The winners of the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year have been announced, with American photographer Michael 'Nick' Nichols taking first place with his snap of resting cubs in the Serengeti National Park. The exhibition is now on at the National History Museum.
Stinger In The Sun, Carlos Perez Naval (Spain) – winner and overall young photographer of the year, 10 Years and Under
Carlos found it basking on a flat stone in a rocky area near his home in Torralba de los Sisones, northeast Spain – also a place that he goes to look for reptiles.
Green Dragon, Will Jenkins (UK) – finalist, 11-14 Years
Relaxing by the hotel at the end of a Costa Rican family holiday, Will was planning on a day hanging out by the pool and surfing – that was until the green iguana jumped down from the hotel roof.
The Long Embrace, Anton Lilja (Sweden) – winner, 15-17 Years
Hearing that masses of common frogs were gathering in a flooded gravel pit near his home in Västerbotten, Sweden, Anton set out to photograph the mating spectacle.
Snowbird, Edwin Sahlin (Sweden) – finalist, 15-17 Years
Cheese and sausage are what Siberian jays like – so Edwin discovered on a skiing holiday with his family in northern Sweden. Whenever they stopped for lunch, he would photograph the birds that gathered in hope of scraps.
Touché, Jan van der Greef (The Netherlands) – finalist, birds
A focus of Jan’s trip to Ecuador was the astonishing sword-billed hummingbird – the only bird with a bill longer than its body (excluding its tail).
Apocalypse, Francisco Negroni (Chile) – winner, earth's environments
Straight after the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcanic complex began erupting, Francisco travelled to Puyehue National Park in southern Chile, anticipating a spectacular light show. But what he witnessed was more like an apocalypse.
The Last Great Picture, Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols (USA) – winner, and overall photographer of the year, Black and White
Nick set out to create an archetypal image that would express both the essence of lions and how we visualise them – a picture of a time past, before lions were under such threat. Here, the five females of the Vumbi pride – a ‘formidable and spectacularly cooperative team’ – lie at rest with their cubs on a kopje (a rocky outcrop), in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.
The Price They Pay, Bruno D'Amicis (Italy) – winner, World In Our Hands
A teenager from a village in southern Tunisia offers to sell a three-month-old fennec fox, one of a litter of pups he dug out of their den in the Sahara Desert. Catching or killing wild fennec foxes is illegal in Tunisia but widespread, which Bruno discovered as part of a long-term project to investigate the issues facing endangered species in the Sahara.
The Longline Lottery, Rodrigo Friscione Wyssmann (Mexico) – finalist, World In Our Hands
It had clearly been a monumental struggle: the young great white shark’s jaw jutted out at an ugly angle, evidence of how it had fought to escape from the hook before finally suffocating.
