An Iraqi special forces soldier shot dead an Islamic State suicide bomber in Mosul, Iraq March 3, 2017. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

A woman surveys the damage after the earthquake on March 17, 2011 in Kensennuma, Japan. Residents were allowed back to their homes today and began the massive cleanup operation caused by a 9.0 magnitude strong earthquake that struck on March 11 off the coast of north-eastern Japan. The quake triggered a tsunami wave of up to 10 metres which engulfed large parts of north-eastern Japan. The death toll has risen past 5000 with at least 8600 people still missing. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

A man reacts over dead bodies prior to burial in a graveyard after shelling in the rebel held besieged town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria, October 24, 2016. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

A cosplayer poses for a photograph during the Comic Market 90 (Comiket) event in Tokyo Big Sight on August 12, 2016, Tokyo, Japan. Many manga and anime fans wearing cosplay lined up in the sun for the first day of Comiket. Comiket was established in 1975 and focuses on manga, anime, gaming and cosplay. Organizers expect more than 500,000 visitors to attend this year's summer event which runs for three days until August 14. (Photo by Aflo/Splash News)

Indian dancers paint their body like tigers as they perform a Tiger dance during the International day of the Tiger in Calcutta, India, July 29, 2015. Students of Calcutta are taking part in an awareness campaign aiming to draw attention to the threats that tigers face due to habitat loss and poaching. (Photo by Piyal Adhikary/EPA)

“Hiding In The Shadows”. This Baby Sandhill taking refuge under Moms wings while sitting on her second egg. I witnessed this baby being born earlier that day,and the next morning saw the other one hatch,what a sight to see. Photo location: Deland, Florida. (Photo and caption by Scott Helfrich/National Geographic Photo Contest)

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)

A) 1st place WINNER – Roy Rimmer. “This rat was in an outdoor set I made, the set up is two meters long and a meter wide made of Perspex,it has a plywood front with holes cut in for my camera and flash guns, I placed two rusty paint cans in the set up and the rat would leap from one can too the other, I had to use flash to freeze the action”.