"After a nap, the mother brown bear wanted to go for a walk, but the cubs wanted a ride," Fine wrote.

Fine photographed a blenny fish peeking out from a hole in a coral reef.

"It was hard to take this image because of the fast-moving ant, but with a little help from a flashlight, I was able to freeze the motion," Pansier wrote.

Rosado photographed two bears embracing in Sitka, Alaska.

"I took this photo of a dancing sifaka in Madagascar," Rouse wrote. "As it ran toward us, it created all sorts of funny shapes, but this one was the best. It looks to me like it is practicing its bowling action ready for an England call-up!"

"In a kayak with my camera balanced precariously on the gunnel, I stayed very still while floating by this resting sea otter," Janson wrote. "It stayed relaxed (you can tell because it is still floating on its back) and kept on grooming its fur. With its peaceful face and upturned paws, it reminded me of a Guru meditating."

"Otters hold their food with their paws, making it appear like they are praying," Haines wrote.

"I photographed this nutria directly from the canoe," Arnold wrote. "It was busy grooming itself."

"This doe got up on her hind legs to grab some leaves from the tree to eat, but when she got back up on all fours, she suddenly let go of the branch and took a cold shower on the head," Revel wrote.

"This area has always been a nesting place for burrowing owls, so I visit frequently," Amico wrote." When I saw this image on the computer, it just looked like this little owl was singing his heart out."

"These multi-ton giants fight to keep their harem of females," Rojo wrote.

Godínez's photo shows razorbills watching as one of their peers attempts a wobbly landing.

"This newborn seal seems to be laughing at a good joke," Hamann wrote.

"This picture was taken in 2015 during my first visit to the Farne Islands in the UK," Clausen wrote. "The islands were full of puffins, kittiwakes, shags, guillemots, and razorbills, and I never before and never since have taken so many photos in such a short time."

Aggiss photographed a ground squirrel, also known as a zeisel, calling to its family that it had found food.

Meth-Cohn photographed a Steller's sea eagle on ice off the coast of Rausu, Japan.

"As we walked on the sands of the Namib Desert, a gecko suddenly appeared, emerging out of nowhere with a smile on its face," Bordoli wrote. "It positioned itself perfectly, posing for a portrait worthy of a National Geographic cover. It seemed to say: 'Take my picture, I'm ready for my cover!'"

"'Hajime!' This is the term used by the referee in judo to invite opponents to start fighting," Ricordel wrote. "Here, the standing bear seems to be saying this to the other two, adopting the gesture that referees use when they say this word."

"I was expecting them to interact, nuzzle, or maybe fight, but they coincidentally got aligned in a way that caused this beautiful optical illusion," Lodhi wrote of the zebras in the photo.

Frier took this photo on a safari in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.

"I have this image printed and hung on a wall of my home, and everybody who sees it laughs at it," Frier wrote.

"I saw this parrotfish with two other fish cleaning him," Bellemans wrote. "The smile on his face shows that he really loves it."

"An Adelie penguin stands over its chick as it lays flat on the rock to cool off," Teo wrote. "Due to their high level of insulation, penguin chicks can sometimes overheat and lay on the rocks with their feet out to lower their body temperature."

"A tiny raccoon is telling a secret to its mom while whispering in her ear," Piecha wrote.

Phillips photographed two cape fur seals having a laugh.

Mohandas photographed a chimpanzee in Uganda who was "obviously contemplating an important issue."

"On the penguin highway, these rockhoppers are moving into town, and this town ain't big enough for all of them!" Robinson wrote.

Stankiewicz wrote that it looked like the hippo "just got out of the hairdresser with a big smile on his face."

Kubo wrote that this flying squirrel looked like it was "sucking a cigar" like a mafia boss.

"Here is a female lizard standing upright to escape the summer heat," Patil wrote.

"This female red-bellied woodpecker had been investigating this screech owl nest for a couple of days — perhaps it was her nest last year?" Herman wrote. "This little owlet was definitely startled and didn't seem to know what to make of this intruder."

"This image was taken in South Georgia," Rouse wrote. "It really does show a male king penguin trying to make a move on a female who has already paired up with her male. The body position and wing posture make the message clear — 'back off!'"

Rouse's image was also highly commended in the 2006 BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest.

"We were on safari in Kenya and happened upon this beautiful female who was looking for a mate," McLeod wrote. "A group of topi were also keeping a pretty close eye on her as she left messages for a potential partner on various trees. This shot makes me think that the cheetah is just about to shout out, 'Ready or not, here I come!'"

"In the picture, a white-tailed eagle is ruffling its feathers," Linnanmäki wrote.

"My goal for my images is to bring attention to our scaly or moist friends, showing that not only fluffy animals can be cute and beautiful," Tam said.

