A damsel fly peeking out of a window in a leaf has taken out the top prize in an ecology journal's annual photo competition.
Other images highlighted in the competition featured frogs, fish, birds, and ecologists hard at work — often in uncomfortable conditions.
The BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology image competition is open to researchers in ecology, evolutionary biology, palaeontology and zoology from around the world.
This year, the winning entry came from Sritam Kumar Sethy, a student at Berhampur University in India, while Australian researchers and wildlife snagged awards in several categories.
Mr Kumar Sethy's photo (above) showed an orange-tailed marsh dart damsel fly (Ceriagrion cerinorubellum) in a wetland in the Indian state of Odisha.
Florida manatees drinking from a freshwater source in the Everglades National Park, USA. (Supplied: Brandon Güell, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
This image of manatees by Brandon Güellwas highly commended.
Victor Huertas Martin, a marine biologist at James Cook University, won the Relationship category with a photo of duelling giant cuttlefish (Ascarosepion apama) in the Spencer Gulf.
A male giant cuttlefish blocks the approach of another towards a female during the species’ annual spawning. (Supplied: Victor Huertas, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
He snapped a moment from the cuttlefish's famous annual breeding season, when tens of thousands of colour-changing fish gather in the shallow waters around Whyalla and squabble for mates.
Dr Huertas, who studies tropical fish, said he made the trip down to the cold South Australian waters out of interest.
"I was absolutely blown away by what I saw there," he said.
Dr Huertas said the giant cuttlefish were less shy than the tropical reef fish he was used to observing.
"They didn't seem to be bothered with my presence at all," he said.
"When they're busy mating, there's only one thing in mind, and they don't care about anything else."
