The funniest wildlife photos of the year show animals striking hilarious poses in their natural habitats

Mulkahainen took this photo of a brown bear in the Martinselkonen area of Finland.

"When I was photographing bears, this one-year-old bear cub saw it and started smiling at me," Mulkahainen wrote.

Ellwanger caught three lions yawning at the same time, calling it "a hilariously lucky moment."

"The red-throated loon is quite a poor flyer, and its landing is usually very wobbly," Badermann, who took the photo in Finland, wrote. "It seeks balance with its legs stretched backwards and then belly-lands to glide. I like to say they use the water as their runway. This time, the bird came straight towards me and was so steady you might imagine it had taken flying lessons."

While visiting Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, Botev came across a troop of baboons playing in a tree.

"Every time they passed by the sitting baboon, it was trying to catch them in a funny way," Botev wrote.

Grinton photographed a grey squirrel relocating her babies to a new nest in Victoria's Beacon Hill Park in British Columbia. As the squirrel left the nest, her wet tail moved on top of her head, making it look like a spiky haircut.

"When I saw her it made me smile, thinking, 'I know that moment where you have just washed your hair and the doorbell goes!" Grinton wrote. "I also loved the textures and colors of the bark of the arbutus tree surrounding her and her 'bad hair.'"

Saalwaechter photographed lion cubs pestering their mother in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park.

"For over an hour, they followed their mother around a famous Serengeti kopje — those iconic rocky outcrops that dot the landscape— alternating between trying to suckle and play," Saalwaechter wrote. "Each time the mother, already in a foul mood from the sweltering heat, would give a quick roar of disapproval and escape the circus. But the cubs, like any persistent little ones, would chase her down, nipping at her and yelping for more attention."

Luca photographed a lemur in Madagascar licking its fingers "with the grace of a stage actor and the timing of a comedian," as if it had just eaten a bag of Fonzies snacks.

"The photo immediately reminded me of that old snack commercial: 'If you don't lick your fingers, you're only half enjoying it!'" Luca wrote.

Tuck captured the moment when nesting grass blew into a gannet's face on the Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, England.

Kirby photographed a Steller's sea eagle guarding a fish it had caught in Hokkaido, Japan.

"Other birds were flying above, and as they came closer, I captured the look it gave them," Kirby wrote. "There was no way it was parting with its catch."

Cohn photographed a baby gorilla appearing embarrassed by its mother in the Virunga Mountains in Rwanda.

Price wrote that he photographed these "fiercely territorial" guillemots in the midst of a dispute "on a small rocky cliff ledge where space was at a premium."

"I liked the way the guillemot was looking directly into my lens, its white eye-liner eyes highlighting its predicament!" Price wrote. "Sometimes you just want to bite your neighbor's head off…literally!"

"Whilst on a scuba dive in the Philippines, this little fish kept popping its head out of its home, a hole in the patterned coral," Stock wrote of the bluestriped fangblenny featured in her winning image. "I took a few photos and I loved its cheeky face smiling back at me. What an expressive-looking face!"

Bell, a 13-year-old photographer, took this photo of male frogs establishing their territory in a pond in Maine.

"I took my camera and lay on my belly, watching them and taking shots," Bell wrote. "It wasn't until I got back to the house and looked at the pictures that I saw this one and realized how much I liked it. I showed it to my parents and they loved it too and it became one of my favorites. We all thought it looked like one frog was trying to baptize the other!"

Rustemeier photographed playful foxes on a nature reserve in the Netherlands, documenting the same den over several months.

"The time with them taught me a lot about their social behavior," Rustemeier wrote. "I saw them fight, hunt, sleep, groom, and of course play, which is always my favorite to watch! You really have to giggle a lot watching foxes play with their quirky personalities."

Hoffman caught a female chimpanzee picking her nose in a series of photographs taken in Gombe National Park in Tanzania.

Cohn snapped this winning photo of a gorilla from a family group known as the Amahoro family in Rwanda's Virunga Mountains.

"One young male was especially keen to show off his acrobatic flair: pirouetting, tumbling, and high kicking," Cohn wrote. "Watching his performance was pure joy, and I'm thrilled to have captured his playful spirit in this image."