A giant chrome brushed aluminium skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus (T-Rex) dinosaur , made by French sculptor and painter Philippe Pasqua, stands at the pier of riverboat company Bateaux-Mouches in Paris, with the Eiffel tower in the background.

When a French politician remarked that a monument should be raised in honour of American independence at a dinner party in 1865 he probably didn't imagine that the result would become an international icon of freedom. ...

Bloodthirsty by Thomas P. Peschak, Germany/South Africa — winner, Behaviour: birds. When rations run short on Wolf Island, in the remote northern Galápagos, the sharp-beaked ground finches become vampires. Their sitting targets are Nazca boobies and other large birds. The finches rely on a scant diet of seeds and insects, which regularly dries up, so they drink blood to survive. ‘I’ve seen more than half a dozen finches drinking from a single Nazca booby,’ says Tom. Rather than leave their nests the boobies tolerate the vampires, and the blood loss doesn’t seem to cause permanent harm. (Photo by Thomas P. Peschak/2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

“The Carnival Triumph finally made port on Thursday night, after what should have been an idyllic four-day cruise turned into a grueling week-long ordeal for more than 3,000 passengers and 1,000 crew. Some kissed the ground as they disembarked the ship, while others swore never to go on another cruise again. Many spoke of the well-documented unsanitary conditions on board the 272-metre Triumph, which lost power in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday”. – Tom Dart and Adam Gabbatt via Guardian

Photo: Kendall Jenkins of Houston kisses the ground after stepping off the Carnival ship Triumph (Photo by AP Photo)

A cat walks past a Soyuz space ship installed at a museum, at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Tuesday, November 15, 2016. The start of the new Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled on early Friday, Nov. 18 local time. The Russian rocket will carry French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and U.S. astronaut Peggy Annette Whitson. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

People take photos as an Ariane 5 space rocket with a payload of four Galileo satellites lifts off from ESA's European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on November 17, 2016. Ariane 5 successfully launched on November 17 four satellites which will be part of the Galileo global satellite navigation system. (Photo by Jody Amiet/AFP Photo)

A man holds a copy of the Koran during a protest against Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou's attendance last week at a Paris rally in support of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which featured a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad as the cover of its first edition since an attack by Islamist gunmen, in Niamey January 17, 2015. (Photo by Tagaza Djibo/Reuters)

Men stand at the top of a traffic lights post as they attend a rally to protest against satirical cartoons of prophet Mohammad, in Grozny, Chechnya January 19, 2015. Tens of thousands of people staged the rally on Monday in Chechnya against French magazine Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of the prophet, which the predominantly Muslim region's leader denounced as “vulgar and immoral”. The posters read, “Mohammad”. (Photo by Eduard Korniyenko/Reuters)