A photo of a young dancing male gorilla from Virunga mountains in Rwanda has scooped the first prize at the Comedy Wildlife Awards. Taken by British photographer Mark Meth-Cohn, the photo beat more than 10,000 entries from 109 countries to scoop the top award. By awarding funny animal photos taken from around the world, the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards aim to widen understanding and engagement of wildlife conservation. Meth-Cohn took the dancing gorilla photo after spending four days trekking through the Virunga mountains in search of gorillas. His patience and determination finally paid off when he encountered a young male gorilla who was keen to show off his dancing skills, something that he captured on camera and has now earned him the top prize in this year's Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards. In a press statement, Meth-Cohn said of his image, High Five, which also won the award for the mammals category: One young male was especially keen to show off his acrobatic flair: pirouetting, tumbling, and high kicking. Watching his performance was pure joy, and I'm thrilled to have captured his playful spirit in this image. Judges whittled the entries down to a selection of 40, which were then put to a judging panel that selected the overall winner as well as the category winners. All of our category winners use joy, skills and imagination to capture the natural world, and Mark's winning image perfectly represents the playful spirit of wildlife, said Stefan Maier, Nikon Europe senior general manager of marketing, in a press statement. Today, about 1063 mountain gorillas remain in the world, inhabiting 780 square kilometres of forest in Rwanda, DR Congo, and Uganda.
