Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2025: 18 Stunning Winning Photos

Synchronised Fishing, Winner, Behaviour: Birds; a ladyfish snatches its prey from a bit egret’s beak; Yundang Lake, Fujian Province, China

Qingrong Yang, China – Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2025

A haunting {photograph} of a uncommon hyena wandering via an deserted mining city has claimed the highest prize on the 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025, the distinguished international competitors organized by London’s Natural History Museum.

Selected from a record-breaking 60,636 entries submitted by photographers throughout 113 international locations and territories, this 12 months’s winners illustrate the wonder, drama, and variety of life on Earth — from the mysterious depths of oceans and jungles to the center of bustling cities.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year is widely known because the world’s main wildlife images competitors, celebrating the artwork of capturing the pure world whereas selling consciousness of conservation and biodiversity.

Winners Exhibition At The Natural History Museum

The 2025 class and general winners showcase the best examples of underwater images, city wildlife, animal conduct and environmental photojournalism. Each picture was chosen anonymously by a world panel of consultants spanning the fields of wildlife images, filmmaking, conservation and science.

The pictures had been chosen for his or her originality, technical excellence and creativity.

All the profitable and finalist pictures — the highest 100 pictures of the 12 months — will go on public show on the Natural History Museum in London beginning October 17.

A Fusion of Art, Science, and Conservation

The 2025 Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition introduces the Museum’s revolutionary Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) — a groundbreaking scientific metric that measures how a lot of a area’s pure biodiversity stays, scored from 0 to 100%.

Adopted as an official Global Biodiversity Framework indicator, the BII is a vital device for monitoring international conservation progress and understanding, in addition to monitoring and speaking biodiversity change at each native and worldwide scales.

A Message from the Museum

“Now in its 61st year, we are thrilled to continue Wildlife Photographer of the Year as a powerful platform for visual storytelling — showing the diversity, beauty and complexity of the natural world and humanity’s relationship to it,” mentioned Doug Gurr, director of the Natural History Museum.

“With the inclusion of our Biodiversity Intactness Index, this year’s exhibition combines great artistry and groundbreaking science, inspiring visitors to become advocates for our planet.”

The 62nd Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition opens for entries on October 20 and closes on December 4.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025

South African wildlife photographer Wim van den Heever received the title of Wildlife
Photographer of the Year 2025 for his highly effective picture ‘Ghost Town Visitor’
highlighting how nature interacts with city areas, usually in uncommon methods.

Wim’s {photograph} is a haunting view of a brown hyena visiting the skeletal
stays of a long-abandoned diamond-mining city in Kolmanskop, Namibia. A testomony to the photographer’s willpower and endurance, utilizing digicam lure know-how it took Wim a decade to get this single shot.

The rarest hyena species on this planet, brown hyenas are nocturnal and principally solitary.
They are identified to cross via Kolmanskop on their solution to hunt cape fur seal pups or
scavenge for carrion washed ashore alongside the Namib Desert coast.

Brown hyenas are hardly ever seen, so digicam lure know-how is an efficient means for scientists to observe behaviour and higher perceive the species.

“This picture is a multi-layered story of loss, resilience and the natural world’s silent triumph, making it an unforgettable piece of wildlife and conservation photography,” said jury member Akanksha Sood Singh.

Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The competition’s Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 has been awarded to Andrea Dominizi, the first Italian to land the prize for wildlife photographers aged 17 and under.

Entitled ‘After the Destruction’, the image tells a poignant tale of habitat loss. Framed against abandoned machinery, it spotlights a longhorn beetle in the Lepini Mountains of central Italy, an area once logged for old beech trees.

As longhorn beetles tunnel into dead wood, fungi make their way inside, helping to break it down and recycle nutrients. If the beetles’ habitat is disturbed or destroyed, the effects ripple across the entire ecosystem.

Impact Award Wildlife Photographer Of The Year

Now in its second year, the competition’s Impact Award recognizes a conservation
success, a story of hope or positive change. This year, the award was earned by Brazilian photographer Fernando Faciole for his image ‘Orphan of the Road’.

