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See 16 Stunning Animal Images From the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards

Now in its 62nd year, the famed competition has released a sneak peek of the entries from this contest ahead of announcing the winners in October

seen from below, a polar bear looks down into a hole in ice
seen from below, a polar bear looks down into a hole in ice
This might be the view a seal gets as it comes up from underwater to breathe: a polar bear, looking down for its prey. © Audun Rikardsen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

See 16 Stunning Animal Images From the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards

Now in its 62nd year, the famed competition has released a sneak peek of the entries from this contest ahead of announcing the winners in October

seen from below, a polar bear looks down into a hole in ice
This might be the view a seal gets as it comes up from underwater to breathe: a polar bear, looking down for its prey. © Audun Rikardsen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A polar bear peers through a hole in sea ice. A mosquito bites a snake. A clumsy young bullfrog lunges, unsuccessfully, for a butterfly.

These scenes and more have been honored in the 62nd Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London.

The judges have selected their 100 winning images, but the full set will not be announced until October. In the meantime, the world’s leading nature photography contest has revealed a selection of 16 images that offer a sneak peek of what’s to come.

“These images pave the way for a deepened appreciation and commitment to our natural world,” Kathy Moran, chair of the contest’s jury, says in a statement.

This year’s contest received 65,403 entries—a record-breaking amount for the museum—that were submitted by photographers in 121 countries and territories. The competition began in 1965 with only 361 entries, and today, it furthers the museum’s mission to “inspire a love of the natural world and create advocates for the planet.”

At the heart of the competition is its conservation mission. Many photos honored throughout the years capture a dark side of animal life, from habitat loss to trafficking for the illegal wildlife trade. In this new selection, for instance, a photograph depicts a bear trained for a circus performance in Qatar.

But beyond that, images of everyday moments in nature that typically play out far from the human eye reveal the beauty of and connections between creatures.

“At a time when nature is under more pressure than ever before, these photographs remind us of both what is at stake and what is worth protecting,” says Doug Gurr, director of London’s Natural History Museum, in the statement. The full collection will inspire in viewers “a renewed sense of wonder for our incredible planet.”

Here are the newly released images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest.

Urban Wanderer by Sora Miyazawa

against a blurred backdrop of a rainy city scene at night, a single brown frog sits atop a gutter and looks at the camera
After a rainfall, an eastern Japanese toad wanders through the streets of Tokyo. Even in a city of 14 million people, the amphibian finds a way to thrive. It was captured here with a slow shutter speed. © Sora Miyazawa / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A single toad might go unnoticed or unappreciated to many in the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, a city of more than 14 million residents. But to youth photographer Sora Miyazawa, who noticed this eastern Japanese toad after it hopped out from some bushes, the amphibian was the perfect subject for a photograph. This image, depicting the toad in front of the blurred lights of Tokyo Tower, is highly commended in the contest’s category for photographers between 11 and 14 years of age.

Calm Amid the Storm by Shane Gross

a group of silver-hued fish swims underwater in the lower half of the shot, with orange clouds above
A school of bigeye trevally gathers at the surface of the water. © Shane Gross / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Every morning at sunrise, photographer Shane Gross noticed this school of bigeye trevally swimming near the shore at D’Arros Island, Seychelles. He approached the animals with his camera upside-down to aid its buoyancy as he set up a split shot that captured the scenes both above and below water.

These fish enjoy the relative safety of a Marine Protected Area—the waters around D’Arros Island are legally safeguarded as a no-take zone for fishing as part of the worldwide effort to protect 30 percent of the planet’s land and waters by 2030.

In this protected zone, “the fish biomass is incredible,” Gross writes on Instagram. “In the long run, these areas also benefit fishers, because what could fishers want more than to see plenty of fish in the sea?”

Eye of the Storm by Dewald Tromp

a chameleon stands on sand as small sand particles blow around it
A Namaqua chameleon weathers a sandstorm in the Namib Desert. © Dewald Tromp / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

As photographer Dewald Tromp trained his lens on this Namaqua chameleon, he felt the wind pick up. In the Namib Desert, such a sandstorm is common, with wind blowing down from the mountains—but that didn’t make it feel any less extreme. “In a matter of seconds, you could hardly see the person next to you,” Tromp says in a statement. It became difficult to breathe.

