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Flamingoes feed at a beach north of Kuwait City.
Photograph: Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP/Getty Images
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A squirrel sits in the sun and chews a cone in Moscow, Russia.
Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
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Staff at the California Department of Fish & Wildlife examine a contaminated sanderling from an oil spill in Huntington Beach, California. The full scale of the damage is not clear, with birds and marine mammals hardest hit in the short term. More images in our gallery.
Photograph: Ringo HW Chiu/AP
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A lone rabbit enjoying a golden sunset over Richmond Park in London. The image, taken by Mitchell Lewis, was the winner in the wildlife category at the National Geographic Traveller (UK) Photography Competition 2021.
Photograph: Mitchell Lewis/National Geographic/PA
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An alligator in wetlands in the Everglades national park, Florida. The largest wetland in the US is the battleground for one of the largest ecological conservation efforts in the world, with global warming threatening a subtropical wilderness that is home to 2,000 species of animals and plants.
Photograph: Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images
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Jellyfish swarm the waters of the Black Sea around Odessa port, Ukraine.
Photograph: Ukrinform/REX/Shutterstock
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A humpback whale emerges from the waters of Monterey Bay, California.
Photograph: Eva Hambach/AFP/Getty Images
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A common European adder snake (Vipera berus) slithers among the pink flowers near Kyiv in Ukraine.
Photograph: Ukrinform/REX/Shutterstock
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Fikiri Kiponda releases a green turtle, which was unintentionally caught in a fishing net, back into the Watamu national marine park on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya. Kiponda and the local ocean conservation group rescue sea turtles that have been caught in nets, and then release them – treating the injured ones first.
Photograph: Brian Inganga/AP
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These vibrant anemones, sponges and octocorals make up the diverse coral garden and sea-cliff community at the Atlantis bank, in the south-west Indian Ocean. See more in our gallery of otherworldly species threatened by deep-sea mining.
Photograph: Alex D Rogers/GEF Seamounts Project/The Natural Environment Research Council and IUCN
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A hummingbird hawk moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) collects floral nectar in the Botanical Garden-Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Photograph: Yuri Smityuk/Tass
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A sloth (Bradypus tridactylus) called Chuwie, who lost the claws of three of his four legs when he was burned on power lines and rescued after suffering serious burns, remains hanging while being fed at Chuwie’s Sloth Rescue Center in San Antonio de Los Altos, Miranda state, Venezuela.
Photograph: Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images
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The female panda Huan-Huan cuddles her cub Fleur de Coton after breastfeeding her in their box at the Beauval zoo in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher, France.
Photograph: Guillaume Souvant/AFP/Getty Images
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A distinguished jumping spider (Attulus distinguendus), one of the species found on the Swanscombe Peninsula in Kent. Environmentalists fear that plans for a theme park on the banks of the Thames would destroy irreplaceable habitat currently home to birds and otters.
Photograph: Roman Willi/Kent Wildlife Trust/PA
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A locust outbreak in Borana, Kenya. In 2019, Kenya and most of east Africa saw its worst locust outbreak in 70 years. Varying weather due to climate change, plus travel and shipping restrictions, have meant the outbreaks are getting larger. This photograph was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Biology photography competition 2021.
Photograph: Henry Harte/Royal Society of Biology
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An East Pacific green sea turtle swims in La Jolla Cove, San Diego, California. A small colony of turtles has settled in the area.
Photograph: KC Alfred/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock
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A group of gorillas gathers for an afternoon rest in Rwanda’s Volcanoes national park. Coughs and colds spread quickly within wild mountain gorilla groups but keeping a distance appears to stop illness spreading between neighbouring groups, a new study suggests.
Photograph: Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund/PA
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Orphaned mountain gorilla Ndakasi lies in the arms of her caregiver, Andre Bauma, before dying days later on 26 September after a prolonged illness. Bauma and others at the Senkwekwe Mountain Gorilla Center had cared for Ndakasi at what is the only mountain gorilla orphanage in the world.
Photograph: Brent Stirton/Getty Images
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Rare white deer and stags in the deer park at Culham Court on a misty autumnal afternoon in Berkshire.
Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/REX/Shutterstock
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Bear 480 Otis, who won Alaska’s Fat Bear Week contest this week. It is an annual competition comparing the pre-hibernation weight gain of the largest inhabitants of Katmai national park in the south-west of the state. See more images in our before and after gallery.
Photograph: C Spencer/Katmai National Park and Preserve
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