A mob of hardcore meerkats facing off with a cobra is one of the images included in this years ‘commended photos’ in the 2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year’s 54th competition.

The competition showcases some of the world’s best photographers in nature photography and photojournalism.

It’s also the perfect cure for the Tuesday blues, when the sheen of the weekend has worn off and you’re faced with four days of small talk with co-workers.

Before we go any further, that image above shows an Anchieta’s cobra (also called the Angolan cobra) facing up against the meerkats and was taken on Namibia’s Brandberg Mountain by Tertius Gous.

He says that in the end, the meerkats won, with the cobra giving up its attack on the meerkat warren after 10 minutes.

Here’s Forbes with some insight from London’s Natural History Museum:

“Through their ability to inspire curiosity and wonder, the 100 images showcase wildlife photography as an art form,” the Museum says. “They also challenge us to consider both our place in the natural world and our responsibility to protect it.”

Wildlife Photographer of the Year was founded in 1965 by BBC Wildlife Magazine, then called Animals. The Natural History Museum joined  in 1984 to create the photo competition.

Here are some of our favourites:

This is Cool Cat by South African photographer Isak Pretorius, which was highly commended in the  “Animal Portraits” contest.

The Victor by Adam Hakim Hogg, Malaysia, was highly commended for the 11-14 Years Old category.

“We were captivated by the outstanding quality of the images entered into this year’s competition,” said  Ian Owens, Director of Science at the Natural History Museum and member of the  judging panel. “Which spoke volumes to us about the passion for nature shared by talented photographers across the world.”

Glass House Guard by Wayne Jones, Australia, was highly commended for the”Underwater” category.

On the sandy seabed off the coast of Mabini in the Philippines, a yellow pygmy goby guards its home –a discarded glass bottle. It is one of a pair, each no more than 4 centimetres long, that live in the bottle where the female will lay several batches of eggs, while the male performs guard duty at the entrance.

This more tragic photo is called Witness by UK photographer Emily Garthwaite. It was highly commended for “Wildlife Photojournalist Award: Single Image”.

One of several sun bears kept behind the scenes at a zoo in Sumatra, Indonesia, in “appalling” conditions. Sun bears are the world’s smallest bears, now critically endangered by rampant deforestation and the demand for their bile and organs for traditional Chinese medicine.

In the lowland forests of Southeast Asia, they spend much of their time in trees, eating fruit and small animals, using their claws to pry open rotten wood in search of grubs.

When this sun bear saw his keeper, the photographer explains, he started screaming. It was a chilling noise. Even more chilling was the nearby taxidermy museum with its stuffed pangolins and Sumatran tigers.

Mister Whiskers by Valter Bernardeschi, Italy, was highly commended for “Animal Portraits”.

And finally, Tigerland by Emmanuel Rondeau of France. Highly commended for “Animals in their environment” category.

In a remote forest high in the Himalayas of central Bhutan, a male Bengal tiger fixes his gaze on the camera. The path he treads runs along a network linking the country’s national parks corridors that are key to the conservation of this endangered subspecies but are unprotected from logging and poaching. At last count, just 103 were left.

The overall winners, chosen from 100 finalists, selected from over 45 000 entries, will be announced on October 16.

[source:forbes]