Newly Released Wildlife Images Winners Of BigPicture Photo Competition

From the beautiful to the bizarre, the winners of the annual BigPicture Nature World photo competition by the California Academy of Sciences celebrate some of the world’s best photographers and the year’s most striking images of nature.

The BigPicture Nature World Photography contest, now in its 12th year, strives to inspire viewers to value and protect the remarkable diversity of life on Earth. It welcomes high-quality nature, wildlife and conservation images and is open to all photographers around the world.

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Judged by a panel of nature and conservation photography experts, the competition’s winning images and finalists highlighting Earth’s biodiversity and the many threats our planet faces, win cash prizes and are exhibited at the California Academy of Sciences.

A bold mother lemur leaping across a dangerous ravine captured by photographer Zhou Donglin took the overall Grand Prize of the 2025 competition. Taken in Madagascar at the end of the dry season, the courageous lemur risks a harrowing jump from a towering cliff to another — carrying her baby along for the ride.

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Whether it’s Donglin scrambling up a rocky peak to photograph the lemur or Kat Zhou, the winner of the Aquatic category, returning to a dive spot to photograph a female octopus giving her own life for her children, each photographer sacrifices to take the image they are after,” the organizers explain.

Overall Winner BigPicture Photo Competition

Lemurs are remarkably lithe creatures. With long tails providing balance and powerful, slender limbs outfitted with opposable thumbs and toes, they move with ease through the craggy limestone spires of western Madagascar’s Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park.

Here, a common brown lemur leaps a over a 100-foot ravine, from one towering cliffside to another, with a baby clinging to her back.

After a day of persistence on the photographer’s part and under the glowing gold of the late evening light, her patience paid off when this plucky primate emerged onto the scene, likely leading the troop in search of food.

Ordinarily brown lemurs have no set dominance hierarchy, with groups composed of males and females, old and young alike. But it appeared clear to this photographer that the focal lemur was the leader of the pack. This daring animal navigated her group deftly through the sharp peaks and crevices of the stone forest, resulting in the immortalization of this leap.

In November, when this photo was taken, animals and plants in Tsingy de Bemaraha are nearing the end of a long dry season. After months of minimal rainfall, brown lemurs shift their diets from various fruit to the watery leaves of low-growing plants. This change comes at a vulnerable time for female lemurs, mere weeks after they’ve given birth. With their babies still nursing and unable to travel on their own, the mothers must strike out in search of sufficient water and nutrients — even if that quest requires a bold leap or two along the way.

In Land And Water Winners

It’s believed that the Arctic wolves of Ellesmere Island don’t fear humans because they are neither hunted by nor habituated to them. This proved to be the case when, after 12 days of traveling by dogsled and snowmobile to get to the northern part of the island in Canada’s far north, photographer Amit Eshel could get within striking distance and was suddenly approached by a pack of wolves.

While documenting them, the photographer was surprised at how close they came, noting that at times they were almost touching him and he could smell their breath.

While this may seem nerve-wracking, he believes they were simply curious and did not see him as a food source. Due to frequent subzero temperatures and remote, arctic conditions, not much definitive is known about these striking creatures and their behavior patterns. But such stories of curious, even playful, wolf encounters on Ellesmere aren’t uncommon.

Only about 200 Arctic wolves live on Ellesmere, which is roughly the size of Great Britain. Eshel hopes that the image illustrates the playfulness of these oft-feared predators — particularly in a place where human persecution hasn’t compromised their natural curiosity.

Photographed during a particularly dry and hot period, an adorable baby African elephant cools off on the riverbank after a long day of walking. The older elephants surround it, allowing the youngster to relax and play in the water while being protected from crocodiles lurking nearby. Staying close to mom however eliminates the danger.

A familiar scene in an unlikely climate, a puma stalks a group of guanacos in a snowy Chilean terrain.

Closely related to llamas, guanacos are camelids that have rich red blood cells, allowing them to withstand low oxygen levels at the high altitudes where they’re known to live. Though not considered endangered, in this particular park their previously stark population has made a comeback in the last 30 years, allowing the pictured puma to thrive off their herds.

While octopuses may be known for their ability to change color and shape, their reproductive strategies are equally versatile. Some of the world’s 300 or so octopus species are monogamous, others polyamorous. Some mate beak to beak, sucker to sucker, while others prefer to keep their distance.

