Celebrating the easiest of nature pictures, the breathtaking pictures – that includes intimate portraits, superb animal behaviour and conservation in motion – seize the wonder, drama and variety of life on Earth.
The general winner is Wim van den Heever together with his picture ‘Ghost Town Visitor’, which exhibits a brown hyena wandering by the stays of an deserted diamond mining city within the Namib Desert.
The profitable pictures will characteristic in an exhibition on the Natural History Museum, London, from 17 October 2025 to 12 July 2026.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 winners revealed
Photojournalism winner – Jon A Juárez
Jon A Juárez paperwork the groundbreaking science to save lots of the northern white rhino from extinction by in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Juárez spent years documenting the work of the BioRescue Project, and says that witnessing a milestone in saving a species ‘was something I will never forget’. This southern white rhino foetus, which didn’t survive resulting from an an infection, was the results of the primary profitable rhino embryo switch right into a surrogate mom by IVF. This breakthrough paves the best way for saving the uncommon northern white rhino from extinction, as scientists can take the subsequent essential steps in the direction of transferring the primary northern white rhino embryo right into a southern white rhino surrogate. – Photo Credit: Jon A Juárez / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Behaviour: Amphibians and Reptiles winner – Frolicking Frogs, Quentin Martinez
Quentin Martinez captured a gathering of lesser tree frogs in a breeding occasion on Kaw Mountain, French Guiana. To entice mates, lesser tree frogs produce quick, shrill calls. Huge numbers collect, and the spectacular breeding occasion – triggered by heavy rains – lasts for just some hours. – Photo Credit: Quentin Martinez / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Georgina Steytler showcases the unusual headgear of a gum-leaf skeletoniser caterpillar. This caterpillar’s uncommon headgear is made up of outdated head capsules, every retained with each moult. The ensuing tower is believed to assist deflect assaults by predators. – Photo Credit: Georgina Steytler / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Behaviour: Invertebrates extremely recommended – Death on the Beach, Bence Máté
Bence Máté watched a younger brown noddy chick being attacked by ghost crabs in search of a straightforward meal. Amid intense competitors for nest websites, grownup noddies are identified to assault neighbours’ unguarded chicks, typically pushing them out of nests. Scavenging omnivores resembling ghost crabs take benefit, preying on something that can’t escape. – Photo Credit: Bence Máté / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Behaviour: Invertebrates extremely recommended – Special Delivery , Bidyut Kalita
Bidyut Kalita pictures a hard-working potter wasp mid-flight with caterpillar prey for its younger. Once the chamber is full, the wasp units about packing it with caterpillars paralysed by a sting, to offer dwell meals for the creating larvae inside. – Photo Credit: Bidyut Kalita / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Behaviour: Invertebrates extremely recommended – Eyes within the Moss, Jithesh Pai
Jithesh Pai discovers three tiger beetle larvae ready in ambush. With giant eyes alert to the slightest motion and needle-sharp mandibles open large, tiger beetle larvae lurk of their burrows, able to seize no matter stumbles inside lunging distance. – Photo Credit: Jithesh Pai / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Oeans: The Bigger Picture winner – The Feast, Audun Rikardsen
Audun Rikardsen witnesses feeding time round an Atlantic fishing vessel throughout a polar night time in northern Norway. Rikardsen managed to {photograph} this chaotic scene of gulls trying to catch fish trapped by nets. The gulls have learnt to observe the sound of the boats to discover a herring feast. Through his work, Rikardsen goals to attract consideration to the continued battle between seabirds and the fishing business. Unfortunately, many birds drown in or round these purse seine nets every year. Various fisheries and researchers are trialling options, together with sinking the nets extra shortly to make them much less accessible to the birds. – Photo Credit: Audun Rikardsen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Plants and Fungi winner – Deadly Allure, Chien Lee
Much like flowers, many carnivorous crops make the most of ultraviolet mild (UV) reflectance patterns to lure bugs. Although an considerable part of daylight, UV is invisible to people however it’s extremely conspicuous to the insect eye. Here on the onset of dusk, a UV torch reveals a usually hidden fluorescence of blue mild on the pitchers of Nepenthes mirabilis. Although this fluorescence itself might not be sturdy sufficient within the day to draw bugs, its presence exhibits patterns in UV reflectance which can information prey to the nectar-rich parts of the pitcher, such because the peristome and underside of the lid. This photograph was taken in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. – Photo Credit: Chien Lee / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Underwater winner – Survival Purse, Ralph Pace
