A man is publicly flogged by a member of the Sharia police after he was found guilty of raping a child, in Idi Rayeuk, East Aceh on November 26, 2020. (Photo by Cekmad/AFP Photo)

A doll forms part of a sculpture as part of an exhibit titled The Sea Isn't Made for Fish at Rio de Janeiro Federal University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, June 1, 2015. Art students have taken advantage of a material they have in endless supply trash to create an exhibition that aims to draw attention to the fetid state of the citys Guanabara Bay, where the Olympic sailing events are to be held next year. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Nose to Nose; Human/Nature winner. “Doug Gimesy was documenting work at the Joey and Bat Sanctuary near Melbourne when he met a wombat (Vombatus ursinus) whose mother had been killed by a car. Gimesy watched as a young veterinary student bottle-fed the orphaned joey, then touched her nose to the joey’s in a tender moment of interspecies bonding”. (Photo by Doug Gimesy/BigPicture)

Women soldiers dance during a parade marking the 78th anniversary of the Indonesian Armed Forces in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, October 5, 2023. (Photo by Tatan Syuflana/AP Photo)

Human Connection Award: People and Planet Ocean – Winner – Steve Woods. A free diver interacts with a sperm whale among a cloud of sargassum weed, Dominica. (Photo by Steve Woods/Ocean Photographer of the Year 2022)

A model presents a creation from the JianShangYun collection by Chinese designer Shuo Jiang at China Fashion Week in Beijing, Thursday, March 30, 2023. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

Behaviour: Mammals category. Giant Gathering by Tony Wu, USA. Dozens of sperm whales mingled noisily off Sri Lanka’s northeast coast, stacked as far down as Tony could see. This was a congregation of dozens of social units, like a gathering of the clans. Aggregations like this could be a critical part of the whales’ rich social lives but are rarely reported. Some two thirds of the population was wiped out before commercial whaling was banned in 1986. This kind of major gathering could be “a sign that populations are recovering”, says Tony. (Photo by Tony Wu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017)

6th Place: Javier Rupérez, Almáchar, Málaga, Spain. Small white hair spider. Reflected Light, Image Stacking, 20x (Objective Lens Magnification). (Photo by Javier Rupérez/Nikon's Small World 2019)