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

Anup Shah/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Baiju Patil/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Panos Laskarakis/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Li Ping/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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.

Anup Shah/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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.

Torie Hilley/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Rick Dowling/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Fabio Saltarelli/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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.

Marvin Mwarangu/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Hendy Wicaksono/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Waluya Priya Atmaja/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Effy Varley/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Ivan Pedretti/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Masahiro Hiroike/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Callie Chee/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Janusz Jurek/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Jassen Todorov/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Nick Leopold Sordo/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Jassen Todorov/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Tom Fenske/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

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

Cristiano Xavier/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022