Looking for love by Tony Wu, USA. Highly commended, Animal Portraits. “Accentuating his mature appearance with pastel colours, protruding lips and an outstanding pink forehead, this Asian sheepshead wrasse sets out to impress females and see off rivals, which he will head-butt and bite, near Japan’s remote Sado Island. Individuals start out as females, and when they reach a certain age and size – up to a metre (more than 3 feet) long – can transform into males. Long-lived and slow-growing, the species is intrinsically vulnerable to overfishing”. (Photo by Tony Wu/2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

A group of prospective police recruits, ready to be enrolled in the M23 controlled force, salute in the courtyard of a police station in Goma on February 6, 2025. More than a week after the battle for the North Kivu provincial capital, the M23 on Wednesday appointed people to public positions. Goma now has two officials for many public posts – two mayors, two governors – which locals said has created confusion. The M23 administration is still in its embryonic stages and struggling to respond to daily problems in the war-wounded city. (Photo by Michel Lunanga/AFP Photo)

Students pose for a picture with a 3- D optical illusion artwork of a devastated cityscape in Aleppo, Syria at the campus of the Meiji University in Tokyo on November 18, 2016. The Japanese branch of the human rights organisation Amnesty International displayed the artwork to encourage people to think about the Syrian civil war. (Photo by Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP Photo)

A woman walks while carrying pineapples on her head on a street in Kampala, Uganda on January 12, 2021. (Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters)

Zulu maidens sings and dance as they arrive for the coronation event, at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa, Saturday, October 29, 2022. South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa on behalf of the government formally presented a certificate of recognition to His Majesty King MisuZulu ka Zwelithini of the AmaZulu. (Photo by Themba Hadebe/AP Photo)

A worker sits as illegally harvested sandalwood confiscated by Kenya's multiagency security teams is set ablaze to curb the trade in their essential oil, which is extracted to manufacture medicines and cosmetics at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) offices along Kiambu road in Nairobi, Kenya on February 28, 2023. (Photo by Monicah Mwangi/Reuters)

Little owl chicks in Northumberland, UK on August 19, 2018. Strutting up and down and barrelling through the air, these Little Owl chicks will soon be fending for themselves. The intense little birds were snapped by wildlife photographer Bill Doherty in his native Northumberland. The chicks have about seven or eight weeks to learn their survival skills before their parents drive them away to fend for themselves. (Photo by Bill Doherty/South West News Service)

Mil Mi-8 combat helicopter flies over Moscow, Russia on May 7, 2019 during the dress rehearsal of a Victory Day air show marking the 74th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War, the Eastern Front of World War II. (Photo by Sergei Savostyanov/TASS)