Festive decorations and illumination lights for the upcoming New Year and Christmas season are unveiled in Minsk, Belarus on December 15 , 2019. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Respect, Kronotsky nature reserve, Russia. The photographer’s cat, Ryska – her name means little lynx in Russian – stands outside their cabin and with aggressive posturing warns off a fox. In winter, foxes would regularly visit the cabin searching for food. If one peered in at the window, possible when the snow was deep, Ryska would sit on the other side, fur raised, and growl. When outside, she would hold her ground. The foxes were not always frightened and so encounters could be a sort of dance. (Photo by Igor Shpilenok/Unforgettable Behaviour/NHM)

The vendors show the toy of snake at the Spring Festival Temple Fair for celebrating Chinese Lunar New Year of Snake at the Temple of Earth park on February 9, 2013 in Beijing, China. The Chinese Lunar New Year of Snake also known as the Spring Festival, which is based on the Lunisolar Chinese calendar, is celebrated from the first day of the first month of the lunar year and ends with Lantern Festival on the Fifteenth day. (Photo by Feng Li)

A cat tries to find dry ground around an apartment complex in Houston after Hurricane Harvey hit on Aug. 30. Harvey made landfall in South Texas on August 25, leading to days of downpours that dumped more than 50 inches of rain. Harvey damaged or destroyed about 200,000 homes as the storm system flooded much of Houston and smaller coastal communities. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A Thai and foreign revelers battle with water guns during the annual Songkran celebration at Khaosan Road, a tourist spot in Bangkok, Thailand, 12 April 2017. The four southeast Asian nations of Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos started the Buddhist new year, known as Thingyan in Myanmar and Songkran in Thailand, on April 13. (Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA)

Youth category winner: Symphony No 5 by Giacomo Redaelli (Italy). (Photo by Giacomo Redaelli/2019 Nature Photographer of the Year)

Local priests celebrate the “Aimara New Year”, an Andean Bolivian traditional festival that marks the winter solstice in El Alto, Bolivia, 21 June 2016. Aimara or Aymara means the Return of the Sun. (Photo by Martin Alipaz/EPA)