“Secrets of the Whales”. Skerry’s photographs celebrate the lives and culture of whales, illuminating recent research and their diverse behaviours. His latest work focuses on four key species: sperm whales, humpbacks, orca and beluga whales. Humpback whales bubble-net feeding off the coast of Alaska. They work cooperatively to feed on herring by blowing a perfect ring of bubbles underwater to form a net encircling the fish. The whales then swim up through the centre of the bubble net with their mouths open. (Photo by Brian Skerry/National Geographic Photo/Visa pour l'Image)

Photographer Lucy Ray says she has been scratched by the pooches who are diving underwater to try and catch a tennis ball. Their wide-eyed desperation has been captured by a specialist underwater photographer who admits she has been bitten and scratched by the pooches who only had eyes for the ball. Lucy Ray, 34, said: “A dog could have the cutest face on land but as soon as they get in the water they can be terrifying. Their eyes bulge and teeth shoot out of their mouth just like an alien as they try to catch the ball”. (Photo by Lucy Ray)

Jacob's Well is a perennial karstic spring in the Texas Hill Country flowing from the bed of Cypress Creek, located northwest of Wimberley, Texas. The twelve foot (four meter) diameter mouth of the spring serves as a popular swimming spot for the local land owners whose properties adjoin Cypress Creek. From the opening in the creek bed, Jacob's Well cave descends vertically for about thirty feet (ten meters), then continues downward at an angle through a series of silted chambers separated by narrow restrictions, finally reaching a depth of one hundred and twenty feet (forty meters). Until the modern era, the Trinity Aquifer-fed natural artesian spring gushed water from the mouth of the cave, with a measured flow in 1924 of one hundred and seventy gallons per second (six hundred and forty liters per second) discharging six feet (two meters) into the air. The spring is the greatest source of water recharging the Edwards Aquifer.

This diver almost got sucked into the mouth of a massive whale shark as it feeds on plankton. But far from staring into the jaws of death – the shark, which are the sea's largest fish, is actually vegetarian. The relieved diver escaped from the encounter unscathed and continued to enjoy the presence of the incredibly docile animals. The stunning photograph, by Mauricio Handler, was taken during a feeding session where more than 600 of the huge creatures gathered to feed on tuna spawn. (Photo by Mauricio Handler/Daily Mail/Solent)

Ice covered leafs are pictured on a tree near Amstall in northern Austria, December 2, 2014. Freezing fog and rain covered parts of the region with ice, causing blocked roads due to fallen trees and closed schools for security reasons, local media report. (Photo by Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters)

Blaze, 8, from Swindon, is covered from head to toe as he plays in the mud at Weston-super-Mare beach on August 4, 2019, as the tide recedes and the huge expanse of mud flats cover the beach where holidaymakers enjoy splashing around. (Photo by Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images)