Macro or Micro? Scientists’ pictures baffle our sense of scale. It began when Stephen Young, a geography professor at Salem State University in Massachusetts, tricked his biologist colleague Paul Kelly into thinking a satellite image was one of his electron microscope scans. Can you guess whether they are close-up or very far away? (Photo by Paul Kelly)

People and Nature category winner: Why did the sloth cross the road? by Andrew Whitworth (Osa Conservation and University of Glasgow), taken in Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. “I was driving out from the Osa Peninsula, located on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica on a dark, stormy day. This female three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) had luckily just about made it across the road, and the drivers of the Toyota on this occasion had spotted her in good time”. (Photo by Andrew Whitworth/2019 British Ecological Society Photography Competition)

In this photo taken on Monday, January 5, 2015, a mallard duck attempts to walk on a frozen pond in Yukon, Okla. (Photo by Steve Gooch/AP Photo/The Oklahoman)

A pelican investigates a fallen ketchup bottle outside a cafe in St James’s Park in London, England on October 9, 2025. The species has lived there for hundreds of years and remain a popular sight for visitors. Introduced in 1664 as a gift from the Russian ambassador, about 40 pelicans have since made the park their home. The bottle was safely retrieved from the pelican. (Photo by Stephen Chung/Alamy Live News)

The name Danbo is a pun on the Japanese word for corrugated cardboard “danboru” (ダンボー). There’s also a company in Japan which makes cardboard boxes which has Danbooru in its name.

Shortlisted: “Two big eyes” by Miao Yong (Zejiang province, China). Damselflies look over the leaves. “I was photographing insects in a park near my home when suddenly I found two damselflies in the grass. They kept flying and it was very difficult to focus until suddenly they parked behind a leaf”. (Photo by Miao Yong/2017 Royal Society of Biology Photographer of the Year)

A model displays shoes during the Ryan LO Autumn/Winter show at London Fashion Week, Friday, February 19, 2016. (Photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo)

A feminist activist uses a slingshot during a protest against gender violence and patriarchy in Santiago on November 29, 2019. Furious Chileans have since October 18 been protesting social and economic inequality, and against an entrenched political elite that comes from a small number of the wealthiest families in the country, among other issues. (Photo by Javier Torres/AFP Photo)