Daniel Sheridan, a council worker from Poole, Dorset, runs a side hustle snapping dogs living their best lives in the second decade of December 2024. (Photo by Daniel Sheridan/South West News Service)

Sudan cheetah cub Assama inspects a camera bag in its enclosure at the Landau Zoo, in Landau, Germany, 03 September 2025. Assama, born in July as the only cub to a cheetah cat, was rejected by its mother, and is now being bottle-fed by its caretakers. (Photo by Ronald Wittek/EPA)

Two brown bear cubs born at Whipsnade Zoo. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images). 1970

Men at work at the Cardiff Institute, making huge baskets, unique in size and construction, for loading oil cake in South Africa. (Photo by Maeers/Getty Images). 1938

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and these striking images of 2017 are no exception. The photo highlights include incredible snapshots of the natural world as well as some awesome animal and human encounters. The vibrant gallery also shows thrill-seekers pushing themselves to the limit with breathtaking stunts captured in perfect clarity. The pictures have been taken by a host of photographers from around the world. Here: The two lion cubs singing their hearts out at Antelope park in Zimbabwe. (Photo by David Jenkins/Caters News Agency)

The endangered antipodean albatross, which is often caught in fishing nets, won most first-choice votes out of the more than 55,000 votes cast during the 2020 New Zealand’s bird of the year competition. (Photo by Wildestanimal/Getty Images)

A vervet monkey passes in front of a woman on the shores of lake Naivasha, Kenya January 24, 2017. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Gray whale feeding at the surface and showing it's baleen. (Photo by Christopher Swann/Biosphoto)