‘Dance like no one is watching’ could be the motto of the young gorilla captured by British photographer Mark Meth-Cohn, who won the prize at the 2025 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards. The annual competition celebrates not only technical excellence but also joy and imagination in wildlife photography, it seeks to highlight the funny side of animal behaviour while raising public awareness and engagement with conservation.
High Five took the winning photograph in Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains. He spent four days trekking through misty forests in search of gorilla families in their natural habitat, until he found his subject. The image shows a young gorilla seemingly mid-dance, its right paw raised as if offering a high-five, with a bewildered look on its face.
Meth-Cohn encountered the Amahoro family, a large group of gorillas, gathered in a forest clearing during the expedition. While the adults calmly foraged, the younger members played. “One young male was especially keen to show off his acrobatic flair: pirouetting, tumbling, and high-kicking,” Meth-Cohn explains in a statement. “His performance was pure joy, and I’m thrilled to have captured his playful spirit in this image.”
Selected from over 10,000 entries from 109 countries, High Five also won the Mammals category. According to Stefan Maier, Nikon Europe’s senior general manager of marketing, the shortlisted images were chosen for their “joy, skill and imagination in capturing the natural world”. He added that Meth-Cohn’s work “perfectly represents the playful spirit of wildlife”.
Meth-Cohn also received a Highly Commended mention for another photograph, Aaaawa – mum, showing a baby gorilla being kissed by its mother.
Other category winners
In the Reptile, Amphibian and Insect category, 13-year-old Grayson Bell from the United States won with his comical image of two frogs locked in a watery struggle, titled Baptism of the Unwilling Convert, a comical image of two frogs locked in a watery struggle. This photograph also earned him the Nikon Junior Photographer Award, which is open to photographers aged 16 and under. ‘I lay on my belly with my camera, watching them and taking shots,’ said Bell.
The Young Photographer Award (for photographers under 25) went to Paula Rustemeier of Germany for Hit the Dance Floor, a lively image of two foxes at play.
The UK featured prominently among the winners. Warren Price claimed the Think Tank Birds Award with Headlock, showing a guillemot peering through its partner’s bill, while Jenny Stock won the Fish and Other Aquatic Species Award for Smiley, an expressive underwater portrait of a blue-striped fangblenny.
Maggie Hoffman of the United States won the Amazing Internet Portfolio Award for her four-image series Digging for Gold, featuring a chimpanzee picking its nose. Germany’s Tatjana Epp was named Video Category Winner for Surfing Heron, a clip showing a heron skimming across the surface of the water.
Other images receiving Highly Commended mentions included Kalin Botev’s Monkey Circus, showing a group of playful monkeys; Meline Ellwanger’s photograph of yawning lions; Valtteri Mulkahainen’s smiling bear; and Lilian Luca’s image of a lemur licking its finger.
He took the photograph in Madagascar, and recounted how the lemur stared at him and “with the grace of a stage actor and the timing of a comedian raised his hand, licking it thoughtfully as if he knew exactly what he was doing”.
Along with the handmade trophy, Meth-Cohn won a safari in Kenya’s Maasai Mara and a Think Tank camera bag. The public can still cast its vote for the People’s Choice Award online until 1 March 2026.
