A creepy photo of a brown hyena (Parahyaena brunnea) roaming the ruins of an abandoned diamond mining town in Namibia has won this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
“I spent several seasons trying to photograph them at dawn and dusk from nearby buildings without success,” van den Heever told Live Science in an email. “Finally, I turned to camera traps and carefully placed them in areas where hyenas would pass. After nearly 10 years of patience and persistence, I finally captured the image: a brown hyena wandering through a quiet ruin.”
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Brown hyenas, also known as strand wolves, are identified by their shaggy brown fur, pointy ears, and distinctive mane. It is estimated that there are only 4,000 individuals in the world, living primarily in arid regions of Namibia, Botswana, and parts of South Africa.
Brown hyenas are known to pass through Kolmanskop on their trips to hunt Cape fur seal pups and scavenge for carrion washed up on the Namib Desert coast, according to a statement released by tournament organizers.
“For years I had been seeing brown hyena tracks and droppings in Kolmanskop, a ghost town near Lüderitz, and knew they roamed the sandy, eerie streets,” van den Heever said. “It became my dream to photograph people moving through this haunting and ruined site.”
This photo also won first place in the urban wildlife category. “Just looking at this image gives me chills and I know I’m in this hyena’s realm,” Kathy Moran, chair of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year judging panel, said in a statement. “I also love this twist on the interpretation of ‘city.’ It used to be a human-dominated environment, but now it’s not.”
The competition, hosted by the Natural History Museum in London, is now in its 61st year and this year saw the highest number of entries ever, with a record 60,636 entries from 113 countries and territories. Here are some of our favorites.
Photographer Qingrong Yang timed it perfectly to capture the moment a ladybug (Elops saurus) snatches its prey from under the body of a swooping little egret (Egretta garzetta) in Yundang Lake. Once a polluted and stagnant Chinese port, the lake has been transformed into a thriving ecosystem thanks to an engineering project that reconnected it to the sea. The stunning photo won the top award in the bird category.
A mesmerizing image of a lesser flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor) in the jaws of a predatory ocelot known as a caracal (Caracal caracal) in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park has won the Mammal Behavior category.
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“The story of this image is one of unexpected luck,” photographer Dennis Stogsdill told Live Science via email. “I received a call from Serval. [Leptailurus serval] I was near the lake, and my friend wanted to see it, so I hurried to see it. ”
However, when Stogsdir arrived on the scene, he was instead greeted by a caracal.
“Just a moment later, it started chasing the flamingo,” he said. “Most wildlife photography requires a lot of patience and planning, but this one was just a stroke of luck.”
Because caracals are primarily nocturnal, it is very rare to see them hunting flamingos in broad daylight, Stogsdill added, and it is probably a behavior that has never been captured before.
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Other notable images include a poisonous rubber-leaf skeletonized caterpillar (Uraba lugens) with a towering cap called the “Mad Hatter Pillar.” Hundreds of western rattlesnakes (Crotalus atrox) piled up in a pit for the annual rattlesnake roundup in Sweetwater, Texas, and an orbweaver spider (Arachnidae) in a dewy, silky nest.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.
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