Shortlisted: Pooyan Shadpoor, Houcheraghi. While walking along the shore of Larak, Iran – an island in the Persian Gulf – Shadpoor came across this luminous scene. The “magical lights of (the) plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot”, he writes. (Photo by Pooyan Shadpoor/2016 EPOTY)

Dario Sammartino, of Italy, competes at the final table during the World Series of Poker at the Rio hotel-casino in Las Vegas Sunday, July 14, 2019. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP Photo)

A red squirrel leaps over a gray squirrel after the larger squirrel became annoyed with its territory being encroached upon, Saturday, May 28, 2022, in Freeport, Maine. (Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo)

A cygnet keeps snug under its mother’s wing at Heronry Pond in Wanstead Park in east London in the last decade of May 2024. (Photo by Jeff Moore/The Times)

A ladyboy sеx worker wears a belt with a dollar sign on it while holding condoms and lube handed to her by Sisters, a transgendered outreach and community services organization in Pattaya, Thailand on August 25, 2016. Many of Thailand's ladyboys live in Pattaya, a large percentage of whom work in the sеx industry there. (Photo by Aaron Joel Santos/Getty Images/Aurora Creative)

A vendor sleeps as his son waits for customers at their roadside vegetable shop in New Delhi, February 12, 2019. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

A South American Coati licks a block of frozen fruits at Israel's Safari Zoo in Ramat Gan, north of the Mediterranean coastal city of Tel Aviv, as temperatures reach 35 degrees Celsius on July 13, 2023. (Photo by Jack Guez/AFP Photo)

A staff member of a toy store wears a face mask as she invites customers to enter the store, in London, Tuesday, September 22, 2020. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has slammed the brakes on the country's return to offices, saying people should work from home if possible to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. Johnson on Tuesday announced a package of new restrictions, including a requirement for pubs, restaurants and other hospitality venues in England to close between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. (Photo by Frank Augstein/AP Photo)