20 Winning Images From the 2026 World Nature Photography Awards That Turn Wildlife Into Art
When science meets art, nature happens. This year’s winning gallery of the 2026 World Nature Photography Awards is bubbling with images that depict this marriage of the two, wrapped in dramatic storytelling. A gorilla-butterfly encounter illustrates the beauty of relationships. The dark-skinned gorilla concentrates its intense, enlightened gaze upon the peppy little butterfly as it flutters carefree. The unflinching gaze of a protective lion mom is just as fierce as the gaze of this gorilla, which is tender. Meanwhile, a tiny creature enrobes itself in a silk cocoon, ready for metamorphosis. The grand prize, however, goes to Mãhina, the white humpback calf, as it adds another cherished memory to its family album.
1. Gold Winner of Underwater and Grand Prize Winner: Jono Allen, Australia
Inside the deep-indigo waters of Tonga, a white humpback whale calf glides blissfully, riding on top of its black-bodied mom. Its name, “Mãhina,” translates to moon, something that her body mimics as it glows like a beam of light in the deep water.
2. Animal Portraits – Gold: Mary Schrader, US
Beneath the lush canopy of Bwindi, Uganda, Schrader spotted this young female gorilla exhibiting an expression of what looks like enlightened compassion. The silver-black portrait of the gorilla is soon complemented with a burst of color as a marigold-colored butterfly comes closer. Sharing a moment of curiosity and oneness, the gorilla gazes at the little creature, the tender, sunny glow of her gentle eyes reflecting in the dance of the butterfly.
3. Animal Portraits – Bronze: Elizabeth Yicheng Shen, Taiwan/US
In a photograph that Shen titled “Determination,” the unwavering gaze of a lioness states, with unrelenting intensity, that as long as she’s there, no one can touch her cub. As she pounds her paws on the grounds of Mara North Conservancy in Kenya, her tan golden eyes cast this gaze at the observer, whiskers proud and regal. Dangling from her mouth is the cub, its trusting eyes closed, evidence of staunch confidence in its fierce mom.
4. Behavior – Mammals – Gold: Vadehi Chandrasekar, Singapore
On the dry Makgadikgadi soils of Botswana, a lone giraffe delights himself in a playful “water ballet” game at sundown. Arriving at the water spot, it bent its long legs, lowered its neck, and dipped its mouth to have some sips. The water might have soothed its soul, for it lifted its head in an abrupt motion, swishing an arc of water. The droplets danced in the air, zillions of shimmering golden dots pirouetting in a circle and then raining down to settle back to where they were picked up from.
5. Behavior – Mammals – Silver: Michael Stavrakakis, Australia
It’s time for a “Bear Hug,” an apt title to record a moment of loving embrace shared by two tawny-furred polar bears on a stretch of icy water flecked here and there with ice floes. Stavrakakis, an Australian school teacher, captured this scene in Svalbard.
6. Behavior – Mammals – Bronze: Paul Goldstein, United Kingdom
A monochrome masterpiece, recorded in Alaska’s waters, traps a towering spray of water shooting above the surface, casting a blinding haze over the silhouettes of backdropping mountains. Just the tail of the a humpback whale appears, poking out of the surface.
7. Behavior – Amphibians and reptiles – Gold: Dewald Tromp, South Africa
Glaring temperatures, no water, battering sandstorms; South Africa’s Namib Desert might be an inhospitable place for most of the life, but this Namaqua chameleon has learned to survive despite the odds. The environment is extreme, harsh, and dusty. A monstrous storm is bombarding it with pebbles, its lips pressed together, pupils almost closed, and a deadpan face showing hints of torment it can’t avoid. But as long as it finds a tiny beetle to munch on or some dewdrops to squeeze out from the leaves, the suffering won’t matter too much. Perhaps, this is what they call “Stoicism in the storm.”
8. Behavior – Invertebrates – Gold: Minghui Yuan, China
For a caterpillar in China, the time has come for metamorphosis. As it prepares to resurrect, all animation suspends and fades behind a silk web it has woven around its body as a cocoon. Locked inside the cocoon, the moss moth larvae hangs mid-air, almost defying gravity. In the coming months, it will bite off the toxic hairs and construct a house with its sticky saliva to fend off attacks from wasps and ants, eventually emerging from the cocoon, wings bursting out for the first flight.
