People’s Choice: Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026
© Nima Sarikhani / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
The Final Portrait. A polar-bear cub looks into the camera as it accompanies its mother on an unsuccessful hunting trip. There’s a sad story behind this picture, taken on the coast of the Svalbard archipelago. Soon after it was taken, the polar bear and its family went too close to an area of huts, and people forced them away. Not long after, the mother bear was found dead in the water near the shore. According to reports, she had died from serious internal injuries. Her cub was by her side. Police shot it dead because it seemed to be aggressive. This is likely the last image of the cub.
© Joseph Ferraro / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Ready to Pounce. An ambush bug nymph remains motionless in a flower, waiting for prey to wander within reach. Joseph spotted this nymph close to his front door in Ferndale, Michigan. Ambush bugs are predatory. They stay still, waiting to surprise prey that ventures too close.
© Dustin Chen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Marvelous Spatuletail. A male marvelous spatuletail hummingbird shows off its long tail while it feeds on flowers. Chen spent two weeks watching birds at Huembo Lodge in Pomacochas, Peru.
© Cecile Gabillon / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Swirling Superpod. A spectacular superpod of spinner dolphins herds lantern fish toward the surface of the ocean. Gabillon was free diving in the Pacific Ocean, near Costa Rica, when she came across the dolphins.
© Lalith Ekanayake / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Bond in Motion. The striking eyes of a curious lion-tailed macaque and its infant are on display as it races along a path. Ekanayake was exploring the city of Valparai in the Western Ghats, India. He was surprised to come face-to-face with these macaques.
© Kohei Nagira / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Never-ending Struggle. A sika deer carries the interlocked severed head of a rival male that had died after their battle. In autumn, male sika deer fight over females by clashing their antlers. This deer won the fight, but their antlers became tightly locked and wouldn’t come apart. A local fisherman says the deer dragged the whole body for several days before finally tearing off its head. Nagira observed the deer on Notsuke Peninsula in Hokkaido, Japan, from late November 2020 to April 2021. It was living alone, yet it continued to forage for grass and branches and managed to survive the winter.
© Peter Lindel / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
A Leap into Adulthood. Three young kestrels prepare to leap from their nest to a nearby beam. From April to July 2023, Lindel observed and photographed a pair of common kestrels. He witnessed moments from their courting until the time their young left the nest. He took this picture from his living room in Dortmund, Germany. It shows the moment when the young kestrels appear to be thinking about how to reach the beam, which was only 80 centimeters (31 inches) away. It took them nearly a week to pluck up the courage and take the leap. They then explored around the outside of his house for another week before leaving.
© Charles Davis / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Above and Below. A brushtail possum joey mirrors its mother climbing a branch while out foraging. For more than a month, Davis set up a camera trap on this branch in Miena, Tasmania. He was hoping to photograph quolls. In the end, the cheeky brushtail possums were the stars. This mother and large joey visited often. Most nights, they were just moving through, foraging for fresh leaf buds, insects, or anything else they could eat. This time, the joey got a little mischievous, mirroring its mother on top of the branch.
© Ponlawat Thaipinnarong / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Beak-to-Beak. A sarus crane parent shares an intimate and moving moment with its one-week-old chick. Thaipinnarong watched the sarus cranes and their chicks in the rice paddies in Huai Chorakhe Mak Non-Hunting Area in Buri Ram, Thailand. To avoid disturbing the birds, he would lay still for several hours a day while he watched. In the evenings, after the adults had fed their chicks, they rested on their nests. The parent of this one-week-old chick carefully cleaned it. Then, in a moment of intimacy, it made beak-to-beak contact and moved its beak around the chick’s for a while.
© Lance van de Vyver / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
A Fragile Future. A pangolin pup nestles into the warmth of a blanket at a rescue center in South Africa. Pangolins are among the world’s most trafficked animals. This baby’s mother was a victim of poaching and endured appalling conditions. But she was rescued and, against the odds, her baby was born. Shortly after, the mother died.
© Lior Berman / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
A Fleeting Moment. An elusive rufous-vented ground cuckoo plucks up a cicada in the depths of the rainforest in Costa Rica. Silent and sharp-eyed, it follows columns of army ants. It doesn’t want to feed on the ants, but on insects and small creatures fleeing the swarm. Here, it locks onto a cicada frozen in fear.
© Christopher Paetkau / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Family Rest. A mother polar bear and her three cubs pause peacefully in the summer heat. This type of scene is getting rarer. The sun is high, the land wide and open. The polar bears rest after their long journey north along the Hudson Bay coast in Canada. Shrinking sea ice is making it harder for polar bears to hunt and find food to survive in summer.
© Daniela Anger / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Uniqueness. A leucistic otter feeds on a catfish in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. On holiday in the southern Pantanal, Anger was keen to see the neotropical river otters that live in the Aquidauana River. After many boat trips, she spotted this otter feeding on a catfish. It has leucism, a lack of melanin, resulting in pale or white fur. Animals with this condition can be more vulnerable as they don’t have their normal camouflage.
© Francesco Russo / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Solar Waves. Rows of solar panels stretch across the landscape like ripples on a water’s surface. This solar farm is in the land surrounding the hamlet of Cambridge, in England. The panels had to be carefully organized around the divisions between pastures. The result is a pattern that resembles the shapes of bodies of water. This image is part of a project to document the relationship between nature and industry along the River Severn, which flows near this solar farm.
© Chris Gug / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Along for the Ride. Against the darkness of the nighttime sea, a juvenile swimming crab hitches a ride on a jellyfish. Chris spotted this scene while scuba diving at night in Lembeh Strait, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The relationship between the crab and the jellyfish is not clearly understood. The crab could be catching a ride to save energy, using the stinging tentacles as protection from predators, or using the jellyfish as a platform to spy out small fish to eat.
© Josef Stefan / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Flying Rodent. A young lynx playfully throws a rodent into the air before killing and devouring it. Stefan has wanted to photograph lynxes for a long time. He was delighted when the opportunity arose to spend two weeks observing them from a hide at Torre de Juan Abad, Ciudad Real, Spain. It’s common for young lynxes to play with their prey before killing it. This one repeatedly threw the rodent high in the air and caught it again. The whole game lasted about 20 minutes before the lynx got bored. It then took the rodent behind a bush and ate it.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London. Captions are provided by the photographers and WPY organizers, and are lightly edited for style.