Participants play in the mud as they plant rice samplings during National Paddy Day, also called Asar Pandra, that marks the commencement of rice crop planting in paddy fields as monsoon season arrives, in Dhading, Nepal, June 30, 2019. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

Children play after offering Eid al-Fitr prayers at Jama Masjid to mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in the old quarters of Delhi, India on May 3, 2022. (Photo by Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters)

A man hugs his monitor lizard who is wearing a Christmas hat on December 25, 2021 in Bangkok, Thailand. Monitor lizard enthusiasts gather on Christmas Day for a garden party at the Somtum Khun Daeng restaurant and cafe to share their appreciation for their monitor lizards. The event for owners of this controversial Thai pet included important facts and information about monitor lizard care as well as prizes for those who brought their lizard with them. (Photo by Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images)

An Afghan boy carrying empty plastic cans, walks along a street in Kabul on December 21, 2023. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

Devotees perform religious rituals by splashing holy water during the Madhav Narayan Festival, a month-long event dedicated to Lord Madhav Narayan, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu in Thacho, Lalitpur, Nepal on February 10, 2025. Devotees also carry butter lamps and blow conch shells (shankha) as part of the sacred observance. (Photo by Safal Prakash Shrestha/ZUMA Press Wire)

A mahout splashes water on his elephant in the river Sabarmati on a hot summer day in Ahmedabad, India, May 20, 2015. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

Beautiful, strange and occasionally alarming pictures from the shortlist for this year’s Wellcome image awards – which celebrate the very best in science photography and imaging – from an x-ray of a bat to a micrograph of a kidney stone. The exhibition opens on 12 March at three science centres and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Photo: Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of an Arabidopsis thaliana flower, also commonly known as thale cress. Some of the anthers are open, revealing pollen grains ready for dispersal. Arabidopsis was the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced and is widely used as a model organism in molecular and plant biology. Horizontal width of image is 1200 microns. Magnification 100x. (Photo by Stefan Eberhard/Wellcome Images)

An Afghan hunter shoots at a duck in Laghman province, Afghanistan on May 30, 2018. (Photo by Reuters/Parwiz)