{"id":628399,"date":"2026-10-12T15:16:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T15:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/628399\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T15:16:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T15:16:33","slug":"hilarious-animal-photos-from-this-years-comedy-wildlife-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/628399\/","title":{"rendered":"Hilarious animal photos from this year\u2019s Comedy Wildlife Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Some of the cutest, weirdest and most comedic animal photographs<\/a> and videos of the year have been released.\n <\/p>\n

\n Perhaps an elephant covering an eye with his trunk, as if participating in a game of hide and seek, makes you gush. Or two birds face-to-face in close proximity, covering themselves with their wings as if to share a secret kiss away from prying eyes, could evoke a giggle.\n <\/p>\n

\n Maybe two bears joking around make you chuckle. Or a green mantis seemingly posing like a model for a sexy photo shoot on a leaf makes you smile.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n These scenes were all captured in creative images that made the final of the 2026 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n A heart-warming shortlist of 47 images and nine videos were selected from more than 10,000 submissions from 112 countries \u2013 the most entries in the annual competition\u2019s 11-year history, according to organizers.\n <\/p>\n

\n The light-hearted competition was created in 2015 in a bid to use humor to promote wildlife conservation.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards started very gently, somewhere out on the vast plains of the Serengeti,\u201d competition co-founder Tom Sullam said in a statement. \u201cWhat began as a small effort to raise awareness of wildlife conservation has grown into something far bigger than we ever imagined.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe competition is now truly global, and a decade or so on, we want to make it even bigger, funnier, and more far-reaching than ever,\u201d he added. \u201cWe use humour to get people to feel empathy towards wildlife, and it\u2019s that empathy that creates behavioural change for the better.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n If you want to look through all the hilarious and charming finalists, and pick your favorite, voting is now open for the STERNA People\u2019s Choice Award<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n The final winners, decided by a judging panel, will be announced at an awards night in London on December 8. Finalists\u2019 works will then be exhibited until December 13.\n <\/p>\n

\n Click through the gallery above to see a selection of the shortlisted images.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of the cutest, weirdest and most comedic animal photographs and videos of the year have been released.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-628399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}