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)

The British Ecological Society has announced the winners of its annual photography competition, Capturing Ecology. Taken by international ecologists and students, the winning images will be exhibited at the society’s joint annual meeting in Ghent in December. Here: Overall runner-up; Toucan, Mark Tatchell. (Photo by Mark Tatchell/British Ecological Society)

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)

The fourth annual BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition aims to celebrate the diversity of life on Earth, and encourages people to protect and conserve it. Here: “The Salmon Catchers”. Terrestrial Wildlife. To capture this view of a mother grizzly bear and her cub, photographer Peter Mather set up a camera trap on a log that he knew the bears tended to traverse while fishing for salmon, in the Yukon River watershed in Canada. (Photo by Peter Mather/BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition 2017)

One-day-old baby giraffe calf Gus looks at the camera at Noah's Ark farm on May 12, 2017 in Bristol, England. The baby giraffe was born yesterday at the zoo farm in North Somerset. In the wild, populations of giraffes are suffering from a continuing decline, with 97,500 estimated in Africa in 2015. Since 1985 the total giraffe population has fallen by 35%. New arrival Gus joins brothers George, 4 and Geoffrey, 2. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

In the forests of Viiksimo in Finland, in October 2023, a popular spot for watching wolves and bears, a crow has a rival at its lunch spot. (Photo by Valtteri Mulkahainen/Caters News Agency)

In this June 29, 2016 file photo, boats docked at Central Marine in Stuart, Fla., are surrounded by blue green algae. The 153-mile-long Indian River Lagoon has been plagued by harmful algae blooms. Water quality testing data analyzed by the AP showed the average phosphorous level – a byproduct of fertilizers and human waste that algae thrive on, rose nearly 75 percent between 2000 and 2016. (Photo by Greg Lovett/The Palm Beach Post via AP Photo)

During the spring harvest season, a group of traditional Malaysian honey hunters travel to the rainforest near the Thai border to collect honeycombs from giant bees – and risk their lives climbing 200ft trees. Here: Bees are sensitive to light, which makes them follow the glowing embers down to the ground. (Photo by Hasnoor Hussain/The Guardian)