A woman and her son hold firecrackers during Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, in Mumbai, India, November 4, 2021. (Photo by Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters)

A general view of the sunrise over Hawes, Wensleydale, UK on November 24, 2014. (Photo by Neil Squires/PA Wire)

A man dressed in a condom costume walks at Caleta Portales beach, during a summer awareness campaign by the Chilean Corporation for the Prevention of AIDS in Valparaiso city, northwest of Santiago January 9, 2015. (Photo by Rodrigo Garrido/Reuters)

A model walks off stage in the backstage area during Frankie's Bikinis show at Mercedes Benz Swim Fashion Week in Miami, July 18, 2014. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

Titanoboa, meaning "titanic boa," is an extinct genus of snake that lived approximately 60–58 million years ago, during the Paleocene epoch, a 10-million-year period immediately following the dinosaur extinction event. The only known species is Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the largest, longest, and heaviest snake ever discovered, which supplanted the previous record holder, Gigantophis.

A full-scale model of the snake was unveiled at New York City's Grand Central station before the exhibit opens at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

“Microscope images forge an extraordinary bond between science and art, said Hidenao Tsuchiya, Olympus America's Vice President and General Manager for the Scientific Equipment Group. We founded this competition to focus on the fascinating stories coming out of today's life science research laboratories. The thousands of images that people have shared with the competition over the years reflect some of the most exciting work going on in research today – work that can help shed light on the living universe and ultimately save lives. We look at BioScapes and these beautiful images as sources of education and inspiration to us and the world”. – OlympusBioScapes

Photo: Pretarsus of the third leg of a female drone fly (Eristalis tenax), ventral view, by Dr. Jan Michels, Institute of Zoology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany. (Photo by Olympus BioScapes)

A group of San Bushmen from the Khomani San community practice their hunter-gatherer craft in the Southern Kalahari desert on October 15, 2009 in the Kalahari, South Africa. One of the largest studies of African genetics by an international team from the University of Pennsylvania, published in April 2009, revealed that the San of Southern Africa are the most genetically diverse on earth, and that the San homeland could be the spot where modern humanity began. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

“Double head vulture”. On the day of windy days during raptors migration some people in my country start to catch these tired raptors, so in this day we go to photograph some raptors and we saw these tow tired vultures, so we start to drag them away from the hunters until they reach a good hidden place, to make them safe until they start a new journey. Photo location: Kuwait. (Photo and caption by Mohd Khorshed/National Geographic Photo Contest)