"Our parents always find a way to embarrass us — I guess that's also true in the case of spotted owlets," Ranganadhan wrote. "It was truly a funny sight to see two owlets trying to get some privacy as their little offspring stood next to them with a grin and shut eyes."

"Every annoyed and overtired fish needs to destress by hunting for a bald eagle," Jakubczyk wrote.

Petkov photographed a whiskered tern crash-landing on a rock in Bulgaria.

"During a photo shoot at the pond, I discovered this frog with its head in a bubble," Ehmke wrote.

Molina lay down on the side of the road to take this photo of a Flemish mantis with its front legs in the air.

Marchetti's photo shows a squirrel with its feet sticking out of a hole in a tree. It won first place in the Mammals category and the contest's grand prize.

"I have taken many, many photographs of squirrels in many situations over the years in Italy, but this one struck me as really funny and such a strange position because it is that exact moment when the squirrel is detaching its back legs from the trunk to enter its hide," Marchetti said of the photo. "Whenever I show this image at the nature seminars at my local photography club, the audience always explodes with raucous laughter, so I had to enter it!"

Correction: September 26, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misspelled the surname of the photographer who took the photo titled "Wait … Which Zebra Is In Front?" He's Sarosh Lodhi, not Sarosh Iodhi.

Milligan was trekking through the Loango National Park forest in Gabon when she saw this chimpanzee.

Her group "heard the call of a chimp first, then the leaves around them started to rustle, and a group of chimpanzees appeared," the Natural History Museum wrote on its website.

"As she [Milligan] peered through her viewfinder, a large male paused and looked down at the group, craning its neck forward, and its eyes seemed to widen as if to get a better look," the museum added.

Photographer Jess Findlay spent several nights observing an owl's behavior near Vancouver, Canada, to plan this shot.

The museum described how he used an invisible beam to trigger a flash when the bird left the barn, while a slow shutter speed captured the "ambient light cast on the clouds and barn."

"It was a complicated setup but, to Jess's amazement, it worked the first time," the museum wrote.

Locals in St Leonards-on-Sea in England had been leaving out food scraps for foxes, "but Ian [Wood] noticed that badgers from a nearby sett were also coming to forage," wrote the museum.

"After seeing a badger walking along the pavement by this wall late one night, he decided to photograph it."

He relied on the glow of a lamppost to light the scene.

"Sue [Flood] watched this Weddell seal from aboard a rigid inflatable boat in Neko Harbour of the Antarctic Peninsula," read the museum caption.

"So as not to disturb its peaceful slumber, Sue used a long lens to record this serene portrait."

Photographer Piotr Naskrecki watched this sengi for weeks at Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, and noticed it took the same path every day as it searched for food.

Since sengis are "extremely shy and skittish," the museum wrote, Naskrecki used a remote camera to capture this image.

The Natural History Museum wrote that Michel d'Oultremont had hoped for years to take a photo of a stoat camouflaged in the snow — eventually, he got the opportunity in his home country of Belgium.

"He lay in the snow with a white camouflage net covering all but his lens," the museum wrote. "This curious stoat came out of its snowy hole and sat up from time to time, observing its territory just before setting off to hunt."

Photographer Francisco Negroni regularly visits the Villarrica Volcano, one of Chile's most active, in Pucón. Every visit is "quite an adventure — never knowing what the volcano might surprise you with," he told the museum.

In this photo, which was taken during a 10-day trip to the area, he captured the powerful moment the volcano's lava illuminated a stack of lenticular clouds.

Arvind Ramamurthy was taking photos of a wolf pack playing in fields in Bhigwan, India, when "one of them came and sat down at the edge of the agricultural crop, and one by one, four others joined it. They paused for a few seconds before they ran off again, playing and chasing one another." the museum's caption read.

The museum touted this image by Aaron Baggenstos as "a symbol of hope," showcasing how wild animals and humans — in this case, gauchos, or sheep farmers — can co-exist. It was taken in the Torres del Paine National Park, which has promoted ecotourism in the region.

"The gauchos view pumas more positively because they're attracting tourists, which is good for income," the museum wrote.

Meanwhile, the farmers' sheepdogs scare pumas away, forcing them to prey on wild animals, rather than the sheep.

"There is hope that humans and pumas can live alongside one another," the museum wrote.

Red-shanked douc langurs — critically endangered primates only found in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia — are known for their red "stockings."

Photographer Ivan Ivanek found a small group of the monkeys after surveying the area for several days.

Then, one evening, "he saw these two mating. Compared to other species of monkey he'd seen mating, it was an unexpectedly gradual and graceful affair!" wrote the museum.

Leue was in a helicopter when he witnessed a striking scene: floodwaters surging towards Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, Australia's largest inland lake, against a backdrop of a dust storm and rain.

The floodwaters had traveled over 1,600 miles from Queensland toward South Australia.

