See the Stunning Winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest, Capturing the Splendor and Drama of Nature

These 19 recognized images highlight the diversity across our planet and the value in appreciating and protecting the natural world

Carlyn Kranking | Associate Web Editor, Science

October 14, 2026 4:50 p.m.

From the beauty in blurry wings of birds to the gut-wrenching emotion of an elephant mourning a calf, the images honored in the latest Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest depict the highs and lows of nature.

Some zoom in to the millimeter scale, capturing fungus-like protists called slime molds, while others feature big, charismatic mammals.

“These photographs capture moments that are at once intimate, surprising and profoundly revealing,” Doug Gurr, director of London’s Natural History Museum, says in a statement. “Together they remind us that every species plays a role in the complex web of life—and why understanding and protecting the natural world has never been more important.”

In its 62nd annual iteration, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest, developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London, received a record-breaking number of entries: Photographers from 121 countries and territories sent in 65,403 submissions.

Both the adult and young photographer winners were in black and white this year, a first for the contest. It demonstrates the “enduring power of monochrome imagery to tell compelling wildlife stories,” according to the statement.

The competition, widely considered the most prestigious wildlife photography contest in the world, aims to do more than just highlight animals. The wide-ranging scenes of life that earn accolades from the judges often have a conservation purpose, revealing “powerful stories from the natural world and the urgent need to protect it,” per the statement.

Displayed in a gallery online, this year’s recognized images will also be on view at London’s Natural History Museum from October 16 through July 11, 2027. In the meantime, check out the winning photos below.

The Aftermath by Federico Veronesi

In Namibia’s Huab River Valley, Italian photographer Federico Veronesi was tracking elephants. He spotted drag marks in the sand of a dry riverbed and followed them to a group of the mammals. A female elephant revealed what had left the tracks: She was carrying a dead calf, with its leg wedged between her tusk and trunk.

“This photograph works on so many levels,” says Kathy Moran, chair of the jury that judged the images, in the statement. “Emotionally it’s a gut punch, heartbreakingly poignant. Intellectually it’s proof that animals have cognition.” Both Asian and African elephants have been known to mourn their dead and even bury them.

Labor of Love by Oscar Whitfield

Lying flat on the ground, young photographer Oscar Whitfield was eye-to-eye with this dung beetle in Zimbabwe. By rolling, eating and burying poop, the thousands of species of dung beetle worldwide help clean up environments and promote decomposition of waste.

“Photographing such a small, constantly moving subject is challenging, yet the image feels so intentional,” says Jasper Doest, a member of the jury, in the statement. “The photograph quietly reveals how life cycles depend on what we often overlook or dismiss.”

Protective Pose by Anton Sorokin

Freshly laid eggs of California newts are highly vulnerable to predation. Other newts, hungry and in densely packed populations, might be able to gulp down a clutch. So, female newts stick around to protect their eggs after laying, waiting until the gelatinous sac around them swells and the clutch becomes too big to be swallowed.

Biologist and photographer Anton Sorokin has watched newts many times, but this was the first time he saw this posture. In his winning shot, a newt cradles another clutch of eggs in her arms as she lays, her feet interlocked on an underwater stem to protect the eggs.

On the Outskirts by Loren Elliott

Wild coyotes prowl San Francisco’s Bernal Heights Park, hunting rodents in the urban environment alongside humans and their dogs. Residents have mixed feelings about the canines, as they can pose a risk to pets, but also benefit from the predators’ natural rodent control.

Photographer Loren Elliott created a portfolio featuring the coyotes, which number roughly 100 in a city of 800,000 human residents. Although coyotes are native to California, a government-sponsored campaign in the early 20th century resulted in their local eradication. But by the start of the 2000s, the animals had mysteriously returned.

Afternoon Snack by Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas

The bubbles in the eyes of this unfortunate flesh fly—the victim in this predation event—suggest it has been injected with digestive enzymes from the larger robber fly, also known as an assassin fly. Those enzymes liquify the insect’s internal organs so that the robber fly can easily consume them.

In his portfolio spanning Germany and Northern Ireland, photographer Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas brings attention to tiny insects and arachnids. He created images with a large depth of field by stacking several photos that were focused in different areas.

Tiny Dancers by Kutub Uddin

Slime molds are mysterious and strange—not fitting into the categories of fungi, animals or plants, they can either be single cells or “supercells” with one cell membrane and many nuclei. They mostly grow on dead wood or leaf litter and tend to be small. The slime molds in this photograph are just one or two millimeters high.

Photographer Kutub Uddin, who created a macro photography portfolio of slime molds, describes them in a statement as “tiny clusters or unusual textures on the wood, often appearing as minute pins, spheres or dust-like groupings.” Here, these slime molds in West Sussex, England, are sprouting fine threads called capillitium, which will help emit spores for reproduction.

Warning Sign by Francisco Negroni

In Argentina’s Santa Cruz province, where the hunting of pumas has been banned since last year, a dead puma is displayed tied to a fence as a hunting trophy. Photographer Francisco Negroni had “never witnessed or photographed” such a scene before, he says in a statement.

Humans who raise livestock might kill pumas to thwart livestock predation. According to the statement, keeping sheep indoors at night and using guard dogs could protect livestock without resorting to hunting the cats.

