People and Nature category winner: Why did the sloth cross the road? by Andrew Whitworth (Osa Conservation and University of Glasgow), taken in Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. “I was driving out from the Osa Peninsula, located on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica on a dark, stormy day. This female three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) had luckily just about made it across the road, and the drivers of the Toyota on this occasion had spotted her in good time”. (Photo by Andrew Whitworth/2019 British Ecological Society Photography Competition)

“Hard for Life”. (Photo by Theo Vu Xuan/Sony World Photography Awards/WENN.com)

A keen pet owner has created a series of quirky poster-style artworks – with his photogenic pet pooch as the star. Rafael Mantesso, 31, a co-founder of a gastronomy institute, from Carangola, Minas Gerais, Brazil spends his time shooting pictures of five-year-old bull terrier dog Jimmy Choo in different everyday poses – complete with Rafaels hand drawn illustrations. (Photo by Rafael Mantesso/Caters News)

“Natural History” is a series of completely candid single exposure images that merge the living and the dead to create allegorical narratives of our troubled co-existence with nature. Ghost-like reflections of modern visitors viewing wildlife dioramas are juxtaposed against the antique taxidermied subjects housed behind thick glass, their faces molded into permanent expressions of fear, aggression or fleeting passivity. After decades of over-hunting, climate change, poaching and destruction of habitat, many of these long dead diorama specimens now represent endangered or completely extinct species”. – Traer Scott. (Photo by Traer Scott)

A Herero man holds the head of a freshly butchered cow, killed to supply meat for a funeral, 2012. (Photo by Jim Naughten, courtesy of Klompching Gallery, New York)

A bird is cleaned at the International Bird Rescue in Fairfield, California January 20, 2015. A gooey, unknown material discovered on the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay is clinging to the feathers of birds, and more than 100 birds, mostly species of oceangoing, diving ducks, have died after their feathers were fouled by the viscous substance now undergoing testing at state labs in Sacramento. (Photo by Robert Galbraith/Reuters)

Runner-up. “The heavens opened and the streets around Shibuya, Tokyo, were suddenly drenched in even more colour and movement. I was taking photos (my friend was holding the umbrella) when I noticed this woman at the crossing. I’m pleased with the futuristic feel of the image”. (Photo by Katherine Bridgestock/The Guardian)

Miniature pig “Nueffel” is walked in a park in Hanover, Germany, 14 April 2016. (Photo by Sebastian Gollnow/EPA)