A spectral view of a brown hyena before a long-forsaken structure.
A chilling portrayal of a brown hyena (Parahyaena brunnea) stalking amid the wreckage of a defunct diamond extraction settlement in Namibia has triumphed at this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest.
“I committed several seasons attempting to photograph them at daybreak and nightfall from adjacent constructions, but to no avail,” van den Heever stated to Live Science via electronic correspondence. “Ultimately, I opted for camera traps, meticulously situating them where hyenas might tread. After approximately a decade of endurance and perseverance, I finally seized the picture — a brown hyena meandering through the hushed remnants.”
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Brown hyenas, also known as strand wolves, are recognized by their coarse brown pelts, tapered ears, and singular manes. Their worldwide census is approximated to be a mere 4,000 creatures, predominantly localized in the barren sectors of Namibia, Botswana, and portions of South Africa.
Brown hyenas are known to traverse Kolmanskop whilst en route to forage for Cape fur seal pups or scavenge for lifeless beings swept onto the Namib Desert coastline, as per a declaration issued by the competition facilitators.
“Over the years, I’d observed brown hyena tracks and scat in the ghost town of Kolmanskop neighboring Lüderitz, and I discerned they frequented its ghostly, sand-laden avenues,” van den Heever expressed. “It evolved into my ambition to document one navigating through this haunting, deserted locality.”
The depiction was also granted top honors in the Urban Wildlife division. “You gain a tingling sensation simply by eyeing this portrait and you acknowledge that you’re in this hyena’s dominion, ” Kathy Moran, Chairperson of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Jury relayed in the affirmation. “I similarly cherish the variation on this take of ‘urban’ — it previously was but is presently no longer a human-reigned environment.”
Now in its 61st iteration, the contest, orchestrated by the Natural History Museum in London, amassed its loftiest volume of submissions ever this annum — a record-smashing aggregate of 60,636 entries from 113 nations and regions. Here are several of our favorites.
Qingrong Yang (China) masters photographic timing to showcase a ladyfish seizing its quarry precisely beneath this little egret’s mandible.
In a flawlessly timed image, lensman Qingrong Yang documented the instant a ladyfish (Elops saurus) plundered its meal beneath the plunging physique of a small egret (Egretta garzetta) at Yundang Lake. Once a torpid, tainted harbor in China, the lake has undergone conversion into a booming ecological community courtesy of an engineering enterprise reestablishing its connection to the ocean. The spectacular shot clinched the foremost accolade in the Birds segment.
Dennis Stogsdill (USA) witnesses a caracal hunting a lesser flamingo in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.
This mesmerizing depiction of a lesser flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor) clasped in the fangs of a carnivorous wildcat identified as a caracal (Caracal caracal) at the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, garnered triumph in the Mammal Behavior group.
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“The chronicle of this snapshot is one of fortuitous chance,” photographer Dennis Stogsdill informed Live Science in an electronic missive. “We had been alerted to the presence of a serval [Leptailurus serval] proximate to the lake and we hastened over simply because a companion wished to observe one.”
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However, upon Stogsdill’s arrival at the locale, he was greeted by a caracal alternatively.
“Mere moments afterwards it commenced to tail the flamingoes,” he divulged. “Thus, while the bulk of wildlife imagery entails substantial patience and forethought this was virtually as auspicious as one can attain.”
Caracals are predominantly nocturnal, signifying that witnessing one preying on flamingoes in full daylight is particularly exceptional — a conduct that has likely never been immortalized prior, Stogsdill incorporated.
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Georgina Steytler (Australia) spotlights the peculiar headwear of a gum-leaf skeletoniser caterpillar.(Image credit: Georgina Steytler (Australia)/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)
Javier Aznar González de Rueda (Spain) explores the complex relationship between humans and rattlesnakes across the United States.(Image credit: Javier Aznar González de Rueda (Spain)/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)
Jamie Smart (UK) spots an orb weaver spider inside its silken retreat on a cold September morning.(Image credit: Jamie Smart (UK)/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)
Other remarkable portrayals encompass a poisonous gum-leaf skeletoniser larva (Uraba lugens), dubbed the “Mad Hatterpillar”, flaunting towering cranial decoration; hundreds of western diamondback rattlers (Crotalus atrox) aggregated in a cavity for an annual rattlesnake roundup in Sweetwater, Texas; and an orb weaver arthropod (belonging to the spider family Araneidae) nestled in a damp, silky burrow.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year is crafted and brought forth by the Natural History Museum, London.
Elise PooreSocial Links NavigationEditorial assistant
Elise studied marine biology at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K. She has worked as a freelance journalist focusing on the aquatic realm.
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Grumpy-looking Pallas’s cat photographed by camera trap in stunning photo from eastern Himalayas
Microscopic baby sea urchin crawling with tubed feet is among video winners of Nikon Small World in Motion competition
Sourse: www.livescience.com