The Great Divide by Alex Visbal

A human-made line cuts through Stansbury Bay on Utah’s Great Salt Lake, cutting off an area turned pink by microbes that thrive in salty water.

“The Great Salt Lake has been under pressure for decades from water diversion, climate change and industrial extraction,” photographer Alex Visbal writes on Instagram. “This photograph shows how a single engineered line can change an entire wetland.”

Since this photo was taken, Utah has brought this area under conservation management, according to a statement.

Urban Jungle by Seth Forestson

The second-largest lizard species in the world, a common water monitor carries a fish in Bangkok. These animals spend most of the day warming their bodies in the sun, but they’re also generalist predators that will eat anything they can find—making them well-adapted for city living.

At Lumphini Park in Thailand, photographer Seth Forestson waited for the creatures to become active, then captured this shot—lying low against the mud to include the city skyline.

Making Morays by Tony Wu

The mating behavior of Abbott’s moray eels had long been a mystery. But a team of biologists and photographer Tony Wu have been working to shine light on this hidden activity for years.

With a red-light source and custom fisheye lens, Wu began photographing this male in 2024 in Kyushu, Japan. His resulting images, which are helping inform scientific studies, might be the first to document Abbott’s moray eel courtship and spawning.

Escape Artistry by Michał Michalski

This photograph might look like forest with crisp, autumn leaves, but don’t be deceived. Photographer Michał Michalski stood in front of a sunflower field in Poland, which was filled with feeding birds like goldfinches and bramblings. When a sparrowhawk startled the flock, the birds took off in unison, and Michalski captured their beating wings, blurred in front of the bare birch trees.

Shedding Light by Agorastos Papatsanis

Under ultraviolet light, the stems of these beautiful bonnet mushrooms glow in a bright yellow. Some fungi produce their own light, but these, captured by photographer Agorastos Papatsanis on the lower slopes of Greece’s Mount Olympus, work a little differently. They are fluorescent, meaning that they absorb light of one wavelength—ultraviolet—and re-emit it at another wavelength of visible light.

Night-Time Catch by Alex Lindbloom

At dawn, this mobile net-fishing platform, or bagan, provided the only light for photographer Alex Lindbloom’s drone flying off the coast of Papua, Indonesia. He found a whale shark, the biggest fish species alive, curious about the fishers’ catch.

Whale sharks have declined by 50 percent globally over the past 75 years, and off West Papua, Indonesia, almost two-thirds of them have injuries from human-related causes, such as tour boats and fishing gear. Bagans might cause minor injuries, but they don’t typically result in death, per a statement, and local communities attract tourists with the predictable appearance of sharks at these platforms.

Scenes From the Swamp by Isak Pretorius

These flat-beaked shoebill birds might have been gathering nesting material as photographer Isak Pretorius watched them pull up vegetation and drop it. Shoebills are known to be elusive, so Pretorius felt lucky to find two of them when canoeing through Uganda’s Mabamba Swamp with a guide. Classified as a vulnerable species, fewer than 5,300 adult shoebills are thought to remain in the wild.

A Watchful Eye by Aaron Sanders

A common octopus makes eye contact with photographer Aaron Sanders from behind a curtain of kelp. “We remained perfectly still, watching one another with a seemingly shared curiosity,” he says in a statement. The silhouette of the cephalopod’s suckers can be seen through the seaweed.

Sanders spotted the creature when diving off England’s Porthkerris Beach. Common octopuses have been spotted more frequently in the region during the past two years. They prefer warm waters, typically found around the Mediterranean, but this recent “bloom” in abundance is thought to be linked to rising sea temperatures.

The Meeting Place by James Lewin

Giraffes, zebras and elephants gather at a watering hole for a drink in Kenya’s Chyulu Hills National Park. Herbivores might spend more time in these areas when elephants are around, potentially because their large size could deter predators. Here, a young male elephant sprays zebras in a scene captured by photographer James Lewin.

Shifting Sand by Sitaram Raul

A scorpion tosses sand as it burrows to escape the heat of the rising sun in India’s Thar Desert. Photographer Sitaram Raul timed the shot to get the sand grains suspended in the air. Buthacus scorpions like this one use stiff bristles as snowshoes to keep from sinking into the dunes.

“What you see in the final image is just a small part of the story,” Raul writes on Instagram. “Behind it are hours in the field, patience, curiosity and a desire to see nature a little differently.”

Flight of the Bumblebee by Amelie Davis

Using her dad’s iPhone, young photographer Amelie Davis captured a common carder bee mid-flight in a garden in southern England. Davis had spent months photographing bees, but on this particular day, the flowers were “teeming with bees,” she says in a statement.

Birdsong Painted in Light by Konrad Gräeter

Male Eurasian blackbirds sit on elevated perches and sing to attract mates in spring—and their most complex songs come in the morning, according to a statement. Females, in reply, give a softer tune.

In a German vineyard, young photographer Konrad Gräeter captured an image of this male blackbird singing, framed through the foliage at dawn. “With this image I try to show that the beauty of nature is all around us, if we only look,” Gräeter writes on Instagram.