The best nature photos of 2022 include giraffes fighting by 'necking,' neon green mushrooms, and a baby elephant rescue

• The Nature Conservancy's photo contest recognizes stunning portraits of animals, landscapes, and plants.

• This year's winners include sparring giraffes, a black sand beach, and neon mushrooms.

• The photos showcase the colorful diversity of life and landscapes on Earth.

The Nature Conservancy announced the winners of its annual photo contest on September 29.

This year's winning photos showcase the vast diversity of life and landscapes on Earth.

Photographer Li Ping won the Grand Prize, using a drone to capture this photo of a highway cutting across tree-shaped gullies in Tibet.

Other photos capture animals in the wild — like this pair of lions rubbing heads. The one on the right is clearly older than the left lion.

These giraffes look like they're being friendly or romantic, but necking, or swinging their heads and necks into each other, is actually how they fight.

These eagles were fighting, too — over a piece of salmon, according to the photographer.

This elephant seal had to fight off a striated caracara that was trying to attack her calf.

Another photo shows workers at Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy rushing to treat a wounded elephant calf, while sedating its mother so they can do so safely.

Animals aren't the only ones who can be dramatic. Lightning struck this mountain at just the right moment.

A layer of fog gave an eerie glow to this mangrove tree in Lamongan, East Java.

Fog also made this scene look peaceful, as the mist thinned above a glassy lake and distant snowy trees.

Snowy mountains stand in stark contrast against a black sand beach in Iceland.

Fireflies in Japan create contrast, standing out as circles of bright yellow light against the dark forest.

Another bright pop of color, in another forest, comes from bioluminescent Omphalotus Nidiformis, nicknamed 'ghost mushrooms.'

Other photos capture humans' impact on nature, like this factory built on the edge of a beach in Greece.

Humans have also changed the landscape with wastewater ponds like these.

A more colorful sign of human presence is these pink lagoons near a salt mine.

A burn scar, filled with charred trees, lies in the wake of the Dixie Fire — California's largest single wildfire.

Further north, along the Oregon coast, fog pours into a natural hole in the rock, known as the Drainpipe of the Pacific.

These dragon blood trees only grow in the high plateaus of Socotra Island, in the Indian Ocean.

Editor's Note: This story was originally published on November 19, 2022.

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