Drivers merge onto expressway lanes after passing through the Wuzhuang toll station at Chuzhou, in China's eastern Anhui province, as they make their way back home on the second-to-last day of an eight-day National Day holiday on October 7, 2025. The Wuzhuang toll station, located on the border between Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, is China's largest expressway toll station, with a total of 36 lanes. (Photo by AFP Photo/China Stringer Network)

An empty cell block is pictured within Joint Task Force Guantanamo's Camp VI at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba March 22, 2016. (Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

Folk artists perform at an local opera ahead of Lantern Festival to celebrate Lunar New Year, in Tianshui, Gansu province, China, February 10, 2017. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Army paratroopers carry the casket of Private Howard at the Wellington Cathedral on December 21, 2010 in Wellington, New Zealand. Private Howard was serving with the British army when was killed by friendly fire from a US Air Force plane in Helmand Province, Afghanistan earlier this month. Private Howard is the fifth NZ-born soldier to be killed in action in Afghanistan. (Photo by Marty Melville/Getty Images)

A woman surrounded by South Korean national flags set up to celebrate the 66th Independence Day on August 15, 2011 in Seoul, South Korea. Korea was liberated from Japan's 35-year colonial rule in 1945. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

People attend the New Year's eve gala of youth and students at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea Sunday, December 31, 2023. (Photo by Jon Chol Jin/AP Photo)

In this Thursday, December 1, 2016 photo, Cat Bigney, part of the Oglala Native American tribe, waits on the shore of the Cannonball river for travelers to arrive by canoe at the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D. So far, those at the camp have shrugged off the heavy snow, icy winds and frigid temperatures. But if they defy next week's government deadline to abandon the camp, demonstrators know the real deep freeze lies ahead. Life-threatening wind chills and towering snow drifts could mean the greatest challenge is simple survival. (Photo by David Goldman/AP Photo)

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)