A worker harvests rice in the Sakon Nakhon province of Thailand in the last decade of January 2024. (Photo by Natnattcha Chaturapitamorn/Solent News)

Nicolo Martinenghi of Italy competes in the Men's 50m Breaststroke Final on day six of the 2022 FINA World Short Course Swimming Championships at Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre on December 18, 2022 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)

An alpaca chewing a leaf is pictured on November 18, 2014 in the zoo of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. (Photo by Frank Rumpenhorst/AFP Photo/DPA)

Sea lion “Jay” paints a Chinese character reading “the Serpent” at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo on January 3, 2013. The event, marking the forthcoming Chinese lunar calender year of the snake was held as part of a New Year's attraction. (Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP Photo)

Two Herens cows lock horns during the qualification round of the annual “Battle of the Queens” cow fight finals in Aproz, in the western Alpine canton of Valais May 5, 2013. Each year when taken to the alpine pastures, the cows test their strength and fight for the herd's leadership. The competition continues until a new queen has forced all the other cows to retreat. (Photo by Valentin Flauraud/Reuters)

An African giant pouched rat sniffs for traces of landmine explosives at APOPO's training facility in Morogoro on June 17, 2016. APOPO trains the rats to detect both tuberculosis and landmines at its facility. Every year landmines kill or maim thousands of people worldwide. The trained rats sniff for explosive and so are able to detect the presence of landmines far faster than conventional methods which involve metal detection. (Photo by Carl De Souza/AFP Photo)

A hippopotamus performs during a show at the circus in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia, July 7, 2016. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

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)