28 magnificent photos of animals being hilarious

These are some of the finalists for this year's Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

A snow monkey ponders life while taking a bath in a hotspring in Japan. Txema Garcia Laseca / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 201

A damselfly in Norfolk, England waves to the camera. Kevin Sawford / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A young brown bear is caught facepalming in Alaska. Eric Fisher / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A female bird is far from impressed as her partner squarks towards her in this family disagreement caught in Croatia. Vlado Pirsa Donja Zdencina / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A grizzly bear cub walks on its hind legs on Kodiak Island, Alaska. Toni Elliott Modbury / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A brown bear looks like it is counting to 10 as its siblings hide in this shot taken in Finland. Valtteri Mulkahainen Sotkamo / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A pair of gentoo penguins on Neko Island in South Georgia walk in tandem. Andre Erlich / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

Lionesses frolick in Masai mara plains in Kenya. Adwait Aphale / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A marmot in the Austrian alps gets into the groove. Martina Gebert / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019 -

A Japanese snow monkey tiptoes around the camera after rolling around in the snow. Roie Galitz / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A Gentoo Penguin catches a sweet wave in Sandy Bay, Bleaker Island, Falkland Islands. Elmar Weiss / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A chimpanzee waves his arms around like an open wide-receiver in this shot taken at the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, Uganda. Ryan Jefferds / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A pair of Alaskan sea otters say "hi". Donna Bourdon / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

He's right behind me, isn't he? A worried little common jack asks the photographer a rhetorical question as a tiger shark lurks in the Bahamas. Anthony N Petrovich / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A pair of vixens do the 'waltz' near Amsterdam. Alastair Marsh / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

Life in the slow lane. A snapping turtle crosses the road in Massachusetts. Lisa Vanderhoop / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A playful polar bear rubs its eyes in the Arctic. Marion Vollborn Burscheid / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A angry gannet on Helgoland, a North Sea island off Germany. Co Grift / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A red squirrel makes a wish with a dandelion in Sweden. Geert Weggen / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A king pengiun has a bad hair day on Georgia island in the South Atlantic. Eric Keller /The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

Oh my! A sea otter recreates Edvard Munch's The Scream in Alaska. Harry Walker / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A fur seal and a king pengium chest bump on South Georgia Island. Thomas Mangelsen / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

Yes please! A squirrel on campus at the University of Michigan raises its hand. Corey Seeman / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A caracara with its bodyguards - three capybaras - in Rincon del Socorro, Ibera Wetlands, Argentina. Susan Knowler / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A pair of zebra share a joke in Ngorongoro crater, Tanzania. Peter Haygarth /The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A laid-back baby chimp in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. Thomas Mangelsen / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A pair of hares dancing to hip-hop in Suffolk, England? Philip Marazzi / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

A deer covered in grass and bracken. Mike Rowe / The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019

We've all been there. You're quietly going about your business and someone with a camera catches you at a foolish moment. Seconds later it hits Instagram and, if you're really unfortunate, you've become a meme.

While some of the animals pictured in our gallery above will feel flattered to be in the final of The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2019 (CWPA) there will be a few of them wishing they could ask their photographer to delete the picture.

Some of this year’s top finalists include a waving damselfly in Britain, a marmot rocking out in the Austrian Alps and a fish with an impeding sense of doom as a tiger shark drifts in the background.

Check out some of the entries in the gallery above. 

As ever, we can't enjoy animals goofing around in the wild without thinking about our impact on the environment. This year the CWPA is promoting its "conservationist at home" campaign which urges conservationists to 1) shop responsibly 2) restrict water use at home and 3) calls on patrons to be a "wild influencer".

“Every year we do this competition, it gets more and more exciting seeing how people visualise the funny side of wildlife," says founder Paul Joynson-Hicks.

"The other aspect of our funny competition is letting people know what they can do at home to be conservationists. Our planet is in distress, we all know that, now we just need to know what to do. Hopefully, we can provide a few small tips to get people started.”

The winners will be announced on Wednesday, November 13.

More details available at www.comedywildlifephoto.com