+
upworthy
Most Shared

A contest was held to find this year's funniest animal photo. Here are 15 of the best.

A hamster has to get somewhere fast. It would also like to eat some nuts, if possible. Finally, it comes up with a genius solution.

Photo by Julian Radd/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2015.

That solution, miraculously caught on camera by photographer Julian Radd, was the winner of the 2015 Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards.


The awards are the brainchild of Tanzania-based photographers Tom Sullam and Paul Joynson-Hicks, who launched the contest last year.

The pair, along with a panel of judges, run the competition in partnership with Born Free, a global animal rights group supporting anti-poaching efforts in Tanzania and around the world.

"Instead of drawing attention to wildlife through showing foxes being ripped to pieces by hounds, or a bird that’s being slashed open and it’s filled with litter, we just thought, ‘Let’s celebrate the wildlife and raise awareness that way,'" Sullam said.

This year, the group received nearly 3,000 entries. While high-quality photos can be more competitive, the contest ultimately only has one inviolable rule: Be funny.

"The humor scoring outweighs the photographic scoring," Sullam said.

Here are 15 of this year's best entries:

1. This cheetah cracking up.

Photo by Dutton Robert/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

2. These one-and-a-half owls.

Photo by Barb D'Arpino/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards.

3. This baby elephant taking a moment to collect itself on the side of the road.

Photo by Markus Pavlowsky/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

4. This field mouse on stilts.

Photo by Michael Erwin/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

5. These monkeys not fighting the feeling.

Photo by Sushil Chauhan/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

6. These puffins going diagonal.

Photo by Mary Swaby/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

7. This eagle, definitely not trying to figure out how to eat you. Not at all.

Photo by Will Saunders/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

8. This chipmunk, slowly realizing it's in over its head.

Photo by Barb D'Arpino/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

9. This seal just saying "Hey."

Photo by Adam White/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

10. This kangaroo enjoying the comforts of modern society.

Photo by Rosario Losano/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

11. This fluffy monkey, preparing a vicious sneak attack.

Photo by Nicolas de Vaulx/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

12. This odd couple, a chipmunk and a toad, experiencing a deep sensory connection.

Photo by Isabelle Marozzo/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

13. These squirrels squirreling it real hard.

Photo by Yvette Richard/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

14. This wasp with a fancier jewelry collection than you.

Photo by Murray Mcculloch/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

15. And lastly, this snowy owl, finding its bliss.

Photo by Edward Kopeschny/Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2016.

Sullam says he hopes the photos, while lighthearted, reinforce the importance of protecting these animals for those who see them.

"It’s going to get the same impact," he said. "It’s just not negative."

The winners will be announced Nov. 9, 2016.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

Keep ReadingShow less
Innovation

A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

Keep ReadingShow less

A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

Keep ReadingShow less