From a record-breaking number of entries to its 61st competition, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year has unveiled a first look at 15 inspiring and powerful images of our natural world.
A dramatic stand-off between a lion and a cobra, an outstanding moment of hunting brotherhood between three young cheetahs and awe-inspiring photographs of flamingoes, coyotes and red deer by some of the finest professional and emerging young wildlife photographers today are among the photos in this preview chosen from 60,636 entries.
The images will be showcased in an exhibition at London’s Natural History Museum, starting October 17, spotlighting 100 of the most remarkable portraits of our natural world judged anonymously on their creativity, originality and technical excellence by an international panel of expert judges across wildlife photography, filmmaking, science and conservation.
The category winners and the prestigious Grand Title and Young Grand Title awards will be announced on October 14 during a ceremony at the Natural History Museum.
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year is the Natural History Museum’s global platform for the world’s best nature photography and wildlife photojournalism. The annual competition is open to photographers of all ages, nationalities and experience levels. “With our touring exhibition and outreach activities engaging millions around the globe every year, we invite ever more people to celebrate and advocate for the natural world,” the organizers explain.
Alongside the award-winning photographs, the 61st exhibition will provide insight into some of the habitats in the photos by including the Natural History Museum’s groundbreaking Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII), which measures the degree of survival of a region’s natural biodiversity on a scale of 0 to 100%. Adopted as an official Global Framework Biodiversity indicator for decision-making, it’s an essential tool for understanding, monitoring and communicating biodiversity changes on a global scale and tracking international progress towards conservation goals.
“This preview presents just a small insight into the 100 awe-inspiring, impactful and moving images in store for our exhibition in October,” says Kathy Moran, Chair of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Jury. “As an advocate for the power of photography, there is nothing more rewarding or moving than seeing our relationship to the natural world, in all its complexity and splendour, shared on the world’s biggest platform for wildlife photography.”
The 61st edition of Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibits at the Natural History until July 12, 2026. It will then embark on a U.K. and international tour to inspire millions to appreciate and conserve the natural world.
Jamie Smart portrays a red deer stag as it lets out a mighty bellow during the autumn rut in Bradgate Park, England.
Smart walked up and down a path in the park at a safe distance from the stag. She stretched herself up tall to avoid any long grass in the foreground spoiling her view. The stag’s antlers have regrown since their annual shedding in spring. The ‘velvet’ – the soft skin that covered them during their growth – has rubbed off, exposing the bone beneath.
Each new set grows larger and increasingly complex as the stag matures, with more intricate points, called tines, crowning the heads of older males.
Gabriella Comi witnessed a dramatic stand-off between a lion and a cobra. Energy levels among the lions were low in the scorching midday sun. Comi and her guide were about to move on when he spotted movement: A cobra was slithering towards two sleeping lions. Within seconds, the eldest of the pair was facing down the venomous intruder.
Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park is renowned for its large population of some 3,000 lions.
Lions are estimated to sleep for up to 20 hours a day to conserve energy.
Marina Cano stumbled on three young cheetahs practicing their hunting skills while their mother looked on – a crucial stage in their journey to independence. The dik-dik was tossed into the air and killed just seconds after Cano took the photograph.
Cheetah cubs spend their first two months hidden in a lair while their mother hunts. At around a year old, they begin joining her, learning how to stalk and to distinguish which prey to pursue.
In temperatures of -35°C (-24°F), Amit Eshel struggled to fulfil his dream of photographing the elusive Arctic wolves of Ellesmere Island. But then, on the 12th day of his second trip, they came closer than he had ever imagined — so close that he could smell their breath as he got eye-level with them.
Restricted to Canada’s most northern territories and northern Greenland, Arctic wolves are curious about humans due to a lack of interaction. They’re a snow-white subspecies of the grey wolf, pack animals that hunt hares and musk oxen.
Emmanuel Tardy spotted a brown-throated three-toed sloth clinging tightly to a barbed wire fence post.
Traffic slowed to a crawl as this sloth crossed the road, eventually reaching a fence post and gripping firmly. Concerned about not adding to the animal’s stress, Tardy patiently waited for people to leave the area before quickly taking this photo.
As their habitats become increasingly fragmented, sloths are forced to make more ground crossings to reach the safety of the next tree. In response, the Costa Rican government is working with local NGOs to establish biological corridors, including aerial bridges that reconnect their forest homes.
Bertie Gregory freeze-framed the moment fledgling emperor penguin chicks walk along the edge of an ice shelf.
Gregory spent two months with the penguin colony and witnessed most chicks using ice ramps to descend to sea level for food. But this group missed the easy way down.
Keeping his drone at a safe distance, he watched as they took a 49-foot leap into the water. Left to fend for themselves, emperor penguin chicks must find a way to make their first dip into the icy ocean to find food.
