“The titan arum or Amorphophallus titanum (from Ancient Greek amorphos, “without form, misshapen” + phallos, “phallus”, and titan, “giant”) is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. The titan arum's inflorescence is not as large as that of the Talipot palm, Corypha umbraculifera, but the inflorescence of the Talipot palm is branched rather than unbranched”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Kew Gardens employee Lauren Bird Royal examines the flowering of the Titan Arum lily at the Botanical Gardens at Kew on September 30, 2005 in London, England. For the first time in horticultural history, the Titan Arum lily can be seen at all three active stages in its lifecycle – in flower, fruit and leaf.The flowering corm is nearly three metres tall and weighs 91kg and is very rarely seen outside of the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Studio stack: Rabbit? Acanthocinus aedilis, Cerambycidae, A female Timberman (Timbermam perhaps?). Stacked from 216 exposures in Zerene Stacker (PMAX). (Photo by John Hallmén). P.S. All pictures are presented in high resolution.

Chinese women wear protective masks as they are dressed in traditional clothing from the Qing Dynasty era outside a park on March 29, 2020 in Beijing, China. A limited section of the iconic tourist site was re-opened to the public this week allowing a smaller number of visitors to reserve tickets online in advance and to enter after passing health screening. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Arachnids category 3rd place: dancing spider by Raed Ammari. Male jumping spiders (in this case a Phidippus insignarius) perform a courtship dance in which they almost form a heart shape with their legs. This one was shot in Colorado. (Photo by Raed Ammari/Luminar Bug Photographer of the Year 2020)

A rose chafer in Oxfordshire, UK on July 8, 2024. The beetles are often seen on flowers in the garden and are sometimes maligned for munching their way through these plants. However, they are an important detritivore as they feed on dead and decaying matter and recycle its nutrients, which makes a helpful addition to any compost. (Photo by Geoffrey Swaine/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)

A white crab spider hides between the petals of a rain spotted rose blossom in the garden of a home near Oakland in southwestern Oregon on August 23, 2024. Crab spiders are ambush predators and wait patiently for their prey to approach. (Photo by Robin Loznak/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Undated BBC handout photo of a female two-coloured Mason Bee carrying a dried grass stalk back to her snail-shell nest on the British Isles in the latest episode of Sir David Attenborough's Wild Isles series. Issue date: Sunday March 26, 2023. (Photo by John Walters/Silverback Films/BBC/PA Wire)