Meanwhile, the lizard weathered the tiny particles that pelted against its skin. To withstand the harsh desert conditions, the chameleon is built to survive. Its skin collects water droplets from the air, and tiny grooves then channel that water toward the animal’s mouth.

Split-Second Escape by Jens Cullmann

a bullfrog jumps, legs splayed and tongue out, toward a butterfly but misses it
A young African bullfrog tries and fails to catch a butterfly. © Jens Cullmann / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

In the ponds and puddles of Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve, photographer Jens Cullmann watched a group of African bullfrogs “eat everything that moved,” he says in a statement. Or, at least, they tried to: Here, a young bullfrog lunges, tongue out, for an African babul blue butterfly—but it misses its prey.

Pooltime Pastime by Loren Elliott

a black bear sits in a residential pool, leaning against its wall and lifting a foot toward its head
A black bear sits in a residential pool in Monrovia, California, where human neighborhoods overlap with bear territory. © Loren Elliott / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

At a residential pool in Southern California, an unexpected bather sits beside floaties. Black bears frequently pass through this yard, and the owner knows he lives in “bear country.”

Loren Elliott watched through the kitchen window for hours, snapping pictures of the bears that stopped by. With this shot featuring the out-of-place swimmer, “I most like how it shows the very common overlap of wildlife and residential living in Los Angeles County,” Elliott says in a statement. The homeowner makes sure to keep windows shut and check that no food has been left outside.

The Art of Flying by Jack Crockford

a bird flies beneath an airplane; captured from below, they look to take the same shape
A common swift flies beneath an airplane, mirroring its shape. © Jack Crockford / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

As a plane approaches for landing at London’s Heathrow Airport, a common swift flies beneath it. Photographer Jack Crockford waited for just the right moment as migratory swifts passed by overhead and released high-pitched calls. The birds’ scythe-shaped wings mirror the wings of the plane, highlighting their aerodynamic maneuverability. This image was highly commended among submissions from 15- to 17-year-old entrants.

Icy Window by Audun Rikardsen

seen from below, a polar bear looks down into a hole in ice
This might be the view a seal gets as it comes up from underwater to breathe: a polar bear, looking down for its prey. © Audun Rikardsen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer and biologist Audun Rikardsen noticed a seal hole in the ice in Norway, made by the marine mammals so they can come up from the water for a breath. Around it, he spotted polar bear tracks. Figuring the predator might return, he drilled a nearby hole and sent his camera through it, situating the device beneath the seal-made opening.

After about eight hours of waiting, a polar bear approached the hole, setting off a motion sensor on the ice that activated the camera. The animal peered down into the water, waiting for its prey to surface.

Hidden Dragon by Gil Wizen

an insect blends into the green filaments of lichen
A lichen dragon katydid blends in with the surrounding lichen at Wildsumaco Biological Station in Ecuador. © Gil Wizen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Staring through a viewfinder, entomologist and photographer Gil Wizen found it hard to distinguish the lichen from this lichen dragon katydid, which was only three-fifths of an inch long.

The species is found only in Ecuador’s Andes Mountains, and it has a spiny armor to offer protection from predators, giving it the “dragon” part of its name.

Mutual Friends by Ernest Porter

a red-billed oxpecker sits on a rhino's forehead, rubbing its beak against the mammal's skin
A red-billed oxpecker sits on a rhino’s forehead at Manyeleti Game Reserve in South Africa, rubbing the side of its bill against the mammal’s skin. © Ernest Porter / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A red-billed oxpecker cleans its beak against a white rhino’s skin. In a herd of rhinos accompanied by the social birds, photographer Ernest Porter was captivated by this rhino in particular, drawn to the subtle blue ring in its eye.

In Swahili, the red-billed oxpecker’s name means “the rhino’s guard.” The birds can alert the herds to the presence of other dangerous animals or poachers. They eat insect parasites off the rhino’s skin, though they also drink its blood, making their interspecies relationship less straightforward than once thought.

