The winners of The London’s Natural History Museum's prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year for 2013 have finally been unveiled. Selected from almost 43,000 entries from 96 countries, the winners offer a glimpse of the stunning array of natural beauty on our planet. Photo: Canada: “Lucky pounce”. “Anticipating the pounce – that was the hardest part”, says Connor, who had come to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA, in search of wildlife as much as the spectacular landscape. He had found this fox, his first ever, on his last day in the park. It was so absorbed in hunting that Connor had plenty of time to get out of the car and settle behind a rock. It quartered the grassland, back and forth, and then started staring intently at a patch of ground, giving Connor just enough warning of the action to come. When it sprung up, Connor got his shot. And when it landed, the fox got his mouse. (Photo by Connor Stefanison/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013)

“Francois' langur is one of several species of leaf monkeys. Over 50% of its diet is made up of young leaves. It will also consume fruits (17.2%), seeds, flowers, stems, roots, bark and occasionally minerals and insects off of rock surfaces and cliffs. This langur consumes its favorite food, young leaves, at the highest rate during the dry season, April through September, also known as the young leaf-lean period”. – Wikipedia

Photo: An endangered baby Francois' Langur monkey called Laa Laa settles in following her July 6 birth at London Zoo, Regent's Park on August 5, 2004 in London. The bright ginger youngster was born to glossy black parents Max and Shaneka and has the typical orange baby coat which is in stark contrast against the black of her parent's and older brother Grub's fur. (Photo by Steve Finn/Getty Images)

These stunning images reveal the remains of a more than century-old sunken ship that has been preserved beneath freezing Lake Superior. The ship looks almost exactly the same as it did the day it sunk beneath waves all those years ago. At 60 meters long (approximately 198 feet), the «Gunilda» sunk after it struck some rocks and was not saved. Now, these stunning images have been captured 107 years after the sinking when a small group of divers revisited the vessel. (Photo by Becky Kagan Schott/Caters News Agency)

A brave photographer managed to get within metres of an active volcano despite it spewing out lava waves over 140 metres high. Silhouetted against a fiery fountain of red, Icelandic photographer, Tómas Freyr Kristjánsson, 37, braved blistering temperatures to get as close the volcano as possible. Although very few were brave enough to get so close, Tómas managed to photograph nearby tourists to give some scale to the spraying molten rock, including that of a nearby motorcyclist. (Photo by Tómas Freyr Kristjánsson/Caters News)

“By 1969, the fashion choices of tens of millions of young American men and women were as variegated and ever-evolving as the world around them. Cultural transformation was an irresistible force during the Sixties, and across America and around the globe civil rights, women’s and gay liberation, the sexual revolution and, of course, the explosive soundtrack of R&B, soul and rock and roll informed everything from politics to fashion”. – LIFE. Photo: Corona del Mar High School students Kim Robertson, Pat Auvenshine and Pam Pepin wear “hippie” fashions, 1969. (Photo by Arthur Schatz/Time & Life Pictures)

Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)

This Sunday, September 7, 2014 photo provided by Rachel Kirk shows smoke from a fire rising above Little Yosemite Valley near Yosemite National Park, Calif. (Photo by Rachel Kirk/AP Photo)

A cat looks on near the Victory Pillar at the ruins of the Serapeum of Alexandria, an ancient Greek temple dating to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods (246 BC – 391 AD) dedicated to the city's protector deity Serapis, in Egypt's northern coastal city of Alexandria on November 24, 2023. The giant Corinthian column, commonly misidentified as “Pompey's Pillar”, is a Roman triumphal column set up in honour of the Roman emperor Diocletian (298–302 AD), and originally supported a colossal porphyry statue of the emperor in armour. (Photo by Amir Makar/AFP Photo)