9. Behavior – Birds – Gold: Fenqiang Liu, US
Liu happened to be in Florida’s Kraft Azalea Garden at the right time. It was spring, the time when egrets prepare for romance. Under the boundless sky, they grow long and waving plumes on their backs, signaling readiness to their mates. On a turquoise background, an egret appears fanning its majestic plumage in front of a tree branch, sprinkled with white flowers.
10. People and Nature – Gold: Deena Sveinsson, US
Sveinsson’s piece might make the viewer confused about who the wildlife photographer really is here. On a sage flat in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, a bull moose ventured out to have its morning breakfast of bitter brush. After eating for about 10 minutes, it decided to go for a walk and stumbled upon the camera and tripod abandoned by the photographers in haste. The photo captures the moment it rubs its antlers against the camera to explore.
11. People and Nature – Bronze: Zhiyue Shi, China
Nicknamed striped scat fish, the grumpy-faced creature rests on what looks like a piece of lemon-colored paper printed with a floral pattern, ripped at the edges. With mouth half open and eye curious, the fish looks absolutely unamused at the little strip, its blue gills dazzling against the black background.
12. Plants and Fungi – Gold: Duncan Wood, Scotland, UK
Wood’s submission arrested the whimsical sight of a bearded elder birch tree in Glen Affric, Scotland. The only thing, the flame here is not of fire, but of lichen. Like bushy beards of invisible old men, stringy white-silver clumps of lichen dangle from the branches.
13. Nature Art – Gold: Simon Biddie, United Kingdom
There’s a ghost hiding in the reef. The ghost is a little reef fish called the Mozambique ghost goby. The elusive goby has learned to use deceptive strategies to ward off hungry predators. Camouflaged within the orange-toned flower-like dots of a hard coral, the cryptic fish takes advantage of its transparent body. Much like the invisibility cloak of Harry Potter, it hides its body in the coral, its two ghostly button-like eyes peering from the sea of orange.
14. Planet Earth’s Landscapes and Environments – Gold: Miki Spitzer, Israel
Golden brown mineral layers tumble and spread in trellis-like patterns, encasing a geothermal pool in central Iceland. Encapsulated within the layers, a lagoon sloshes like a fiery galaxy of lemon yellows, vivid sea greens, and bluish waters.
15. Black and White – Gold: Christopher Baker, US
A heroic slider turtle seems ready to fly, as it perches its body atop a stump. Baker’s low-angle perspective arrested a wealth of details, exposing the turtle’s evasive eye, scaly flesh, and claws clinging to the rock, whose faint reflections do a blurry dance in the water. The curves of its shell seem to be draped in a shielding cloak.
16. Black and White – Silver: Ross Wheeler, United Kingdom
Don’t disturb, please. This is what a polar bear seemed to say when Wheeler tried to capture its profile on the camera, deep in the heart of the Arctic. With its triangular black claws highlighted against the white background, the snow-white-colored skin of the bear was curled in a meditative, embryonic pose, depicting part serenity and part shyness.
17. Animals in Their Habitat – Gold: Charlie Wemyss-Dunn, United Kingdom
Inside Katmai National Park in Alaska, a brown bear grabbed the opportunity to catch a delicious meal. Dunn’s photograph recorded the bear rushing through a foamy trail of water, its chocolate-brown paws desperate yet focused to pounce upon a bright red fish from a huge concentration. Swimming over pebbles, while the salmon seem to be in a migratory mood, the bear’s voracious appetite is headed for a feast.
18. Urban Wildlife – Gold: Robert Gloeckner, US
Dramatizing the grim conflict Manitoba faces due to climate change and waste management, a polar bear investigates a hoard of electronics, cans, and household items, beneath a pinkening sky. From a large tire painted in striped patterns, two white boards are jutting upwards with signs “Construction Waste and Furniture only, no scrap metal” and “Please deposit garbage in designated areas only.”
19. Urban Wildlife – Silver: Arghya Adhikary, India
In a streetside scene photographed in the urban landscape of Kolkata, two golden jackals come face to face with each other, their faces growling at each other, teeth glittering and exposed to light. Behind them, looms a multi-storey orange-and-green house, and clusters of green peppered with red-pink flowers.
20. Nature Photojournalism – Bronze: Jonathan Wosinski, France
Unlike most leopards that would have been rushing for a kill, one intelligent female displayed patience by pausing midway and taking shelter in a tree. Behind her, the drought-stricken Masai Mara landscape is fuming with frothy plumes of orange-brown smoke. Perched on a tangled branch, she gazes at the billowing smoke, waiting vigilantly to step down and have a meal. With this photo, Wosinski highlights the growing crisis of climate change.
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