Elephants spray tourists with water in celebration of the Songkran water festival in Thailand's Ayutthaya province, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Bangkok, April 9, 2014. (Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EFE)

Behaviour: Mammals category. Giant Gathering by Tony Wu, USA. Dozens of sperm whales mingled noisily off Sri Lanka’s northeast coast, stacked as far down as Tony could see. This was a congregation of dozens of social units, like a gathering of the clans. Aggregations like this could be a critical part of the whales’ rich social lives but are rarely reported. Some two thirds of the population was wiped out before commercial whaling was banned in 1986. This kind of major gathering could be “a sign that populations are recovering”, says Tony. (Photo by Tony Wu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017)

A common gallinule runs across the water to escape a nearby alligator at Green Cay Nature Center in Boynton Beach, Florida on September 4, 2025. Unlike most waterbirds, gallinules have long toes that allow them to walk on floating vegetation. The species is known for its loud, cackling calls that often echo through wetlands. (Photo by Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A young baboon receives an earful from an adult as another primate yanks its tail at Kruger National Park, South Africa in the first decade of July 2024. (Photo by John Mullineux/Solent News)

Laborers lay down upon a field to cut off the tulips that remained uncut by the tractor in Den Helder, Netherlands April 22, 2017. (Photo by Cris Toala Olivares/Reuters)

A black-winged stilt patrols a reservoir in Jezreel Valley in Israel early April 2023. Their eggs are a golden colour mottled with brown. (Photo by Itamar Procaccia/Solent News)

A Ukrainian serviceman of the 47th “Magura” Separate Mechanized Brigade plays with a cat, which his unit evacuated from a frontline, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at undisclosed location in Donetsk region, Ukraine on February 8, 2024. (Photo by Alina Smutko/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)