Three children receive “best Christmas present ever” bionic arms in Bristol, England in the second decade of December 2024. Colette Baker, Finley Jarvis and Zoey Pidgeon-Hampton with their new Open Bionics arms. (Photo by Tom Wren/SWNS)

A flock of starlings flies over Lake Leman on an autumn morning in the Lavaux near Grandvaux, Switzerland October 20, 2016. (Photo by Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

A murmuration of migrating starlings is seen across the sky in southern Israel December 31, 2015. (Photo by Amir Cohen/Reuters)

“Hey! I'm Thomas Shahan, an artist and macrophotographer from Oklahoma. In my spare time over the past few years, I've been shooting portraiture of local arthropods. Why would I devote countless hours to tramping through forests, fields and the like searching for insects and spiders? Well, despite some common beliefs, arthropods (members of the phylum Arthropoda – insects, spiders, crustaceans...) represent an endlessly varied, wildly beautiful and fascinating bunch of animals with surprisingly personable faces and behavior. Often, all it takes is simply inspecting their lives on a closer level to turn repulsion to reverence”. – Thomas Shahan

Photo: Adult Male Jumping Spider at Sunset – Phidippus mystaceus. (Photo by Thomas Shahan; Source: Flickr)

Kyaiktiyo, Burma, 1978. The Golden Rock at Shwe Pyi Daw (the Golden Country), the Buddhist holy place. Hiroji Kubota writes: “I was desperate to keep a distance from America for a while; luckily, I found Burma and its gentle and compassionate people. In the spring of 1978, on the top of the hill where I took this photo, I had two Leica bodies: the one with Tri-X and the other with Kodachrome 64. Soon after, I realised that the colour one looked very colourful and was more powerful. That was my decisive moment, to become a colour photographer”. (Photo by Hiroji Kubota/Magnum Photos)

Ruben Belloso Adorna, a young artist from Seville, Spain, has taken the art world by storm with his incredibly detailed portraits of real-life and fictional characters drawn exclusively in pastel on wooden canvas.

The Pioneer Team, a civil aerobatic team from Italy, let off pyrotechnics from their Pioneer 330 aircraft during the Malta International Airshow off SmartCity Malta, outside Valletta, Malta, September 24, 2016. (Photo by Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters)

Crews inflate hot air balloons during the 39th annual New Jersey Lottery Festival of Ballooning at Solberg Airport Friday, July 29, 2022, in Readington, N.J. The festival, which runs through Sunday, July 31, will feature as many as 100 balloons. (Photo by Julia Nikhinson/AP Photo)