A swell shark (Cephaloscyllium ventriosum) in egg casing off Monterey, California. Researchers estimate that kelp forests in Monterey Bay have declined by greater than 95 per cent over the previous 34 years. Swell sharks rely upon kelp to put their leathery eggs, making them particularly weak to such losses. – Photo Credit: Ralph Pace / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Underwater extremely recommended – The Welcoming Turtle, Jake Stout
Jake Stout encounters a snapping turtle because it glides over lake vegetation in New Hampshire. Weighing as much as 20 kilograms (44 kilos), snapping turtles can strike with pace and ship a strong chunk once they’re looking, although they’re additionally scavengers. – Photo Credit: Jake Stout / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Wetlands: The Bigger Picture winner – Vanishing Pond, Sebastian Frölich
Sebastian Frölich finds a springtail amongst a galaxy of neon inexperienced fuel bubbles in Austrian moorlands. Austria has misplaced 90 per cent of its peat bogs, and solely 10 per cent of people who stay are in good situation. Platzertal is likely one of the final intact excessive moorlands within the Austrian Alps, and an space famend for its carbon-storing peat bogs. – Photo Credit: Sebastian Frölich / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Behaviour: Mammals winner – Cat Amongst the Flamingos, Dennis Stogsdill
Dennis Stogsdill witnesses a caracal looking a lesser flamingo within the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Caracals have a different food plan, from bugs to antelope, and are famend for the acrobatic leaps they make to grab birds from the air. But there are few, if any, information of them looking flamingos. – Photo Credit: Dennis Stogsdill / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Animal Portraits winner – Shadow Hunter, Philipp Egger
Philipp Egger’s persistence is rewarded with the orange glint of an eagle owl’s eyes and the night mild falling on its feathers. About twice the load of a buzzard and with a wingspan approaching 180 centimetres (6 toes), these formidable nocturnal predators are among the many largest owls. They nest on sheltered cliff ledges or in crevices, typically returning to the identical web site for years. – Photo Credit: Philipp Egger / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Animal Portraits extremely recommended – Inside the Pack, Amit Eshel
Amit Eshel will get eye-level with an inquisitive pack of Arctic wolves. Restricted to Canada’s most northern territories and northern Greenland, Arctic wolves are curious of people resulting from a scarcity of interplay. They’re a snow-white subspecies of the gray wolf, pack animals that hunt hares and musk oxen. – Photo Credit: Amit Eshel / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Animal Portraits extremely recommended – Out of the Darkness, Santiago José Monroy García
Santiago José Monroy García offers a compelling glimpse of this Andean bear’s intense stare. Ranging throughout a lot of the tropical Andes, Andean bears are South America’s solely native bear species. Omnivorous and opportunistic, they feed totally on crops. However, habitat loss from cattle farming has led to elevated battle between bears and people. – Photo Credit: Santiago José Monroy García / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
A troop of langur monkeys captured at one in every of Khanolkar’s digicam entice areas within the central Indian forests close to Chandrapur, Maharashtra. They would recurrently come all the way down to the water gap and spend fairly a while across the digicam entice, which was positioned there to seize large cats. – Photo Credit: Nayan Khanolkar / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Animals of their Environment winner – Like an Eel out of Water, Shane Gross
Peppered moray eels are effectively tailored to the intertidal zone. They can hunt each above and beneath the water’s floor utilizing their eager senses of scent and sight, typically staying out of water for greater than 30 seconds. Image taken on D’Arros Island, Seychelles. – Photo Credit: Shane Gross / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Animals of their Environment extremely recommended – Ice Edge Journey, Bertie Gregory
Emperor penguin chicks travelling at ice shelf edge earlier than their first swim at Atka Bay in Antarctica. Scientists consider the continued decline of sea ice in Antarctica might pressure extra penguins to breed on ice cabinets, making this behaviour more and more widespread sooner or later. – Photo Credit: Bertie Gregory / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Animals of their Environment extremely recommended – The Calm after the Storm, Roberto Marchegiani
Roberto Marchegiani captures a bunch of Baringo giraffes caught in moist climate. This uncommon subspecies had been worn out in Kenya resulting from poaching, agricultural growth and habitat destruction. The steadily rising Kenyan inhabitants exists at the moment as a result of some had been reintroduced to Lake Nakuru in 1997 by the Kenyan authorities. – Photo Credit: Roberto Marchegiani / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Behaviour: Birds winner – Synchronised Fishing, Qingrong Yang
