Wildlife Photographer of the Year – finest photographs to date

By Victoria Heath

The world’s main wildlife pictures competitors, Wildlife Photographer of the Year, presents a sneak peek of its sixty-first competitors, which can be showcased in an exhibition on the Natural History Museum, London, from Friday 17 October 2025.

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The exhibition will highlight 100 inspiring and highly effective photographs of our pure world, chosen from a record-breaking 60,636 entries and judged anonymously on their creativity, originality and technical excellence by a world panel of skilled judges throughout wildlife pictures, filmmaking, science and conservation.

Among the newly launched photographs contains a dramatic stand-off between a lion and a cobra by Gabriella Comi, a portrait of an inquisitive pack of Arctic wolves by Amit Eshel and awe-inspiring images of flamingoes, coyotes and purple deer by among the most interesting rising younger wildlife photographers as we speak, some as younger as 9 years previous.

Essence of Kamchatka – Kesshav Vkram, India

Kesshav waited days for this picture to return collectively: a brown bear strolling alongside the shore of Kurile Lake because the Iliinsky volcano emerged from the clouds.

A slaty-backed gull flew previous, aligned with the volcano’s summit. Generally solitary, the bear was heading to feast with others on the glut of sockeye salmon migrating upriver to their origin lake to spawn.

This caldera lake, shaped within the crater made by a volcanic eruption, is the most important sockeye salmon spawning floor in Eurasia.

A Tale of Two Coyotes – Parham Pourahmad, USA

Parham adopted this pair – a feminine and probably her brother – for a few hours throughout the rocky hillside, shortly framing his picture earlier than the male turned to nuzzle the feminine.

Coyotes can adapt to virtually any habitat and are ample throughout North America and into Central America.

Once widespread in San Francisco, they’d disappeared from the town however are actually starting to return. While they do scavenge meals waste, their food plan additionally contains rodents and different small mammals.

Pink Pose – Leana Kuster, Switzerland

While on vacation in southern France, Leana had been watching flamingos within the Camargue. She was fascinated by their foraging behaviour as they moved gracefully by the shallow, saline wetlands, filter feeding for molluscs and crustaceans.

Flamingos use their tongues to drive water by their specifically tailored payments, that are lined with many rows of fantastic, comb-like plates. These assist lure a species of brine shrimp known as Artemia salina that offers the birds their well-known pink hue.

Ice Edge Journey – Bertie Gregory, UK

Bertie spent two months with the penguin colony and witnessed most chicks utilizing ice ramps to descend to sea degree for meals. But this group missed the straightforward manner down. Keeping his drone at a secure distance, he watched as they took a 15-metre (49-foot) leap into the water.

Left to fend for themselves, emperor penguin chicks should discover a method to make their first dip into the icy ocean to seek out meals. Scientists imagine the continued decline of sea ice in Antarctica could drive extra penguins to breed on ice cabinets, making this behaviour more and more widespread sooner or later.

Inside the Pack – Amit Eshel, Israel

In temperatures of -35°C (-31°F), Amit struggled to fulfil his dream of photographing the elusive Arctic wolves of Ellesmere Island. But then, on the twelfth day of his second journey, they got here nearer than he had ever imagined, so shut that he may scent their breath.

Restricted to Canada’s most northern territories and northern Greenland, Arctic wolves are curious of people resulting from an absence of interplay. They’re a snow-white subspecies of the gray wolf, pack animals that hunt hares and musk oxen.

Deadly Lessons – Marine Cano, Spain

Marina watched the three younger cheetahs practise their looking abilities whereas their mom appeared on – an important stage of their journey to independence. The dik-dik was tossed into the air and killed simply seconds after Marina took the {photograph}.

Cheetah cubs spend their first two months hidden in a lair whereas their mom hunts. At round a 12 months previous, they start becoming a member of her, studying learn how to stalk and which prey to pursue.

Wake-up Call – Gabriella Comi, Italy

Energy ranges among the many lions have been low within the scorching noon solar. Gabriella and her information, David, have been about to maneuver on when David noticed motion – a cobra was slithering in the direction of two sleeping lions.

Within seconds, the eldest of the pair was dealing with down the venomous intruder. Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park is famend for its giant inhabitants of lions, with round 3,000 people residing there. Lions are estimated to sleep for as much as 20 hours a day to preserve power.

Slime Family Portrait – Kutub Uddin, Bangladesh/UK

Kutub discovered these blueberry-like spheres – the reproductive components of a slime mould, every simply 1–2 millimetres in diameter – in a close-by forest.