Male blanket octopuses, for instance, load up a modified arm with sperm, then detach and pass it off to a female. Once they’ve mated, the females of some species deposit hundreds of thousands of tiny eggs that hatch into larvae and drift on ocean currents for weeks or months before metamorphosing into juveniles.

The Caribbean reef octopus pictured here, however, broods just a few hundred large eggs, tucked into a pipe, perhaps a remnant of a shipwreck. Once she lays her eggs, the female stops eating and guards her growing offspring day and night, which means that this incredible invertebrate will die shortly after the eggs hatch.

Her babies will emerge as fully developed, miniature versions of their parents, ready to change color, squirt ink, hunt for food and live as small but full-fledged octopuses in the shallow seas around the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.

Photographer Zhou returned four times to capture the mother’s determination to protect her young when they’re most vulnerable. She hopes her work inspires empathy for marine life, including an animal whose behaviors differ wildly from our own but whose maternal instincts are entirely familiar.

Two reef manta rays engaged in a dinner dance. These rays famously feed in two ways: The first is called cyclone feeding, where hundreds of rays gather in high-density food areas, circling to form a large swirl of predator and prey. This image displays the second way rays feed, a process called barrel rolling. The rays swim with their mouths open, circling backwards in the same spot to feed on as many small fish and plankton as possible.

Winged Photo Competition Winners

At dusk, a family of six Honduran white bats roost on the underside of a leaf, preparing to take off in search of their dinner. As the first one departs, we’re given a look at its nearly translucent wingspan, a feature often overlooked due to its unique facial features and iconic white fur.

One of the smallest fruit-eating bats in the world, it’s roughly the size of a golf ball and the weight of a quarter. Even with its wings outstretched, the diminutive species only reaches around four inches.

As one of the more enigmatic species found near the La Selva Biological Research Station in Costa Rica, this species works in teams, biting from the edges toward the mid-rib until the foliage falls in on itself, forming a simple tent that resembles an upside-down V. Groups of four to six bats will nestle together in these verdant shelters to rest until nightfall, when they venture out to find their preferred food – figs.

Honduran white bats don’t just build their own shelters — they also help shape the forests they inhabit.

While watching several mammal species – including an African bush elephant — gather at a small pond to drink, a massive flock of Red-billed queleas birds suddenly descend.

While documenting the breathtaking, swirling mass of birds, the photographer notes that he could feel the rush of air from tens of thousands of wings beating in unison, even from nearly 100 feet away.

This image showcases the maternal instincts of a grey-headed flying-fox as she glides through a canopy with her baby in tow. The largest bat in Australia, grey-headed flying fox mothers keep their pups attached until they become too heavy to carry (at about four to five weeks), and are then left with other pups in ‘crèching’ trees, where they wait for their mothers to return at dawn after spending the night looking for food. They remain until they’re strong enough to forage for themselves.

Those initial weeks of attachment are brief and rarely documented in flight.

This species is currently listed as vulnerable to extinction, with significant threats including continued habitat destruction and climate-change related events. Grey-headed flying foxes are vital for forest ecosystem health along the coast of Australia, assisting as “night gardeners” of more than 100 plant species by helping seed dispersal and pollination.

Individuals have been recorded as travelling more than 1,600 miles in a single year.

The unexpected beauty of a Common housefly as it shines like a jewel while covered in morning dew.

This image is part of The World of Familiar Insects, Photo Story. It was taken in backyard taken in various locations in Japan.

It’s an undeniable fact that insects live close to humans at all times, but sometimes they are so small we may not even notice them. And even when we do notice them, they’re often met with disgust and derision.

In this series taken in the photographer’s native Japan, we’re given an unexpected look into the lives of bugs, in which the photographer uses his own customized lens to capture unique, up-close images of diversely colorful and impressive species.

The fly won’t be able to fly off until the dew drops evaporate and it completely dries off.

Black rhinos once thrived in Kenya. But rampant poaching in the 1970s and 80s drove them to near extinction.

Government intervention and conservancy efforts have led to a modest rebound over the past 30 years thanks to anti-poaching enforcement and large-scale sanctuaries. But the work serving the current populations can be arduous and challenging – demonstrated here as the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) team can be seen springing into action after a rhino reacted badly to anesthesia. Black rhinos can weigh as much as a small sedan and are known to gore people, which makes moving them a daunting task.