"Timing was imperative to photograph this once-in-a-decade natural event," the caption read.

Little owls and European rollers come into contact with each other at Kiskunság National Park in Hungary because their nesting areas and food sources are similar.

Máté spent 27 days watching from a hide to capture this interaction.

"During the short mating season, the male roller makes a sport of annoying other birds that stray into its breeding area. It makes a surprise ambush, flying at full speed behind them," the museum wrote, adding, "The little owl seemed nonplussed by the spectacle."

When D'Aurizio visited the San Bartolomeo Valley in the Majella National Park in Italy — where he's been many times — he thought he'd see butterflies and dragonflies.

What he didn't expect, though, was what the museum called "a sad collage of dead insects calmly floating in the water."

"To this day, Carlo has no explanation of why the insects died," its caption read.

Pradhuman watched a pack of wolves on the prowl for something to eat in Yellowstone National Park. Seeing them head for the aspens, he thought it would make a striking image.

"The wolves walked right past these trees and then continued to follow the tree line, eventually disappearing over the hillside," the Natural History Museum wrote.

Williams captured this image of a beluga whale rubbing its body on a river bottom along the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. It was taken in an inlet, where the waters are shallow and belugas gather to exfoliate their skin, hide from predators, and socialize with each other, according to the museum.

"Nicknamed 'the canaries of the sea,' they produce a series of chirps, clicks, whistles, and squeals that Mark found otherworldly," the museum wrote.

Forsberg, a biologist, approached a whopping crane in Louisiana and moved with "cat-like quickness" to check the bird's health, quickly replacing a faulty transmitter that helps scientists keep track of the birds, per the Natural History Museum.

"This experimental population was reintroduced in Bayou Country in 2011. In the 1940s there were roughly 20 whooping cranes in the region. Since then, numbers have climbed to over 800," the museum wrote.

"In the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, a walrus carcass had attracted a female polar bear and her two cubs," wrote the museum.

"But one of the cubs was more interested in playing in the water than eating. The cub was having fun diving under the water and resurfacing, playing with the seaweed and kelp."

Haarberg watched the bear cub attempt to ambush a northern fulmar several times, without success.

Rose captured a beaver's tail smack after years of attempts. She finally found success in a pond in Jackson, Wyoming.

"As she approached the shoreline, a beaver cautiously cruised by after emerging from its lodge," the museum wrote in its caption, adding, "It cocked its tail up and brought it down with a resounding crack."

The tail smacks are a way for the creatures to warn their family members about a newcomer to the area, the museum wrote.

In this photo, Willie Burger van Schalkwyk captured a brave giant ground gecko taking on a southern pale chanting goshawk that was attacking it in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in South Africa.

"Unfortunately, there was no hope of survival, but Willie was impressed by the gecko's bravery," the Natural History Museum wrote.

"Northern giant petrels are large seabirds. They're used to flying above the waves for weeks without encountering land," the Natural History Museum wrote in its caption of the photo.

"Samuel [Bloch] was surprised to find this seabird in such a woody environment. Like many other seabirds, it breeds on islands where there are fewer predators."

To avoid disturbing the bird, the photographer clicked this image swiftly from afar.

This photograph shows the moment a honey badger — covered in blood and quills, but undeterred — returned to finish off its prey, a Cape porcupine, in Botswana.

"Honey badgers are famously ferocious," reads the caption.

In the end, the honey badger won the battle, dragging the porcupine to its den, the museum wrote.

Kortler was on a night dive near Komodo Island in Indonesia when he saw a decorator crab on top of a sea squirt.

"The sea squirt provided the crab the perfect stage to feed on drifting plankton," the museum wrote in its caption.

Kortler used flash photography, creating the effect of spotlighting the crab.

Premel captured a Surinam golden-eyed tree frog puffing out its cheeks as it prepared to call for a mate in French Guiana's first rains.

"The call of the Surinam golden-eyed tree frog is so powerful it can be heard hundreds of meters away," the museum wrote.

Brinkmann captured this striking image of a songbird against fairground lights in Münster, Germany.

"During a popular fair in Münster called the Send, an interesting atmosphere arose behind the castle," the museum wrote. "The evening mood was gentle, and Christian [Brinkmann] had singing birds on one side and party music on the other.

"In front of the fairground lights, this Eurasian blackbird posed for its song."

Farmers in the Somali Region capture cheetah cubs, accusing them of harming their livestock, and sell them to traffickers. If the traffickers are unable to sell them, the cheetahs are killed, and their parts are sold for Chinese bone wine and other products.

This cheetah cub "was captured from her home plains" and was then "transported for several days on the back of a camel to the northern coast of Somaliland," the museum wrote.

"After hissing at the camera, the cub started chirping, calling out for its mother," it added.