Shortlisted: “Two big eyes” by Miao Yong (Zejiang province, China). Damselflies look over the leaves. “I was photographing insects in a park near my home when suddenly I found two damselflies in the grass. They kept flying and it was very difficult to focus until suddenly they parked behind a leaf”. (Photo by Miao Yong/2017 Royal Society of Biology Photographer of the Year)

A policeman stands next to supporters of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta lying unconscious after being beaten by police when they tried to storm through gates to get in during Kenyatta's inauguration ceremony at Kasarani stadium in Nairobi, Kenya Tuesday, November 28, 2017. Kenyatta is being sworn in on Tuesday, ending a months-long election drama that saw the first vote nullified by the country's top court and the second boycotted by the opposition. (Photo by Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

Five-month-old baby elephant Fah Jam swims during a hydrotherapy treatment as part of a lengthy rehabilitation process to heal her injured front left foot at a rehabilitation center in Pattaya, Thailand January 5, 2017. The baby elephant was injured at three months old when she got stuck in an animal snare put up by villagers to prevent elephant intrusions in Chanthaburi province. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

British underwater photographer of the year – winner. “Love Birds” by Grant Thomas (UK). Location: Luss Pier, Loch Lomond, Scotland. Thomas’s initial idea was to frame a split shot of one swan feeding below the surface of the water but when he noticed how comfortable they were around him he was confident, with some patience, he could get that magical shot of the two. (Photo by Grant Thomas/UPY 2018)

In this October 16, 2014 photo, a man cleans his American classic car before going to work in Havana, Cuba. While the U.S. embargo that took effect in 1961 stopped the flow of new cars, and most parts, a few Cubans now manage to bring in replacement parts when friends or family visit from the U.S. (Photo by Franklin Reyes/AP Photo)

This picture taken on November 1, 2014 shows Japanese body-painting artist Hikaru Cho (L) adding the finishing touches to a body painting of fingers sticking out from prison cell bars on the head of Ryonosuke Tanaka during “Tokyo Designers Week” in Tokyo. Cho, 21, was born to Chinese parents in Japan and burst onto Tokyo's art scene when she entered the city's Musashino Art University in 2012. Cho's ultimate ambition is to paint an entire – and naked – body. (Photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP Photo)

A general view showing the shipwrecked cruise ship Costa Concordia in an upright position after the salvage operations in Giglio island, Italy, 17 September 2013. Salvage crews pulled off a major engineering feat when they straightened the listed Costa Concordia cruise ship from the rocks it had been wedged against for the past 20 months. The delicate operation took 19 hours and was completed at 4 am (0200 GMT). The vessel ran aground near the island of Giglio, in Tuscany, in an accident that made world-wide news. (Photo by Angelo Carconi/EPA)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)