Los Angeles native Mike Stilkey has always been attracted to painting and drawing not only on vintage paper, record covers and book pages, but on the books themselves. Using a mix of ink, colored pencil, paint and lacquer, Stilkey depicts a melancholic and at times a whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales. A lingering sense of loss and longing hints at emotional depth and draws the viewer into their introspective thrall with a mixture of capricious poetry, wit, and mystery. (Photo by Mike Stilkey)

Indonesian mahouts clean their Sumatran elephant in a river near the zoo in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, 12 December 2014. According media reports, the smallest of the Asian elephants, Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatrensis) is facing serious pressures arising from illegal logging and associated habitat loss and fragmentation in Indonesia. The population has come under increasing threat from rapid forest conversion to plantations. (Photo by Dedi Sahputra/EPA)

Cannabis cigarettes at the growing facility of the Tikun Olam company on March 7, 2011 near the northern city of Safed, Israel. In conjunction with Israel's Health Ministry, Tikon Olam are currently distributing cannabis for medicinal purposes to over 1800 people in Israel.

Fossil records indicate that this early lizard, Megalania (Megalania prisca or Varanus priscus), was a whopping seven metres in length. They were part of a megafaunal assemblage that inhabited southern Australia during the Pleistocene. The youngest fossil remains date to around 50,000 years ago. The first aboriginal settlers of Australia might have encountered them and been a factor in their extinction. (Photo by Sky TV/The Guardian)

A thirsty timber wolf, Lithuania, 2018. (Photo by Erikas Plucas/Alamy Stock Photo)

Clara Macaroni, 3, rests on her father's prize-winning Shorthorn cow before a parade at the opening ceremony for the Rural Society's annual exposition in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

Aerial view of people circling around bonfires to celebrate the Torch Festival on Axilixi Prairie on July 20, 2024 in Bijie, Guizhou Province of China. (Photo by Luo Dafu/VCG via Getty Images)

A model presents a creation by Japanese designer Yoshikazu Yamagata for his label writtenafterwards during the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Tokyo, Japan, 16 March 2016. The presentation of the Autumn/Winter 2016 collections runs from 14 to 19 March. (Photo by Kiyoshi Ota/EPA)