Qingrong Yang perfects photographic timing to indicate a ladyfish snatching its prey from proper underneath this little egret’s beak. Once a pure marine harbour, Yundang Lake was sealed off from the ocean throughout Seventies growth. Isolated from the tides and currents, it grew to become polluted and stagnant. An engineering undertaking later reconnected it to the ocean by way of a system of gates that regulate water move. – Photo Credit: Qingrong Yang / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Behaviour: Birds extremely recommended – A Nip to the Tail, Hira Punjabi
Hira Punjabi captures a rose-ringed parakeet delivering a painful nip to the tail of a Bengal monitor. Native to the Indian subcontinent and equatorial Africa, rose-ringed parakeets have been launched all over the world as pets. Feral populations now thrive in cities throughout Europe, North America and Japan, the place they compete vigorously with native birds and bats for nest-holes. – Photo Credit: Hira Punjabi / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Urban Wildlife extremely recommended – No Place Like Home, Emmanuel Tardy
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. – Photo Credit: Emmanuel Tardy / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 general winner
Urban Wildlife winner (and Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 general winner) – Ghost Town Visitor, Wim van den Heever
Wim van den Heever pictures this haunting scene of a brown hyena among the many skeletal stays of a long-abandoned diamond mining city. The rarest hyena species on this planet, brown hyenas are nocturnal and principally solitary. They are identified to cross by Kolmanskop on their strategy to hunt Cape fur seal pups or scavenge for carrion washed ashore alongside the Namib Desert coast. – Photo Credit: Wim van den Heever / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 winners
15 – 17 Years winner (and Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 general winner) – After the Destruction, Andrea Dominizi
Andrea Dominizi’s {photograph} tells a poignant story of habitat loss. As longhorn beetles tunnel into useless wooden, fungi make their manner inside, serving to to interrupt it down and recycle vitamins. If the beetles’ habitat is disturbed or destroyed, the results ripple throughout the complete ecosystem. – Photo Credit: Andrea Dominizi / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
15 – 17 Years runner up – Jellied Meal, Tinnapat Netcharussaeng
A sleek inexperienced sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) glides by the waters of the Gulf of Thailand, holding onto the sprawling tentacles of a giant jellyfish. The encounter underscores the challenges sea turtles face in distinguishing between jellyfish and floating plastic particles, resembling single-use plastics and ghost nets. Mistaking plastic for prey is a number one reason for damage and loss of life amongst sea turtles, contributing to their endangered standing. – Photo Credit: Tinnapat Netcharussaeng / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
11–14 Years winner – Alpine Dawn, Lubin Go
Native to Europe, the Alpine ibex was hunted near extinction within the early 1800s. Thanks to safety and reintroduction efforts, ibex now roam giant areas of the Alps. However, a quickly altering local weather inflicting shifts in meals availability throughout breeding seasons might hinder their survival. – Photo Credit: Lubin Godin / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
11–14 Years runner up – On Guard, Rithved Girishkumar
Rithved Girishkumar captures a band of stingless bees standing guard on the tube-like entrance to their nest, in Kerala, southwest India. Stingless bees are vital pollinators. There is concern that local weather change may shift the timing of pollen manufacturing so it now not aligns with insect exercise. A mismatch like this will have an effect on pollination and the manufacturing of meals resembling honey. – Photo Credit: Rithved Girishkumar / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
10 Years and Under winner – The Weaver’s Lair, Jamie Smart
Jamie Smart spots an orb weaver spider inside its silken retreat on a chilly September morning. This spider’s net is constructed from a scaffold of radial threads, overlaid with a spiral of sticky silk to carry ensnared bugs. A robust sign thread transmits vibrations to the spider’s hiding place, triggering it to emerge and acquire its prey.
10 Years and Under runner up – MealStop, Alberto Román Gómez
Alberto Román Gómez observes a European stonechat tirelessly looking invertebrates to feed its younger. Stonechats choose open habitats the place they’ll perch and look out for bugs. Their softly lined nests are in-built low, dense vegetation, the place they incubate the eggs for 13–14 days. Both dad and mom feed the chicks. – Photo Credit: Alberto Román Gómez / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
See extra award-winning pictures from this 12 months
