Commended (animals in their environment): Michael Nichols, US: C-Boy, a black-maned male lion, and his coalition partner, Hildur, once controlled a superior territory in Tanzania’s Serengeti national park, but they were deposed by a squad of four males known to researchers as the Killers. Nick came across C-boy and Hildur hunkered down in the rain: ‘I had never before seen these two senior coalition males together’

Photograph: Michael Nichols/National Geographic /2013 WPY