Golden Horseshoe Crab Takes Top Photo Honors
The UK’s Natural History Museum has announced its annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners. Top marks go to French marine biologist-photographer Laurent Ballesta, who captured on film a gold-colored horseshoe crab patrolling the sea floor off Pangatalan Island, Philippines, closely followed by three tiny golden trevally fish.
Vihaan Talya Vikas
Other category winners are photographically beautiful but can be tough to look at, as Death is omnipresent in many images: a school of tadpoles feasting on a dead fledgling sparrow; an aerial shot of killer whales about to eviscerate a Weddell seal, clinging futilely to an ice floe; an orca taking its last breath, beached on the Dutch-Belgian border. This is the essence of wildlife – wondrous, vital beauty side by side with some grim reaping.
Olivier Gonnet
It’s not all tooth-and-claw however, and we strongly recommend exploring the contest website, which has posted the top 100 images. Youth must be served apparently, because there are no less than three separate age categories younger than 18, starting with fledgling photographers 10 and under. Vihaan Talya Vikas is the youngest winner overall with his shot of an ornamental tree trunk spider dangling placidly next to a stone bas-relief of Krishna playing the flute.
Mike Korostelev
Photo credit: Laurent Ballesta / Wildlife Photographer of the Year
