The female elephant – aided by her baby – survived the attack and was seen feeding from the river later in the day.
An unlucky pigeon takes its final look at the world – peeking out from a pelican’s beak. The little bird had been eating near a pond in St James Park, London, when it was scooped up by the much bigger bird. Adults and children watched in horror as the pigeon tried desperately to escape for 15 minutes. At one point it looked like it was going to break free as the pelican opened its beak, allowing the pigeon to gaze out. But the startled creature missed its opportunity and was swallowed whole. Photographer Paul Mansfield, 44, captured the remarkable scene while on a day trip to the capital with his family.
Photographer Steve Shinn caught the moment luck ran out for one poor gopher. Steve was snapping great egrets in California when he captured an egret sneaking up on a gopher and then skewering and gobbling it down.
A lucky seal launches itself to safety from the mouth of a great white shark – using the predator’s razor sharp teeth for leverage. Photographer Chris Fallows, 38, watched as the Cape fur seal darted left and right in a desperate bid to evade the vicious 11-foot-long shark. The massive creature failed to get a proper grip allowing the seal to launch itself to safety as the shark tried to get a second bite. Miraculously, the seal escaped with a minor flesh wound off Seal Island in False Bay, Cape Town, South Africa.
Siberian tigers look up waiting for a chicken to land at the Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, China. Visitors to the park can buy birds for 50 yuan (£4.50), pieces of meat, or even a live calf to be fed to the tigers.
Adult brown bears hunt for salmon at the Brooks River in Katmai National Park near Bristol Bay, Alaska.
Fisherman Valery Krugersky was stunned when a cheeky frog jumped into his net – and swallowed his catch whole. The frog lay in wait in a lake near Chernigov, Ukraine, for the fisherman to get a bite before pouncing on the fish in his homemade net.
A mouse looks out from the jaws of a huge voracious African bullfrog. These carnivorous amphibians have an aggressive temper and can jump 3.5 metres.
Madhuri, an Indian elephant, swings a monitor lizard around by its tail. The unlucky creature had been swept off the ground and was carried around for a number of days by the elephant. With its tail firmly clamped in the animal’s trunk the lizard was swung around and occasionally put back on the ground. The scene was captured by Jagdeep Rajput during a trip to Corbett National Park in India.
A cat shows interest in a frog sitting on a rock in the eastern German town of Sieversdorf.
A lion attacks a pangolin in the Selous Game Reserve in in Tanzania. Passing the pangolin around like a football, inquisitive lions spent hours trying to devour the armour-plated creature. British wildlife guide Mark Sheridan captured the action during a tour of the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania. In the end the lions gave up and wandered off in search of something else and the pangolin escaped.
This tiny starling didn’t stand a chance when a hungry bald eagle swooped in for a mid-air snack. The bird flies on, unaware of the enormous predator closing in behind it.
A duck flies off in alarm as an osprey swoops in to catch its lunch. The photo was captured by photographer Lee Fisher at a lake in the highlands of Scotland.
This is the moment an osprey swooped down and snatched a trout straight out of the water. Wildlife photographer Mark Hancox waited for seven hours in a cramped hide on the shores of Loch Garten, Scotland, before the bird caught its prey.
A courageous vole takes on a coyote a hundred times his size in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The tiny rodent’s chances of survival looked slim when he was plucked out of the snow by the hungry predator but he stood his ground.
A jaguar and a caiman battle in the Pantanal region of Brazil. Eventually the big cat defeated the reptile in the vicious encounter, which was captured on camera by French photographer Patrick Fagot.
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