The British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) has announced the winning images in its annual photography competition. The 2020 winners show the important work of zoos and aquariums at an immensely challenging time. After months of closures, these conservation organisations are reeling from the financial impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Here: Runner-up, Heart and Minds: Nifty nose, by Samantha Allworthy at Longleat. Species: prehensile tailed porcupines. (Photo by Samantha Allworthy/BIAZA 2020 Photography Competition)

These brave models show no fear as they pose with bears, tigers and wolves in scenes straight from the pages of a fairy tale. The snaps show the models cuddling up to the deadly animals and even taking naps with the often unpredictable creatures. Here: “Marina with a bear”. Stepan, a 700-pound grizzly bear, was adopted by a Russian couple when he was just 3 months old. (Photo by Olga Barantseva/Caters News Agency)

In this Thursday, October 3, 2019 photo, a female black bear sleeps with its tongue out high up in a Ponderosa pine tree near Clark Fork School in the Rattlesnake neighborhood of Missoula, Mont. The bear's cub, not pictured, was snoozing on a nearby branch. (Photo by Tommy Martino/The Missoulian via AP Photo)

Army soldiers prepare a military elephant for the parade during a rehearsal for Sri Lanka's 68th Independence day celebrations in Colombo, February 2, 2016. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

Shortlisted: “Two big eyes” by Miao Yong (Zejiang province, China). Damselflies look over the leaves. “I was photographing insects in a park near my home when suddenly I found two damselflies in the grass. They kept flying and it was very difficult to focus until suddenly they parked behind a leaf”. (Photo by Miao Yong/2017 Royal Society of Biology Photographer of the Year)

Portrait category, bronze award winner. Purple-crested Turaco Gallirex porphyreolophus. Lower Mpushini, near Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. (Photo by Richard Flack/Bird Photographer of the Year 2022)

National Geographic invites photographers from around the world to enter the 2013 National Geographic Photography Contest. The grand-prize winner will receive $10,000 (USD) and a trip to National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., to participate in the annual National Geographic Photography Seminar in January 2014. Photo: “We just want to move to search to the Leopard at that morning but we found a group of giraffes come toward a small lake and start drinking it was a nice moment when the Giraffe finish from drinking and leave a letters “S” with motion in the air”. (Photo and caption by Majed Ali/National Geographic Photography Contest)

“Entwined Lives”. Tim Laman, US Winner, Wildlife photographer of the year. A young male orangutan makes the 30-metre climb up the thickest root of the strangler fig high above the canopy in Gunung Palung national park, one of the few protected orangutan strongholds in Indonesian Borneo. Laman had to do three days of climbing to position several GoPro cameras that he could trigger remotely. This shot was the one he had long visualised, looking down on the orangutan within its forest home. (Photo by Tim Laman/2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)