An Eastern gray kangaroo and her joey who survived the forest fires in Mallacoota.
(CNN) -
Curious meerkats, a rescued Amazon River dolphin and a school of barracuda are on the shortlist of images for the 2021 Wildlife Photographer Public Award contest, and fans can vote for their favorite.
The 25 images are currently on display in an exhibition at London's Natural History Museum until voting ends on February 2, 2022, according to a museum press release.
The winner will have their photograph in the exhibition until June 5, the museum noted.
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Meet the 25 preselected photographs in the gallery.
Canadian photographer Jo-Anne McArthur took this photo of an eastern gray kangaroo and her calf in the middle of a burned eucalyptus plantation near Mallacoota, South Australia.
Credit: Jo-Anne McArthur / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Two male golden pheasants appear to dance in this photo by Chinese photographer Qiang Guo, taken in Shanxi province, China.
Credit: Qiang Guo / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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South African photographer Wim van den Heever took this photo of a female anteater carrying a calf on her back in the wetlands of the Pantanal, Brazil.
Credit: Wim van den Heever / Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
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This Arctic fox's breath quickly froze in midair every time it called out to another nearby fox in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, in this image by Italian photographer Marco Gaiotti.
Credit: Marco Gaiotti / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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A Baird's tapir named Dantita appears to peek through the vegetation in the Braulio Carrillo National Park, Costa Rica, in this image by Dutch photographer Michiel Van Noppen.
Credit: Michiel van Noppen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Chinese photographer Minghui Yuan took this image of green tree ants working together to contain a green grasshopper at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in Yunnan Province, China.
Credit: Minghui Yuan / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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A herd of elephants circle to protect their young in the Addo Elephant Reserve, South Africa, in this image by Irish-South African photographer Peter Delaney.
Credit: Peter Delaney / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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A female orangutan struggles to keep her young in her nest in Sumatra, Indonesia, in this image by French photographer Maxime Aliaga.
Credit: Maxime Aliaga / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Ecuadorian photographer Lucas Bustamante captured this image of crowded zebras at a waterhole in Etosha National Park, Namibia.
Credit: Lucas Bustamante / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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A keeper tends to baby orangutan affected by the disappearance of tropical forests in Borneo in this image by Spanish photographer Joan de la Malla.
Credit: Joan de la Malla / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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American photographer Ly Dang captured these Clark's grebe hatchlings riding on their parents' backs in San Diego, California.
Credit: Ly Dang / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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The egg capsule of a female spiny heart weaver spider looks like a full moon in this image by Spanish photographer Javier Aznar González de Rueda, taken in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador.
Credit: Javier Aznar González de Rueda / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Indian photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee took this photo of the normally elusive Satyr tragopans, a rare species of Asian pheasant, in a village near Punakha, Bhutan.
Credit: Dhritiman Mukherjee / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Spanish photographer Jaime Rojo took this image of a biologist calming a dolphin in the Amazon River in Colombia.
Credit: Jaime Rojo / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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British photographer Andy Skillen captured the moment a female brown bear uses a log to cross a stream in Yukon, Canada.
Credit: Andy Skillen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Two male lions share a tender moment during a downpour in the Maasai Mara, Kenya, in this photo by American photographer Ashleigh McCord.
Credit: Ashleigh McCord / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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A blackbird builds its nest in a garden shed in this photo by German photographer Jan Leßmann, taken in his northeastern hometown of Greifswald.
Credit: Jan Leßmann / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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The high level of the waters of Lake Santa Croce, in the province of Belluno, Italy, allowed Italian photographer Cristiano Vendramin to take this image of willow plants in the icy stillness.
Credit: Cristiano Vendramin / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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An Iberian lynx cub licks its lips as it stares into the camera of Spanish photographer Antonio Liebana Navarro in Peñalajo, Castilla La Mancha, Spain.
Credit: Antonio Liebana Navarro / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Dutch photographer Jeroen Hoekendijk captured this image of a juvenile bald eagle keeping an eye on a sleeping black bear cub in Alaska, USA.
Credit: Jeroen Hoekendijk / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Taiwanese photographer Yung Sen Wu spent four days swimming with barracudas in Palau, in the western Pacific, to take this "fisheye" image.
Credit: Yung sen Wu / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Austrian photographer Karl Samitsch took this image of a jumping red squirrel in the Cairngorms, Scotland.
Credit: Karl Samitsch / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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A jaguar covered in ash from fires in the Brazilian Pantanal wetlands, captured by Brazilian photographer Ernane Junior.
Credit: Ernane Junior / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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Chinese photographer Zhang Qiang took this photo of two female Sichuan snub-nosed monkey snuggling up to one of the family group's young for warmth and protection in China's Qinling Mountains.
Credit: Zhang Qiang / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
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A meerkat appears to pose for South African-German photographer Thomas Peschak in this image, taken in South Africa's Tswalu Kalahari Reserve.
Credit: Thomas Peschak / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Other shortlisted photos include an orangutan caring for her baby, a brown bear fishing for salmon, and a herd of elephants protecting their young.
"The Audience Award offers surprising observations of nature and our relationship with it, arousing our curiosity and reinforcing our connection to the natural world," Natalie Cooper, a researcher at the Museum of Natural History and a member of the jury, said in a statement.
Stunning underwater scene is the winner of the 2021 Wildlife Photographer of the Year award
"It's an incredible challenge to choose just one of these images, so we can't wait to find out which moment emerges as the public's favorite."
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For this year's competition, more than 50,000 applications were received from 95 countries.
In October, French underwater photographer Laurent Ballesta was crowned Wildlife Photographer of 2021. His winning photo showed camouflaged groupers emerging from their milky cloud of eggs and sperm in a biosphere reserve in Fakarava, French Polynesia.
wild life