At the end of rice harvesting season, the folks of the Kagawa and Niigata Prefectures in Japan hold a straw festival to celebrate the abundance of the harvest. Dried straws cover wooden frames to form larger-than-life sculptures from animals like sharks and gorillas to vessels such as ships and tanks. The family-friendly event invites visitors of all ages to engage, interact, and play on the enormous structures.

A grasshopper in a protective mask created by microminiaturist Anatoly Konenko in Omsk, Russia on May 21, 2020. Mini-masks about the size of a rice grain are made of a special high-density medical fabric with a built-in air filter. Anatoly Konenko is one of Russia's most famous microminiaturists; his works include a grasshopper playing a violin, a shod flea, a miniature bass guitar, a camel train in a needle's eye, and over 200 miniature books. (Photo by Yevgeny Sofiychuk/TASS)

For some reason, everything that comes from Australia is either very cute or very poisonous; sometimes cute and poisonous at the same time. For example, Slow Loris, which you probably have seen eating a ball of rice on YouTube, is actually a very poisonous creature, despite its extreme cuteness. Goodfellow’s tree-kangaroos, on the other hand, are all cuteness and no poison. Just look at its cute little snout and furry paws, as it gingerly scratches its stomach, while sitting on its hind legs! If you don’t find this creature adorable, nothing will be able to thaw your stone-cold heart.

Lush green rice terraces sprawl over 2,200 hectares of mountainside ready to be harvested. These stunning images, captured by photographer Saravut Whanset, show the incredible terraces throughout the course of the day, including at sunrise and sunset. Workers tend to the fields, with each terrace between 1 and 1.5 metres wide, while wooden huts stand on stilts on the mountainside. The beautiful panoramic pictures were taken in Mu Cang Chai, Vietnam, with the fields located at the foot of the Hoang Lien Son mountain range, 1,000 metres above sea level. (Photo by Saravut Whanset/Solent News and Photo Agency)

A man eats a meal under his tree house, which acts as a shelter from wild elephants, in Gwe Cho village, Shwe Taung Yan township Ayeyarwady division January 18, 2016. Wild elephants are driving villagers in a Myanmar township to seek refuge while the animals storm their rice paddies, in Ayeyarwady in the Delta region, West of Yangon. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

A wolf-like robot “Super Monster Wolf” stands beside a rice field to drive away wild animals that cause damages to crops in Kisarazu, Chiba prefecture, on August 25, 2017. The agricultural coopetative association JA Kisarazu-shi introduced the 65cm-long and 50cm-high robot recently on a trial basis which can detect wild animals such as boars and deers with an infrared ray sensor when they approach and intimidates them, flashing the red LED eyes and blaring 48 types of sounds including a wolf growl and human voice. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP Photo)

Boat crew members train on the waters of the Tonle Sap River on the morning of the first day of the Water Festival on November 13, 2016 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The yearly three-day Water Festival is one of the most important holidays in Cambodia and celebrates the end of the rainy season and the start of the rice harvesting. The Festival also coincides with the Tonle Sap river reversing course, which it does twice a year. Approximately 2 million people are expected to attend this year's festival, during which 259 boats and nearly 20,000 oarsmen will participate in the races. After a fatal stampede resulting in the death of some 353 people during the Water Festival in 2010, it has been cancelled four times over the past five years, with weather used as an official excuse. (Photo by Omar Havana/Getty Images)

A Tenggerese shaman praying for worshippers at Widodaren cave during the Tenggerese Hindu Yadnya Kasada festival on July 31, 2015 in Probolinggo, East Java, Indonesia. The festival is the main festival of the Tenggerese people and lasts about a month. On the fourteenth day, the Tenggerese make the journey to Mount Bromo to make offerings of rice, fruits, vegetables, flowers and livestock to the mountain gods by throwing them into the volcano's caldera. The origin of the festival lies in the 15th century when a princess named Roro Anteng started the principality of Tengger with her husband Joko Seger, and the childless couple asked the mountain Gods for help in bearing children. The legend says the Gods granted them 24 children but on the provision that the 25th must be tossed into the volcano in sacrifice. The 25th child, Kesuma, was finally sacrificed in this way after initial refusal, and the tradition of throwing sacrifices into the caldera to appease the mountain Gods continues today. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)