MESMERISING FUNGI

With luminous colours and alien- like features, these magical mushrooms look like they belong on another planet. These mesmorising pictures, however, capture the beautiful variety of fungi here on Earth. The incredible images were taken by Australian photographer Stephen Axford, 62, after he became familiar with the importance of fungi in everyday life, and decided to document it twelve years ago..

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BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: SWIMMING WITH SHARKS

Armed with a snorkel, flippers and her skimpy bikini, an intrepid female free diver swims alongside an array of reef sharks .

EYE PAINTER

MEET the painter who makes his living squirting paint from his EYES .

LIVING ON WATER: REFUGEES BUILD A LIFE AT SEA

SAILING over crystal clear waters, the Bajau people of Malaysia live their lives almost entirely at SEA .

THE JUMP

High up in the mountains and thousands of feet off the ground, a party of climbers were in for a shock as they came face to face with this frightening leap of faith .

FISH FIGHT

FINALLY catching a meal, a pair of great white egrets fight over their dinner .

CHEEKY FROG HITCHES A RIDE ON A SNAIL

A lazy tree frog, tired of hopping along a branch, chooses the slowest form of transport when it jumps on top of an unsuspecting snail .

THE ENCHANTING FOREST OF FIREFLIES

WITH the phosphorescent blobs and mesmerising patterns, these spectacular images may look like the hall marks of an enchanted forest but it is in fact the scene of thousands of dancing FIREFLIES .

AMAZING AERIAL PATTERNS

Swirling water and sand create amazing aerial images of river deltas across Iceland .

AN OTTER-ONE BITES THE DUST

Throwing a right hook as he launches onto his opponent with his gnarling teeth at the ready, this is the OTTER-LY ruthless showdown between two otters .

NEW DELHI CHILD RAPE PROTESTS

NEW DELHI, A woman activist of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party crosses a police barricade near the residence of ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi during a protest against the recent rape of a five-year-old girl in New Delhi, India, April 21, 2013 .

RED SMOKE AT NIGHT, VOLCANO SPOTTERS DELIGHT

With the vivid red smoke billowing into the sky amid the misty sand dunes, these are the blissful views provided at the break of dawn at a volcano .

BIRD FISHING

DIVING down at a speed of 75mph, this is the moment a hungry osprey caught his prey .