Multiple-image Network Graphics is a public graphics file format for animated images. MNG is closely related to the PNG image format. When PNG development started in early 1995, developers decided not to incorporate support for animation, not least because this feature of GIF was seldom used at the time. However, work soon started on MNG as an animation-supporting version of PNG. Version 1.0 of the MNG specification was released on January 31, 2001. The file extension is .mng.