Scientists believe the continued decline of sea ice in Antarctica may force more penguins to breed on ice shelves, making this behaviour increasingly common in the future.
Leana Kuster shows a greater flamingo in the act of scratching its head with one of its unmistakably long legs.
While on holiday in southern France, Kuster had been watching flamingos in the Camargue. She was fascinated by their foraging behaviour as they moved gracefully through the shallow, saline wetlands, filter feeding for molluscs and crustaceans.
Flamingos use their tongues to force water through their specially adapted bills, which are lined with many rows of fine, comb-like plates. These help trap a species of brine shrimp called Artemia salina that gives the birds their famous pink hue.
Kesshav Vikram expresses the character of the remote wilderness of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East. Vikram waited days for this image to come together: a brown bear strolling along the shore of Kurile Lake as the Iliinsky volcano emerged from the clouds. A slaty-backed gull flies past, aligned with the volcano’s summit.
A generally solitary creature, this bear was heading to feast with others on the glut of sockeye salmon migrating upriver to their origin lake to spawn. This caldera lake, formed in the crater made by a volcanic eruption, is the largest sockeye salmon spawning ground in Eurasia.
Isaac Szabo watched longnose gars spawn in a crystal-clear Florida river. Wrapping his feet around a drowned tree, he photographed this female longnose gar with several males during the mating season. The presence of the turtle was “the icing on the cake,” as it “gives a sense of the whole ecosystem.”
This river is one of more than 1,000 waterways fed by freshwater springs renowned for their clarity. Maintaining the aquifers that supply these springs is vital not only for iconic wildlife such as manatees, but also for providing drinking water to nearly half of Florida.
Kutub Uddin spotted this line of alien-like slime molds on a fallen tree. Uddin found these blueberry-like spheres – the reproductive parts of a slime mold, each just one-to-two millimetres in diameter – in a nearby forest.
His image resembles a fantasy landscape, though he describes the scene as a “bizarre family portrait” complete with a tiny yellow insect egg.
A slime mold is a community of mobile single-celled, amoeba-like organisms that live independently until they come together and work as a unit to find food and reproduce.
Lakshitha Karunarathna reveals a solitary Asian elephant navigating a waste disposal site in Sri Lanka.
For over three years, Karunarathna has documented human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. This image is the result of months of meticulous observation at two open rubbish tips where herds regularly forage.
Around 20 elephants died over an eight-year period at a single site in Ampara after consuming indigestible food wrappers and other plastic waste. Alongside global efforts to reduce plastic use, conservationists stress the urgent need to secure landfills and prevent wildlife from accessing harmful materials.
Parham Pourahmad uses the morning light to frame the amber eyes of a male coyote within the black-tipped tail of a female.
Parham followed this pair – a female and possibly her brother – for a couple of hours across the rocky hillside, quickly framing his image before the male turned to nuzzle the female.
Coyotes can adapt to almost any habitat and are abundant across North America and into Central America. Once common in San Francisco, they had disappeared from the city but are now beginning to return. While they do scavenge food waste, their diet also includes rodents and other small mammals.
Ralph Pace found himself in the middle of a mass or ‘smack’ of Pacific sea nettles. To try to protect himself from stings while taking this photograph, he smeared petroleum jelly on any skin not covered by his wetsuit.
The trailing tentacles can deliver a painful sting, which Pace says feels more like that of a bee than a nettle.
Highly adaptable to warming seas, jellyfish are appearing in larger numbers. Some biologists argue that more frequent smacks are a sign of rising ocean temperatures. The removal of predators and competitors through overfishing is another contributing factor.
Sitaram Raul found himself among the chaos as fruit bats left their roost in the ruins of an historical monument.
Working in total darkness, Raul manually focused his lens at the distance where he guessed the bats might appear, relying on his flash to illuminate the scene. All the while, bats were, in his words, “randomly pooping on me and the camera.”
Old World fruit bats are common across southern Asia. During the day, they roost in cavities such as hollow trees, caves and deserted buildings. Raul says that “no matter how big our urban structures are, once we leave them, eventually nature reclaims its space.”
Jassen Todorov depicts the clouds reflected in salt ponds that span San Francisco Bay.
Flying his single-engine Piper Warrior into San Francisco International Airport, Todorov never tires of the changing colors of the ponds. On this occasion, he says, “the light during the golden hour, at sunset, was magnificent.”
The process of salt collection in the bay was industrialized in the 1800s. Since 2003, the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project has acquired nearly 15,000 acres. By removing artificial dykes, the project is recreating tidal marsh habitat, allowing salt-tolerant plants and wildlife to flourish once more.
The 62nd Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition opens for entries this year at 11.30am GMT on October 20 and closes at 11.30am GMT on December 4.