Underwater photographer of the year – winner. Dancing Octopus by Gabriel Barathieu (France). Location: Island of Mayotte, off the coast of south-east Africa. “Balletic and malevolent”, one judge said of this octopus, hunting in a lagoon. Barathieu waited until spring tides when there was just 30cm of water on the flats and plenty of light in the shallows. (Photo by Gabriel Barathieu/UPY2017)

A giraffe appears almost to be doing the splits as it bends to drink at a watering hole on a reserve in Mkuze, South Africa in September 2023. (Photo by Peter Batty/Solent News)

A ring-tailed lemur sunbakes at Melbourne Zoo in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on December 21 2016. (Photo by Julian Smith/EPA)

Murad Khydyrov, horse and monkey trainer at the Great Moscow State Circus, and chimpanzee named Micky get ready for a rehearsal of the show called “History” as the circus prepares for its new season, which is to begin on September 19, in Moscow on September 17, 2020. (Photo by Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP Photo)

Winner – Animal Portraits: The pose by Mogens Trolle, Denmark. A young male proboscis monkey cocks his head slightly and closes his eyes. Unexpected pale blue eyelids now complement his immaculately groomed auburn hair. He poses for a few seconds as if in meditation. He is a wild visitor to the feeding station at Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary in Sabah, Borneo – “the most laid-back character”, says Trolle, “quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen on another monkey” – connects us, he hopes, with a fellow primate. (Photo by Mogens Trolle/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2020)

A physically disabled fox walks with its walking wheels wheelchair, developed by an animal lover by Van Yuzuncu Yil University Wildlife Conservation and Rehabilitation Center, after the fox found wounded in the urban countryside in Van, Turkey on December 05, 2020. The fox also received a physical treatment at the center. (Photo by Ozkan Bilgin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Starlings are seen at their nesting box in a private garden in the town of Bobruisk, Belarus, April 8, 2018. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

A volunteer holds the peak of a flamingo chick after it was fitted with an identity ring at a lagoon in the Fuente de Piedra natural reserve near Malaga, southern Spain, July 30, 2022. (Photo by Jon Nazca/Reuters)