Bear Bonanza. Highly Commended, Behavior: Mammals. Sockeye salmon evade a hungry brown bear. After finding a vantage point to convey the struggle, Rice lit the scene by catching the sun at the perfect angle. This bear’s strategy of repeatedly swimming through a large school may not have been the best. "The fish always seemed just out of reach." Location: Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. #

Puff Perfect. Winner, Animal Portraits. The courtship display of a Canary Islands houbara. Martinez arrived at the houbara's courtship site at night. By the light of the moon, he dug himself a low hide. From this vantage point he caught the bird’s full puffed-out profile as it took a brief rest from its frenzied performance. #

Tree Frog Pool Party. Highly Commended, Behavior: Amphibians and Reptiles. Plagued by mosquitoes, Güell waded chest-deep into murky water in a pool on Osa Peninsula in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. At dawn, thousands of female gliding tree frogs arrived at the pool to lay their eggs on overhanging palm fronds. They had been attracted by the calls of waiting males. These spectacular mass-breeding events occur in only a few remote locations, a few times a year. Each female lays about 200 eggs, creating huge egg masses. Eventually the tadpoles will drop into the water below. #

House of Bears. Winner, Urban Wildlife. On a yacht, seeking shelter from a storm, Kokh spotted these polar bears roaming among the buildings of a long-deserted settlement on Kolyuchin Island in Chukotka, Russia. As they explored every window and door, Kokh used a low-noise drone to take a picture that conjures up a post-apocalyptic future. In the Chukchi Sea region, the normally solitary bears usually migrate further north in the summer, following the retreating sea ice they depend on for hunting seals, their main food. If loose-packed ice stays near the coast of this rocky island, bears sometimes investigate. #

Heavenly Flamingos. Winner, Natural Artistry. High in the Andes, in Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni, Takasago powered through a bout of altitude sickness to capture this dreamlike scene of a preening group of Chilean flamingos. #

The Night Hoarder. Highly Commended, Animals in their Environment. Badyaev was delighted to discover an elevated wood-rat nest in Pima County, Arizona, saving him from crawling through thickets of barbed cacti to find one on the ground. Once in position, the challenge was to stay motionless, keeping a tight grip on his camera gear to stop the curious rodents from carrying it off. Voracious collectors of novel items, which they hide in their ever-expanding nests, white-throated wood rats build fortresses by drying out jumping-cholla-cactus stems before carefully adding them to the walls of their nests. #

The Beauty of Baleen. Winner, 15–17 Years. Following local guidelines, the tour boat that Wuttichaitanakorn was traveling in turned off its engine as a Bryde’s whale appeared close by. Bryde’s whales have up to 370 pairs of gray-colored plates of baleen growing inside their upper jaw. The plates are made of keratin, a protein that also forms human hair and nails, and are used to filter small prey from the ocean. Location: Upper Gulf of Thailand, Phetchaburi, Thailand #

Out of the Cage. Winner, Photojournalist Story Award. One of a series of images in Aigner's story "The Cuban Connection," exploring the relationship between Cuban culture and songbirds, and the future of a deep-rooted tradition. For hundreds of years, some Cubans have caught and kept songbirds and held bird-singing contests. Throughout a turbulent period of economic sanctions and political unrest, these small, beautiful birds have provided companionship, entertainment, and friendly competition within the community. Here, two rose-breasted grosbeaks are released into the wild following weeks of rehabilitation to strengthen their wing muscles. #

Surprise Prey. Highly Commended, Behavior: Mammals. Rice was watching an American black bear quietly feeding on sagebrush roots when suddenly it sprang forward and made a grab. When the bear spun around and leapt up a tree, Adam was shocked to see its prize was a wapiti calf. Though black bears eat mostly vegetable matter, they are opportunistic and will consume practically anything. Wapiti calves usually avoid predators by staying hidden during their first few weeks of life, when they are at their most vulnerable. Location: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming #

The Magical Morels. Winner, Plants and Fungi. A fairy-tale scene in the forests of Greece's Mount Olympus. Enjoying the interplay between fungi and fairy tales, Papatsanis wanted to create a magical scene. He waited for the sun to filter through the trees and light the water in the background, then used a wide-angle lens and flashes to highlight the morels’ labyrinthine forms. #

The Bat-Snatcher. Winner, Behavior: Amphibians and Reptiles. Belmar waited in darkness as a Yucatan rat snake snapped up a bat. Using a red light, to which both bats and snakes are less sensitive, Fernando kept an eye on this Yucatan rat snake poking out of a crack. He had just seconds to get the shot as the rat snake retreated into its crevice with its bat prey. Location: Kantemó, Quintana Roo, Mexico #

The Dying Lake. Winner, Wetlands—The Bigger Picture. Núñez used a drone to capture the contrast between the forest and the algal growth on Lake Amatitlán in Villa Canales, Guatemala. Núñez took this photograph to raise awareness of the impact of contamination on Lake Amatitlán, which takes in about 75,000 tons of waste from Guatemala City every year. "It was a sunny day with perfect conditions," he said, "but it is a sad and shocking moment." Cyanobacteria flourishes in the presence of pollutants such as sewage and agricultural fertilizers, forming algal blooms. #

Oceans: Past, Present and Future. Highly Commended, Oceans: The Bigger Picture. Laman's image portrays a living and a dead sea lion among floating jellyfish. Laman's lips, the only part of his body left exposed, were stung countless times by swarms of the sea-nettle jellyfish slowly trailing their long tentacles. He was getting into position to photograph a sea-lion carcass when a living sea lion appeared from the murky waters to investigate in the Gulf of California. #

Tiny Spider Versus Little Chick. Highly Commended, Behavior: Invertebrates. Desai experienced a surprise encounter between a beach wolf spider and plover chick. Hoping to avoid the beach-going crowds, Desai had been lying on the sand of Crane Beach, Massachusetts, since sunrise, photographing piping plovers. This chick was foraging for small invertebrates when a beach wolf spider attacked it. Eventually shaking it off, the chick fled to its parents nearby. #