NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC’S TOP PHOTOS OF THE WEEK

Rivers forming tree-like figures on the desert of Baja California, Mexico. Photograph courtesy Adriana Franco/National Geographic Your Shot.

One of the most beautiful snakes I have found and shot so far, which is a photographer's delight because of its vibrant colors and its posture, which is actually a self-defense posture. It’s a mildly venomous snake found throughout the subcontinent of India and its neighboring countries. Photograph courtesy Suhaas Premkumar/National Geographic Your Shot.

Like this drummer boy and dancer girl, many more folk musicians come from the nearby village of Khuhri-Jaisalmer and entertain tourists, domestic as well as foreign, on the sand dunes of Thar Desert. Photograph courtesy Shivji Joshi/National Geographic Your Shot.

Sossusvlei is the most famous salt pan in the Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia. Dead Vlei, however, with its myriad of dead acacias and huge dunes surrounding it, is a place of incomparable beauty. I felt the need to lie down, open wide my arms and legs and breathe the air of the Namib Desert. Photograph courtesy Romulo Rejon/National Geographic Your Shot.

This critically endangered species of spider monkey was photographed at the Barranquilla Zoo in Colombia. The brown spider monkey is now among the world's 25 most endangered primates. Photograph courtesy Carolina Holguin/National Geographic Your Shot.

I was trying to figure out how to create an image of the sliding rock without including my shadow until I realized that my shadow made the image stronger. Photograph courtesy Anil Sud/National Geographic Your Shot.

Leviathan: In the Arctic, near Svalbard (Norway) a 50-foot fin whale breaks the surface of the sea, looks at all those paparazzi and their clicking instruments, exhales and returns to its big blue world. Exhilarating experience. Photograph courtesy Andre Erlich/National Geographic Your Shot.

Western Sahara, 2007. Photograph courtesy Davor Misir/National Geographic Your Shot.

[Source: Yahoo! News.]