“A Mothers Tail”. A baby cub pulls on his mother's tail to get attention. Photo location: Masai Mara, Kenya. (Photo and caption by Tori Marsh/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A Swiss police officer accompanies a migrant from Syria carrying her baby, upon her arrival at the railway station in the north-eastern Swiss town of Buchs September 1, 2015. (Photo by Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters)

These breath-taking photographs reveal the everyday lives of animals living in the wild. The incredible images were taken by wildlife photographer Wim van dan Heever, from Pretoria, South Africa, during trips to locations including Japan, Botswana and Svalbard. The 43-year-old has been photographing wildlife since he was a young boy and turned his passion for animals into a career and set up ODP Safaris. He has travelled across the globe to photograph wild animals – from lions and tigers, to elephants, dolphins and eagles – as they hunt, give birth and graze in their natural habitats. Here: Lions submerged in water. (Photo by Wim van den Heever/Caters News)

A reef shell lies on a beach as the sun sets on Lady Elliot Island located north-east of the town of Bundaberg in Queensland, Australia, June 10, 2015. UNESCO World Heritage delegates recently snorkelled on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, thousands of coral reefs, which stretch over 2,000 km off the northeast coast. Surrounded by manta rays, dolphins and reef sharks, their mission was to check the health of the world's largest living ecosystem, which brings in billions of dollars a year in tourism. Some coral has been badly damaged and animal species, including dugong and large green turtles, are threatened. UNESCO will say on Wednesday whether it will place the reef on a list of endangered World Heritage sites, a move the Australian government wants to avoid at all costs, having lobbied hard overseas. Earlier this year, UNESCO said the reef's outlook was “poor”. (Photo by David Gray/Reuters)

A baby elephant struggles to climb out of a dam before being rescued by rangers at Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa in the last decade of March 2025, having been pushed into the water by another elephant. (Photo by Anne Laing/Caters News Agency)

The moment baby elephant gets a helping hand to escape the slippery waterhole was caught on camera in the Addo Elephant National Park in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in the last decade of August 2025. (Photo by Anne Laing/Caters News Agency)

A baby baboon appears to ride its mother like a horse at the Chobe River, in The Chobe National Park, Botswana, Southern Africa in January 2023. Young monkeys often ride on their parent's backs, like this Chacma baboon, for protection. (Photo by William Steel/Solent News & Photo Agency)

A 3-month-old ethnic Tujia baby girl is pictured next to her father as they wait for a traditional ethnic Tujia wedding feast during celebrations marking the Lunar New Year in Ziqiu town, Changyang county of China’s Hubei province, February 15, 2016. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)