Officials from the Kenya Wildlife Service undertook a massive mission: translocating 21 black rhinoceroses to a region where they hadn’t lived for half a century when Kenya’s 16 existing rhino sanctuaries became too crowded.

Black rhinos suffering from overcrowding is one sign of an improbable success: Kenya’s black rhino population plummeted from 20,000 individuals in the 1970s to fewer than 300 by the 1980s, mirroring the species’ plight across central and eastern Africa as poachers killed the animals for their horns.

Today, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists black rhinos as critically endangered.

Photographer Ami Vitale was documenting the translocation of this female from the
OI Pejeta Conservancy in central Kenya to the Loisaba Conservancy in the north when the rhino reacted poorly to anesthesia and stopped breathing. Veterinarians and handlers initiated a special resuscitation for large animals and administered drugs to reverse the effects of the anesthetic, saving the animal’s life.

Vitale says this image captured the moment the rhino recovered speaks to the danger that people are willing to face to bring back an imperiled species.

The Art Of Nature Photo Competition

When wind blows across the ocean’s surface, it forms a wave. A single wave can travel thousands of miles before breaking on land. For example, some waves generated off the coast of New Zealand roll all the way to the West Coast of North America, taking up to two weeks to reach their final destination.

And while small waves can move as slowly as five miles per hour, tsunamis in the middle of the Pacific Ocean reach speeds of 600 miles per hour.

As they move across the planet, waves transport nutrients, plankton, and other building blocks of marine life. They also carry larger animals, including baby sea turtles, who use waves to orient themselves perpendicular to the shore as they push out to sea after hatching on beaches.

People, too, use waves to navigate. Some Pacific Islanders are reviving a traditional practice called ‘wave piloting’, in which navigators chart a course in part by feeling the waves beneath their boat.

Waves also impact life on land, tossing sediment onto shore that eventually becomes beaches and dunes where shorebirds and other wildlife find refuge. In Germany, where photographer Sandra Bartocha made this long-exposure image at sunrise, waves deposit up to 13 feet of sand per year in some locations and erode more than eight feet per year in others.

A ghost goby conspicuously camouflages against coral. While small and unassuming, these cryptic fish are abundant and protein-rich, making them a critical part of reef food chains. But they’ve evolved naturally to evade predators. The ghost goby in particular, being partially translucent, can blend perfectly with surrounding coral.

Landscapes, Waterscapes

A frozen lake photographed from a drone showcases one of nature’s unblinking eyes, freckled by the footsteps of creatures unknown. I

n this image, we’re likely seeing the process in action of how lakes freeze from the perimeter to the center. This explains the staggered transition of coloration from snow, to ice, then ultimately open water.

Taken in the photographer’s hometown in the southern Polish city of Rybnik, the image would have been nearly impossible to take and it could become impossible again: Rybnik is one of Poland’s largest producers of coal, and with that abundance has come rampant consumption. Until recently, most homes and residential buildings burned coal for heat, cloaking the city in a thick layer of pollution and giving it the unenviable title of the “smog capital of Poland.”

In 2010 alone, Rybnik experienced 130 days where the pollution was both hazardous and visible to the naked eye. Such smoggy conditions aren’t conducive to the kind of drone-based photography that Marcin Giba uses in his work.

Fed up with the government’s inaction, a group of residents created Polish Smog Alert, an advocacy organization pushing for legislation to suppress the smog. Since their formation a decade ago, the group has helped enact policies that have replaced nearly 10,000 coal boilers across the city.

Rybnik has experienced 11 years of above-average winter temperatures, leading to scarcer snowfall and fewer frozen lakes each year, prompting the photographer’s conclusion: “I feel that I’m documenting a vanishing beauty.”

In September, 2024, southeastern Morocco experienced a rare Sahara Desert flood caused by an extratropical cyclone. Villages including Tagounite were inundated with more than four inches of rain within just 24 hours, leading to flash floods that disrupted infrastructure and daily life.

The deluge dramatically transformed the arid landscape, even filling Lake Iriqui — a dry lake bed untouched for more than 50 years.

This extraordinary event highlights the growing impact of climate change as rising global temperatures increase atmospheric moisture and fuel extreme weather events. These changes are reshaping the Sahara Desert’s environment, underscoring the urgent need for climate action to address intensifying weather patterns and their effects on fragile ecosystems.

See all the winners and finalists of the BigPicture Nature World photo competition categories here. The 2026 competition will open for entries on December 1, 2025.

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