The stunning shots capture the moment a female bear and her two cubs enjoyed the last warm rays of the sun at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Kaktovik, Alaska. The bears can be seen gazing at the vibrant sunset and appear to revel in the tranquil moment as they bask in the array of colors. (Photo by Sylvain Cordier/Caters News)

Gentoo penguins begin the breeding season at Edinburgh Zoo on March 1, 2011 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The zoo keepers have just installed the nest rings in the penguin enclosure. The male penguins will then collect pebbles and offer them to the females to fill nest rings with, this helps keep the eggs and chick up off the ground and is part of their courtship display. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)ю EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND – MARCH 01

Three one-month-old lioness cubs are held by a keeper as they take their first outing on February 21, 2010 at the Ramat Gan Safari Park near Tel Aviv, Israel. The still unnamed cubs are the first triplet females to be born at the safari park and officials say their birth will ensure the continuity of the park's pride of lions. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)

Australian artist Polixeni Papapetrou trends the line between fantasy/theatre, mythology/reality, archetype/play, male/female, child/adult and animal/human. As with all her work the series The Dreamkeepers tells a story that includes her autobiographical relationship with her children, but it also says a lot more about the condition of childhood - its place in our culture and how we react to images of children in photography.

I wanted to create the smoke effects on animals I used on some few of my female subjects.
The hardest part was that while there were only faces, here there was the whole body that needed to be “smokeified”.

This cute elephant calf was spotted after it got stuck in a pool of water and required a helping trunk from its mum to get out. The young calf looked like it was having an incredible time however, as it frolicked about in the water and could have done with some waterproofs to boot. But mum clearly knew best with her tot, when she wrapped her trunk around the youngsters body and hoisted it out of the pool. The incident which took place on the Chobe River, Botswana, was captured by Neal Cooper, 50, a professional photographer from South Africa. (Photo by Neal Cooper/Caters News)

A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, September 9, 2016. At a rocky outpost in Western Sahara, a new generation of soldiers who have never known war are mobilising as tensions resurface in one of Africa's oldest disputes after a quarter century of uneasy peace. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

Bloodthirsty by Thomas P. Peschak, Germany/South Africa — winner, Behaviour: birds. When rations run short on Wolf Island, in the remote northern Galápagos, the sharp-beaked ground finches become vampires. Their sitting targets are Nazca boobies and other large birds. The finches rely on a scant diet of seeds and insects, which regularly dries up, so they drink blood to survive. ‘I’ve seen more than half a dozen finches drinking from a single Nazca booby,’ says Tom. Rather than leave their nests the boobies tolerate the vampires, and the blood loss doesn’t seem to cause permanent harm. (Photo by Thomas P. Peschak/2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)