Shortlisted: Pooyan Shadpoor, Houcheraghi. While walking along the shore of Larak, Iran – an island in the Persian Gulf – Shadpoor came across this luminous scene. The “magical lights of (the) plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot”, he writes. (Photo by Pooyan Shadpoor/2016 EPOTY)

An alarmed squirrel. (Photo by Mary McGowan/Barcroft Images/Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards)

A calico sits in its enclosure and suns itself in Hessen, Germany on May 28, 2021. The Opel Zoo presents a walk-in Madagascar aviary for caltas and varis. The primate species is native to Madagascar and is threatened with extinction. (Photo by Andreas Arnold/dpa)

A girl splashes water over a boy amidst soaring temperatures at the Shati camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City on July 17, 2023. (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP Photo)

Palestinians react as they gather at the site of an explosion, following Israeli strikes in Gaza City on August 5, 2022. (Photo by Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

An arctic fox in Iceland spotted on March 19, 2025 by Marc Freebrey, a marketing officer from Gloucestershire. (Photo by Marc Freebrey/South West News Service)

A white ibis takes a shower at Lake Eola in Orlando, Florida, US on September 29, 2025. (Photo byRonen Tivony/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A Chinese girl touches the gun of a relievo featuring Chinese soldiers fighting with Japanese troops during World War II at an exhibition at the Anti-Japan War Museum to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japan on August 18, 2005 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Cancan Chu/Getty Images)