Catching an orphaned giant anteater pup following its caregiver after an evening feed at a rehabilitation center, Faciole’s photograph highlights the consequences of road collisions, a leading cause of the decline in giant anteater numbers in Brazil.

When they’re quite young, giant anteaters depend on constant attention from caregivers, who often need to take the animals home overnight.

The pup was found clinging to its dead mother killed by a vehicle. The hope is that it will be released back into the wild after being encouraged by its caregiver to develop crucial survival skills.

Alongside rehabilitation centers, the Anteaters and Highways project of the Wild Animal Conservation Institute is developing strategies to reduce anteater deaths on Brazil’s roads. These include erecting fences and building underground tunnels to allow the anteaters to cross safely.

Rising Star Award Wildlife Photographer Of The Year

German photographer Luca Lorenz explores his passion for the natural world by viewing it through an artistic lens. His childhood ambition was to learn about birds and he spent long hours observing them in the parks on the outskirts of Berlin. He bought his first camera when he was 13, launching his passion for photography.

His winning portfolio elucidates his personal view of nature and inspires others to protect it. In the photo above, entitled ‘Meet the Neighbours’, Lorenz was photographing mute swans on an urban lake one evening when a coypu, a rodent introduced from South America, appeared in the frame. Having been shipped across the world for the fur trade, coypu have since established many feral populations.

Lorenz had been watching a tree hole where this Eurasian pygmy owl and its mate were nesting. When one disappeared, the other continued feeding the chicks. On this day, the remaining bird returned clutching the chicks’ breakfast in its claws and called for its mate. But there was no reply.

Tragically, the female likely fell prey to a sparrowhawk, tawny owl or a marten, leaving the male to care for their young alone. In the days that followed, there was no sign of the fledglings. Lorenz suspects they, too, fell victim to a tawny owl or a marten on their first night outside, an example of the heartbreaking harsh reality of nature.

Artistry, Feast And Frolic

In Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, Dennis Stogsdill had been keeping an eye out for wild cats such as servals for several days when a call came over the radio: one had been seen at Ndutu Lake. But it wasn’t a serval. It was a caracal, successfully hunting wading lesser flamingos.

Caracals have a varied diet, from insects to antelope, and are renowned for the acrobatic leaps they make to snatch birds from the air. But there are few, if any, records of them hunting flamingos.

An orb weaver spider illuminated in its web on a pedestrian bridge, silhouetted by lights from the cars below.

To achieve this kaleidoscopic effect, Simone Balmeister reversed one of the six glass elements in an analogue lens, distorting the image at the edges while leaving the center sharply focused.

In urban environments, orb weaver spiders often spin webs near artificial lights that attract insects at night. The web acts as an extension of their sense organ, gathering sound and transmitting vibrations, including those of prey, to their legs.

Lesser tree frogs gather in a breeding event. In unrelenting rain, Quentin Martinez followed a flooded path to a temporary pool in a forest clearing.

To attract mates, lesser tree frogs produce short, shrill calls. Huge numbers gather, and the spectacular breeding event – triggered by heavy rains – lasts for just a few hours.

Feeding time turns into a frenzy around an Atlantic fishing vessel during a polar night in northern Norway. Audun Rikardsen succeeded in photographing this chaotic scene of gulls attempting to catch fish trapped by nets. The gulls have learned to follow the sound of the boats to find a herring feast.

Through his work, Rikardsen aims to draw attention to the ongoing conflict between seabirds and the fishing industry. Unfortunately, many birds drown in or around these purse seine nets each year. Various fisheries and researchers are testing solutions, including sinking the nets more quickly to make them less accessible to the birds.

Behold the truly strange headgear of a gum-leaf skeletoniser caterpillar. Georgina Steytler had been looking out for this caterpillar for years when she noticed eucalyptus trees bearing skeletonised leaves, telltale signs that the animal had been grazing.

This caterpillar’s unusual headgear is made up of old head capsules, each retained with every moult. The resulting tower is believed to help deflect attacks by predators.

Young Wildlife Photographers

An orb weaver spider lies inside its silken retreat on a cold September morning. Jamie Smarr first noticed the dew-laden web before realizing its maker was sitting in a nest.