His picture resembles a fantasy panorama, although he describes the scene as a ‘bizarre family portrait’, full with a tiny yellow insect egg. A slime mould is a group of cellular single-celled, amoeba-like organisms that stay independently till they arrive collectively and work as one to seek out meals and reproduce.

Jelly Smack Summer – Ralph Pace, USA

To attempt to defend himself from stings whereas taking this {photograph}, Ralph smeared petroleum jelly on any pores and skin not coated by his wetsuit. The trailing tentacles can ship a painful sting, which Ralph says feels extra like that of a bee than a nettle. Highly adaptable to warming seas, jellyfish are showing in bigger numbers.

Some biologists argue that extra frequent smacks are an indication of rising ocean temperatures. The elimination of predators and opponents by overfishing is one other contributing issue.

No Place Like Home – Emmanuel Tardy, France

Traffic slowed to a crawl as this sloth crossed the highway, finally reaching a fence publish and gripping firmly. Concerned about not including to the animal’s stress, Emmanuel patiently waited for individuals to depart the world earlier than shortly taking this picture.

As their habitats grow to be more and more fragmented, sloths are compelled to make extra floor crossings to succeed in the protection of the subsequent tree. In response, the Costa Rican authorities is working with native NGOs to ascertain organic corridors, together with aerial bridges that reconnect their forest properties.

Rutting Call – Jamie Smart, UK

Jamie walked up and down a path within the park at a secure distance from the stag. She stretched herself up tall to keep away from any lengthy grass within the foreground spoiling her view. The stag’s antlers have regrown since their annual shedding in spring.

The ‘velvet’ – the gentle pores and skin that coated them throughout their progress – has now rubbed off, exposing the bone beneath. Each new set grows bigger and extra complicated because the stag matures, with extra intricate factors known as tines crowning the heads of older males.

Nature Reclaims Its Space – Sitaram Raul, India

Working in whole darkness, Sitaram manually targeted his lens on the distance the place he guessed the bats may seem, counting on his flash to light up the scene.

All the whereas, bats have been, in his phrases, ‘randomly pooping on me and the camera’. Old World fruit bats are widespread throughout southern Asia. During the day, they roost in cavities corresponding to hole timber, caves and abandoned buildings. Sitaram says that irrespective of how huge our city buildings are, as soon as we depart them, ‘eventually nature reclaims its space’.

Fragile River of Life – Isaac Szabo, USA

Wrapping his ft round a drowned tree, Isaac photographed this feminine longnose gar with a number of males through the mating season. The presence of the turtle was, for Isaac, the ‘icing on the cake’, because it ‘gives a sense of the whole ecosystem’.

This river is one in every of greater than 1,000 waterways fed by freshwater springs famend for his or her readability. Maintaining the aquifers that offer these springs is important not just for iconic wildlife corresponding to manatees, but additionally for offering ingesting water to just about half of Florida.

Clouds of Gold by Jassen Todorov, USA

Flying his single-engine Piper Warrior into San Francisco International Airport, Jassen by no means tires of the altering colors of the ponds. On this event, he says, ‘the light during the golden hour, at sunset, was magnificent’. The technique of salt assortment within the bay was industrialised within the 1800s.

Since 2003, the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project has acquired 6,000 hectares (practically 15,000 acres). By eradicating synthetic dykes, the undertaking is recreating tidal marsh habitat, permitting salt-tolerant crops and wildlife to flourish as soon as extra.

Toxic Tip – Lakshitha Karunarathna, Sri Lanka

For over three years, Lakshitha has documented human–elephant battle in Sri Lanka. This picture is the results of months of meticulous statement at two open garbage ideas, the place herds commonly forage.

Around 20 elephants died over an eight-year interval at a single web site in Ampara after consuming indigestible meals wrappers and different plastic waste. Alongside world efforts to cut back plastic use, conservationists stress the pressing have to safe landfills and forestall wildlife from accessing dangerous supplies.

Special Delivery – Bidyut Kalita, India

Bidyut noticed this potter wasp constructing a mud chamber on an image body in his house in Goalpara, northeast India. Noticing it coming and going a number of instances a day, he wedged the door open to permit it entry till he lastly noticed it returning with prey gripped in its jaws.

Once the chamber is full, the wasp units about packing it with caterpillars paralysed by a sting, to supply stay meals for the creating larvae inside