Week in wildlife in pictures: a penguin ballerina, the spooky spookfish and a sociable octopus

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Main image: Tongue-lashing … a komodo dragon up close on Komodo Island, Indonesia. Photograph: Leighton Lum/Caters News

  • Dancing on ice … A Modern Dancer, Antarctica by Nadia Haq, which won gold in the Comedy Bird Photo category of the 2024 Bird Photographer of the Year awards. Haq said: “I was sitting on a Zodiac next to my husband and 10-year-old son near Brown Bluff, Antarctica, when we spotted a group of Adélie penguins on some sea ice. As we slowly approached them, they started to toboggan on the ice, and I captured one of them sliding as if performing a modern dance move.” See more images in our gallery
    A modern dancer, Antarctica by Nadia Haq. The gold award winner in the Comedy Bird Photo category of the Bird Photographer of the year 2024. Haq said: “I was sitting on a Zodiac next to my husband and 10-year-old son near Brown Bluff, Antarctica, when we spotted a group of Adélie Penguins on some sea ice. As we slowly approached them, they started to toboggan on the ice, and I captured one of them sliding as if performing a modern dance move”. See more images in our gallery

  • A deer stag barks as the annual rutting season begins in Richmond Park, London, UK
    Deer stag barks as the annual rutting season begins, in Richmond Park, London, UK

  • Welcome back to the Moorean viviparous tree snail, which was thought to be extinct in the wild but has been rediscovered in French Polynesia for the first time in 40 years. Teams from the Zoological Society of London and zoos worldwide have been working for decades to reintroduce extinct and endangered snails to the archipelago. This little fellow was unmarked, meaning the previously reintroduced snails have been breeding there. It is the very first invertebrate species to have been reintroduced successfully after having been completely extinct in the wild
    A breed of snail previously thought to be extinct in the wild has been rediscovered for the first time in 40 years. During the annual reintroduction of the zoo-bred Extinct in the Wild and Critically Endangered snails to their French Polynesian island home, unmarked Partula tohiveana were discovered - proving that previously reintroduced snails have successfully bred in the area. The team, led by Paul Pearce-Kelly, ZSL’s Senior Curator of Invertebrates & Fish found the proof. This year, more 6,000 snails were restored to Moorea, French Polynesia, from zoos around the world

  • A squirrel stands alert with a nut in its mouth among autumn colours on fallen foliage in Dublin, Ireland. Let’s hope it remembers where it buries it
    A squirrel stands alert with a nut in it’s mouth among autumn colours on fallen foliage from trees, in Dublin, Ireland. Let’s hope it remembers where it buries it

  • Gannets at their most dramatic diving into the Atlantic Ocean off the uninhabited Isle of Noss in the Shetlands. The birds can reach speeds of 100 km/h as they hit the water
    Gannets at their most dramatic diving into the Atlantic Ocean fighting with each other for the prime catch and darting through the water. The photos were taken in the waters off the coast of the Shetland Isle of Noss

  • A one-horned rhinoceros and its calf graze in Pobitora wildlife sanctuary on the outskirts of Guwahati, India
    A one horned rhinoceros and its calf graze in Pobitora wildlife sanctuary on the outskirts of Guwahati, India

  • A new species of ghost shark, with an unusually long nose and a whip-like tail, has been discovered in the inky depths of New Zealand waters. The narrow-nosed spookfish, as it has been christened, is typically found at great ocean depths – up to 2,600 metres – and little is known about it. It can grow to about a metre long, but it’s no Jaws: it mainly eats shrimp and molluscs
    A new species of ghost shark, with an unusually long nose and a whip-like tail, has been discovered in the inky depths of New Zealand waters. The mysterious fish are typically found at great ocean depths – up to 2,600 metres - and little is known about their biology or the threats they face.

  • A snake slithers along a hiking path in the Bloedel nature reserve, near Seattle, Washington, US
    A snake slithers along ahiking path in the Bloedel Reserve, Washington, US. The reserve was created by Virginia and Prentice Bloedel influenced of the conservation movement and Asian philosophy

  • Dream team … a big blue octopus (its actual name, although it changes colour) hunts with two collaborators. New research has shown that octopuses, who are usually considered to be solitary creatures, sometimes team up with fish to hunt. Here, a blue goatfish (purple and yellow, on the left) acts as a scout, going ahead to scan for prey. A blacktip grouper (brown and white, centre) acts as the rearguard. ‘Nobody really knew that octopus have this sophisticated social life – not with other octopus, but with other species,’ said study co-author Iain Couzin
    An octopus cyanea hunting with a blue goatfish, while a blacktip grouper lies in wait. The snout of a cornetfish is also visible on the top of the picture. New research suggests that octopuses, who are usually considered to be solitary creatures, might sometimes socialise with fish in order to share the responsibility of hunting

  • A spotted redshank looks for fish in wetlands near Bursa, Turkey, on its annual migration south
    A spotted redshank looks for fish as thousands of different bird species migrating to the south for breeding and wintering use the wetlands with the arrival of autumn, in Bursa, Turkey

  • A bilby – known as ‘Australia’s answer to the Easter bunny’ – is released into Sturt national park, in the far north-west of New South Wales, Australia. Seven locally extinct mammals are being reintroduced there as part of the Wild Desert project, which aims to return the area’s arid ecosystem to its precolonial state of biodiversity. Quolls, bettongs, bandicoots and mulgara are now thriving there
    A bilby is released as part of the Wild Deserts project in NSW’s Sturt national park, where a bilby population now flourishes, Australia. Quolls and bettongs delivered to the far north-west corner of New South Wales are the final piece of a decade-long project to reintroduce seven locally extinct mammals to the arid desert landscape.

  • A dragonfly shows off its five eyes (two compound, three simple) in Assam, India
    A dragonfly sits on a branch in a garden in Nagaon District, Assam, India

  • Southern right whales swim in the Atlantic off Puerto Madryn, Argentina
    Southern right whales swim in the Atlantic Ocean off Puero Madryn, Argentina

  • An American goldfinch takes a bath in a garden fountain in Placentia (near LA), California, US
    A goldfinch is bathes in a fountain of a residential garden in Placentia, California, US

  • A Hermann’s tortoise explores the ruins of Gorica castle in Berat, Albania
    A Hermann’s tortoise crawls slowly along Gorica Castle Ruins in Berat, Albania

  • Tongue-lashing … a komodo dragon up close on Komodo Island, Indonesia. The reptile smells with its tongue and can detect carrion from up to six miles away
    A Komodo dragon up close on Komodo Island, Indonesia

  • Stark before-and-after photographs reveal the sharp decline of Norway’s seabirds. The left picture shows a nesting area on Hornøya, a small, uninhabited island at the far north-eastern tip of the country, in 2006; the right shows it in 2023. Seabirds are ‘one of the bird groups that have done most poorly when you look globally,’ says Signe Christensen-Dalsgaard, an ecologist at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research. ‘It’s a quite strong signal that something is not right in the ocean’
    Stark before and after photographs reveal sharp decline of Norway’s seabirds. A nesting area on Hornøya, a small uninhabited island in Vardø Municipality in Finnmark county in 2006 (left) and 2023 (right).

  • A school of leerfish in İzmir, Turkey
    A school of elerfish, which attracts attention with its colour, agility, large and shiny structure in Izmir, Turkey

  • A bee considers the nectar potential of a flower at a park in Seoul, South Korea
    A bee flies over a cosmos flower at a park in Seoul, South Korea
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