Lifted to the Surface by Vegard Byrkjeland Aasen

two orcas swim, one carrying a dead calf
Two orcas swim in a Norwegian fjord, one of them carrying a dead calf at the surface. © Vegard Byrkjeland Aasen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

An adult orca carried a deceased calf, holding it at the surface then periodically dropping and retrieving it as it sank. Photographer Vegard Byrkjeland Aasen watched the scene play out in a Norwegian fjord. Though it was hard to witness this interaction, the photographer felt it would be “important to document the moment.”

Wings of Darkness by Andrew Parkinson

a black vulture perches on a caiman carcass in water, spreading its white-tipped wings
Over a caiman carcass, a black vulture spreads its white-tipped wings. © Andrew Parkinson / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

In Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, scavengers vie for the chance to eat from a caiman carcass. This black vulture spread its wings, revealing its “menacing nature,” photographer Andrew Parkinson says in a statement. A jaguar waited, out of frame, until the bird left, then came in to retrieve the caiman.

But it might not have been a jaguar that killed the caiman in the first place. Parkinson speculates that a “suspiciously clean, straight wound” on the reptile’s head had been caused by a motorized boat.

Biting Back by Andrea and Maceo Grammatico

close-up of a brown snake's face, with a mosquito on top
A mosquito bites the head of a venomous fer-de-lance viper in Costa Rica. © Andrea and Maceo Grammatico / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The highly venomous fer-de-lance viper is the highest source of fatal snake bites in Central America. But even it can suffer a bite, as seen here, from a little mosquito.

Twin photographers Andrea and Maceo Grammatico worked together to create a “focus stack”—an image that combines several photos, each focused on a slightly different area, to create a result that appears crisp and clear throughout the foreground and background. They say in a statement that this was “one of the most demanding focus stacks we’ve ever created.”

The Show Goes On by Pietro Rojas

a brown bear, muzzled, rides a three-wheeled bike in front of a circus performer
A brown bear rides a small motorcycle in a circus ring. © Pietro Rojas / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

In many places, animal acts have been banned from circus performances. But photographer Pietro Rojas noticed that a circus featuring animals was going to be in Doha, Qatar, and he decided to photograph it.

There, he found a brown bear, muzzled and strapped to a bike. Such demonstrations are common when bears are in a circus, but the unnatural body position can contribute to health problems. “The contrast between the wild nature of the animal and the human environment imposed upon it” stood out to Rojas, he says in a statement.

Up a Tree Without a Squirrel by Allegra Hutton

in a black and white image, a leopard on the back side of a tree climbs toward a squirrel that's looking down at it
In the Okavango Delta of Botswana, a young leopard attempts to chase a squirrel up a tree. © Allegra Hutton / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A young leopard learning to hunt attempts to chase a squirrel up a tree. Photographer Allegra Hutton first watched the clumsy young predator as it tried and failed to catch a rabbit. Then, in pursuit of a squirrel, it started to climb. But soon enough, the rodent escaped into the tree’s upper limbs, and the leopard had to retreat backward down the trunk.

Ocean Protector by Ralph Pace

a red sea slug glides through a seagrass meadow
A sea slug glides through an eelgrass meadow in Monterey Bay, California. © Ralph Pace / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Along coasts, eelgrass often anchors the marine ecosystem—it serves as the basis of the food chain and acts as a carbon sink. But in Monterey Bay, California, algae can grow on the eelgrass itself, blocking sunlight to the plants.

This sea slug, known as a sea hare, is an ocean protector, in a sense. By eating the microscopic algae, it can provide a breath of life to the eelgrass. Moving in the evening light, this sea hare can be seen as “a gentle giant safeguarding the last green meadows of the sea,” photographer Ralph Pace says in a statement.

Flock of Gold by Bence Máté

dozens of birds fly in golden light. Silhouettes of large African mammals are in the background
A group of red-billed queleas descends upon a pond for a drink. © Bence Máté / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

In flocks numbering more than two million, red-billed queleas fly above sub-Saharan Africa, gathering in dense groups that might look like a plume of smoke from a distance. The species is thought to be the most abundant wild bird in the world. They nest in crowded colonies, with hundreds to possibly thousands of nests in a single tree.

Bence Máté witnessed this bounty of birds in Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park. In the golden afternoon light, the red-billed queleas descended upon a small pond to drink. The photographer stood roughly 100 feet away, but he could still “feel the rush of air from tens of thousands of wings beating in unison.”

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