More than 1,500 snappers submitted their most hilarious pictures of all creatures great and small, and now 45 have made the cut. From drunken-eyed owls to embarrassed chipmunks and laughing goats – the finalists in the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards are guaranteed to raise a smile. Here: 'Dancing sifaka'. (Photo by Alison Buttigieg/Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards/Mercury Press)

Elena from Dresden has her hair ruffled by the wind as she stands on a visitors' platform on the Maintower in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, during stormy weather on February 22, 2017. (Photo by Arne Dedert/AFP Photo/DPA)

People react following an Israeli air strike on Palestinian houses, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 12, 2023. (Photo by Fadi Shana/Reuters)

People in costume as a Minecraft bee (left) and Crying Child from Fright Night at Freddy's 4 (right) at the Sheffield Anime & Gaming Con at the Mercure Sheffield in London on Sunday, September 17, 2023. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)

Police officers detain an activist to prevent her from marching in a pride parade, which was banned by local authorities, in central Istanbul, Turkey on June 26, 2022. (Photo by Umit Bektas/Reuters)

A woman looks at artwork called “Alphabetti Spaghetti” by British sculptor Alex Chinneck, one of a series of “knotted” postboxes, installed as part of a public art trail for Kensington & Chelsea Art Week on October 3, 2020. (Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)

NASA's new moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Wednesday morning, November 16, 2022, as seen from Harbor town Marina on Merritt Island, Fla. The moon is visible in the sky. (Photo by Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today via AP Photo)

Canoeists are framed by the tail of a breaching whale in Antarctica in April 2023. The photographer, from California, writes: “It was probably a once-in-a-lifetime moment”. (Photo by Jiahong Zeng/Solent News)