Remember that scene from Avatar when hundreds of woodsprites laid on Jake Sully and Neytiri thought this was a sign that he has some sort of mythological importance?
Well, New Zealand must be where their diety resides. In Waitomo's Ruakuri caves alone, a colony of woodsprite-like glow worms make the underground look celestial.
Photographer Shaun Jeffers dedicated an entire year capturing these glow worms. Spending eight hours at a time in the caves, he said the illumination looks as vibrant in real life as what you can see in the photos.
Eight hours is a lot of time to spend in a cave in the dark. Jeffers said he occasionally had a companion with him to swap ghost stories with. He also made sure he had Whittaker's chocolate with him all the time.
It's his most challenging photographic project to date, from abseiling down a 35 metre hole to swimming with eels and setting up in the pitch black, chest-deep in cold water.
Glow worms aren't nearly as pretty up-close. They are the larvae of a kind of fly, and the part of them that glows is actually their poo.
Jeffers said he hasn't touched one, "and you probably shouldn't as you can potentially harm the creatures".
But he can't help but keep going back to the cave.