This spider’s web is constructed from a scaffold of radial threads, overlaid with a spiral of sticky silk to hold ensnared insects. A strong signal thread transmits vibrations to the spider’s hiding place, prompting it to emerge and collect its prey.

Mist-shrouded mountains frame a silhouetted ibex: Lubin Godin spotted the Alpine ibex resting above a sea of clouds during an early morning ascent. As the mist rose and the sun broke over the crags, he retraced his steps to capture this ethereal moment before fog thickened and the light faded.

Native to Europe, the species was hunted close to extinction in the early 1800s. Thanks to protection and reintroduction efforts, ibex now roam large areas of the Alps. However, a rapidly changing climate causing shifts in food availability during breeding seasons may hinder their survival.

Captivating Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Moments

A springtail floats among a galaxy of neon green gas bubbles in Austrian moorlands.

Sebastian Frölich visited this fragile wetland ecosystem to highlight its importance as a vast store of carbon dioxide and as a habitat for diverse wildlife. A tiny springtail ran across escaping gas bubbles rising through the algae, giving this image a sense of scale.

Austria has lost 90% of its peat bogs, and only 10% of those that remain are in good condition. Platzertal is one of the last intact high moorlands in the Austrian Alps, and an area renowned for its carbon-storing peat bogs.

Fungi Chien Lee used an UV torch to reveal the fluorescent world of an insect-attracting pitcher plant. Insects can see ultraviolet (UV) light, but humans cannot.

Some carnivorous pitcher plants reflect UV light on certain areas as part of their ‘display’. They use color, scent and nectar to lure their prey into pools of digestive juices at the bottom of their leaves.

Photojournalist Story Award

Spanish photographer Javier Aznar González de Rueda won the Photojournalist Story Award for a series of images exploring the complex relationship between humans and rattlesnakes across the United States.

For centuries, rattlesnakes have been viewed in vastly different ways across the American continent, from reverence and respect to fear and suspicion. Annual rattlesnake round-ups, where hunters compete to collect the greatest weight of snakes, began in the 1930s.

Today, these competitions are losing their appeal. But in some states, anti-rattlesnake sentiment remains strong. With his portfolio, González de Rueda calls for respect and protection for these creatures before they disappear from the American landscape.

Despite their fearsome reputation, rattlesnakes don’t seek out humans to attack. The black-tailed rattlesnake above was spotted on the road at night outside Fort Davis, Texas. In this instance, its tail is raised and rattling in response to the perceived threat of the snake handler who rescued it from the road.

This snake has been killed and is being skinned by a volunteer at Sweetwater, Texas. Its meat and skin were later sold. Proponents of rattlesnake round-ups sometimes cite revenue from these sales as a reason to continue. However, some events have shifted their focus to education programs, where visitors learn about, and celebrate, rattlesnakes.

Portfolio Award: Visions Of The North

Alexey Kharitonov finds art in unexpected perspectives across Russia’s northern swamps.

A self-taught photographer with a passion for landscape photography, his artistic exploration of remote regions in the Russian north, Siberia and Asia highlights taiga and Arctic tundra scenes as summer rapidly turns to winter.

Using drones, he picks out details in these vast terrains, showcasing their wild beauty through striking compositions. Yet, beyond this visual feast lie human-made threats – not least a pressing vulnerability to climate change.

In the photo above, entitled Taiga Moon, Kharitonov launched his drone from a narrow strip of land between a mosaic of small lakes. He framed his picture around a dry, grassy mound encircled by ice, reflected pine silhouettes and the autumn glow of sphagnum moss.

When ice-rich permafrost below ground thaws, it can create a striking thermokarst landscape where the ground sinks and forms large surface depressions. These depressions can develop into swampy bodies of water called thermokarst lakes – like this 100-foot lake Kharitonov discovered.

All the award-winning images from the 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 will be exhibited at the Natural History Museum from October 17 until July 12, 2026. The exhibition will also embark on a U.K. and international tour to inspire people to appreciate and conserve the natural world.

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