several hours at Deadveli. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the sand dunes in the distance, but the skies were still dark enough to clearly see the milky way and magellanic clouds. Deadveli means “dead marsh. The camelthorn trees are believed to be about 900 years old, but have not decomposed because the environment is so dry. (Photo and caption by Beth McCarley/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

A woman (L) places flowers at a grave next to a mummified body during exhumation works at the General Cemetery in Guatemala City, April 15, 2015. If a lease on a grave has expired or not been paid, grave cleaners will break open the crypts to remove and rebury the bodies. Any remains that have not been claimed are packed into plastic bags, labeled and stored in mass graves. Bodies that have been stored in the upper crypt are exposed to dry and sunny conditions which means they do not decompose and instead become mummified. (Photo by Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters)

Is it a leaf? Is it tree bark? No, it’s the Satanic leaf-tailed gecko. Cleverly disguised as a rotting leaf, Madagascar’s camouflage king has red eyes, pointy horns and a taste for night hunting: it’s nature’s most devilish deceiver. The twisted body and veiny skin echo the detail of a dry leaf, which ensures the gecko blends in with its forest home. The mottled tail appears to have sections missing, as though it has withered over time. This mini-monster epitomises survival of the fittest, having adapted gradually to become today’s extraordinary leaf impersonator. (Photo by Thomas Marent/ARDEA)

Some companies in Taiwan spend months building temples with bricks and cement, but Lin Fu-Chun's firm simply pours concrete into a giant mould and waits for it to dry. The 78-year-old Lin said his temple factory, Chuanso, needed just over six weeks to finish a building that normally took six months with conventional methods – and moulding was 40 percent cheaper. Here: An employee paints a ready-made Chinese traditional temple at the Chuanso factory that manufactures religious objects in Pingtung, Taiwan July 5, 2016. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

U.S. Army soldiers carry an injured soldier who was shot in the leg, through a poppy field on April 24, 2011 in the Arghandab River Valley, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. The injured was evacuated to a waiting Blackhawk UH-60A helicopter by Task Force Thunder Brigade, Charlie company 1st of the 52nd Aviation regiment from Fairbanks, Alaska. It is feared that as weather improves with the approaching summer that the casualty toll will rise. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)