Pangolins in Crisis: Brent Stirton, South Africa; 1st place, Natural world and wildlife. “Pangolins are the world’s most illegally trafficked mammals, with an estimated one million trafficked to Asia in the last 10 years. Their scales are used in traditional Chinese and Vietnamese medicine, and their meat is sold as a high-priced delicacy. As a result, pangolins are listed as critically endangered and anyone who trades or consumes them is breaking the law. This body of work exposes the trade, while exploring aspects of illegality and celebrating the people who are trying to save these animals”. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Sony World Photography Awards 2020)

Former Playboy Bunny Angie Best prepares backstage ahead of her return as the iconic Bunny Mother exclusively at the Telling Tales event at Playboy Club London on September 21, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images for Playboy)

A child puts his swimming goggles on before jumping in a public pool of spring water in Japakeh, Indonesia's Aceh province on March 22, 2024, during the World Water Day. (Photo by Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP Photo)

“Hey! I'm Thomas Shahan, an artist and macrophotographer from Oklahoma. In my spare time over the past few years, I've been shooting portraiture of local arthropods. Why would I devote countless hours to tramping through forests, fields and the like searching for insects and spiders? Well, despite some common beliefs, arthropods (members of the phylum Arthropoda – insects, spiders, crustaceans...) represent an endlessly varied, wildly beautiful and fascinating bunch of animals with surprisingly personable faces and behavior. Often, all it takes is simply inspecting their lives on a closer level to turn repulsion to reverence”. – Thomas Shahan

Photo: Adult Male Jumping Spider at Sunset – Phidippus mystaceus. (Photo by Thomas Shahan; Source: Flickr)

Women dressed in traditional folk costumes participate at the Epiphany day celebration in Bitushe, Macedonia January 19, 2017. (Photo by Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters)

Among the fish populations that could be harmed by the Xayaburi dam in Laos is the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish, considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the world’s largest freshwater fish. The fish, which grows to 650 pounds and about 10 feet long, is only found in the Mekong River. It is migratory, moving between downstream habitats in Cambodia upstream to northern Thailand and Laos each year to spawn. Some experts fear the Xayaburi dam could block the migration and drive the giant catfish to extinction. (Photo by Courtesy of Zeb Hogan/University of Nevada, Reno)

A woman wearing a swim suit skis during the Naked Pig Skiing Carnival at the Yabuli Ski Resort on March 24, 2018 in Harbin of Heilongjiang Province, northeast China. (Photo by Tao Zhang/Getty Images)

“Hydrocynus goliath, also known as the goliath tigerfish, giant tigerfish or mbenga, is a very large African predatory freshwater fish. The giant tigerfish is restricted to the Zaire River system, Lualaba River, Lake Upemba and Lake Tanganyika”. (Photo by Tigerfishcamp / Tourettefishing / Bigfishesoftheworld)