These adorable snaps show various creatures of the wild in jaw-dropping, humanistic detail. There's a happy penguin, a confused elephant seal and even a shocked-looking polar bear.

The astonishing pictures were captured by renowned wildlife photographer Sergey Kokinskiy, who has shot wildlife in a variety of amusing and adorable guises since the beginning of his career.

Kokinskiy, who is originally from Moscow in Russia, compares his photographic skills to those of a hunter.

"You are breathless as you direct the camera at the target, and between heartbeats - the shot," he says."But the reward is not the cooled carcass, nor an innocent animal, and the resulting portrait may please and surprise many people who never get a chance to see these creatures."

One of the things that Kokinskiy tries to capture when he is photographing animals is the animals' emotions.

"If you notice, many of the subjects of my photos could have recognisable human emotions transferred onto them: love, envy, hatred, greed, malice, cunning, compassion, and more," he says.

Come see highlights from his extraordinary repertoire, below...

Picture Credit: Sergey Kokinskiy/Rex Features.