Wildlife Photographer Of The Year: Tadpoles take the top prize from almost 60,000 entries of world’s greatest animal and nature pictures
A marine conservation photojournalist’s “magical” picture shining a light on the underwater world of a tadpole species has earned him the title of Wildlife Photographer Of The Year.
Shane Gross, from Canada, captured the western toad tadpoles while snorkelling through lily pads in Cedar Lake on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
He managed to snap a cloud of the amphibians, which are a near-threatened species due to habitat destruction and predators, while avoiding the visibility-reducing layers of silt and algae covering the bottom.
Titled The Swarm Of Life, the photograph has been crowned the winner of the Natural History Museum’s prestigious Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2024 competition out of a record-breaking 59,228 entries, from 117 countries and territories.
Kathy Moran, chair of the jury, said they were “captivated by the mix of light, energy and connectivity between the environment and the tadpoles”.
This is the first time the species has been featured in the competition, which is now in its 60th year, she added.
Life Under Dead Wood
Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas, from Germany, was awarded the title of Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year, for an up-close image featuring slime mould on the right, and a macroscopic animal called a springtail on the left, taken in Berlin.
Tinker-Tsavalas used a technique called focus stacking, combining 36 images with different areas of focus together.
Judges said it showed great skill and “incredible attention to detail, patience and perseverance”.
Here are some of the other category winners.
Free As A Bird – Alberto Roman Gomez, Spain (10 and under)
Alberto watched from the window of his father’s car at the edge of the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, in Cadiz, Andalusia, to take this picture – managing to capture the stonechat bird as it was perched, between trips to gather insects.
An Evening Meal – Parham Pourahmad, USA (11-14)
Parham visited the Ed R Levin County Park in Milpitas, California, most weekends over a summer to take photographs showing the wildlife living in a busy city park. This picture shows a young Cooper’s hawk eating a squirrel in the last rays of sunset.
Frontier of the Lynx – Igor Metelskiy, Russia
A lynx stretches in the early evening sunshine in the Lazovsky District in Primorsky Krai, Russia. The remote location and changing weather conditions meant access was tricky, and it took more than six months of waiting for Metelskiy to capture the image of the elusive animal.
On Watch – John E Marriott, Canada
This image also features a lynx, this one with its fully grown young sheltering from the wind behind it. Marriott had tracked the family group for almost a week through snowy forests in Yukon.
Practice Makes Perfect – Jack Zhi, USA
A young falcon practises its hunting skills on a butterfly above its sea-cliff nest. This was taken in an area in Los Angeles, California, visited by Zhi over the past eight years.
A Tranquil Moment – Hikkaduwa Liyanage Prasantha Vinod, Sri Lanka
This picture shows a young toque macaque sleeping in an adult’s arms, taken after a morning of photographing birds and leopards at the Wilpattu National Park. Vinod spotted a troop of the macaques moving through trees above, and used a telephoto lens to frame this moment as a young monkey slept between feeds.
Wetland Wrestle – Karine Aigner, USA
Karine Aigner was leading a tour group when she noticed an odd shape in the water along the Transpantaneira Highway, in Mato Grosso, Brazil – binoculars confirmed she was looking at a flash of a yellow anaconda, coiling itself around the snout of a yacare caiman.
The Demolition Squad – Ingo Arndt, Germany
Arndt’s image shows the dismemberment of a blue ground beetle by red wood ants – carving the dead animal into pieces tiny enough to fit through the entrance to their nest in Hessen, Germany.
The Artful Crow – Jiri Hrebicek, Czech Republic
This perching carrion crow, pictured in Basel, Switzerland, looks almost like an impressionist painting, judges said. To create the effect, Hrebicek moved his camera in different directions, while using a long shutter speed.
Under the Waterline – Matthew Smith, UK/Australia
Smith used a specially made extension he designed for the front of his underwater camera housing to create this split image of a leopard seal beneath the Antarctic ice in Paradise Harbour. The young seal made several close, curious passes, he said. “When it looked straight into the lens barrel, I knew I had something good.”
Tiger in Town – Robin Darius Conz, Germany
A tiger sits on a hillside against the backdrop of a town where forests once grew in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, India. Conz was following the big cat as part of a documentary team filming the wildlife of the Western Ghats.
Dusting for New Evidence – Britta Jaschinski, Germany/UK
Jaschinski spent time at the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) border force department, where confiscated animal products are tested. This image shows a crime scene investigator from London’s Met Police dusting for prints on a confiscated tusk at Heathrow Airport.
Dolphins of the Forest – Thomas Peschak, Germany/South Africa
Peschak documents the relationship between endangered Amazon river dolphins, which are also known as botos or pink river dolphins, and the people with whom they share their home in the waters of both Brazil and Colombia.
The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2024 exhibition opens at the Natural History Museum, London, on Friday 11 October
World
‘Germany stands in dark hours with Magdeburg’: Memorial service held for Christmas market attack victims
A memorial service has taken place in Magdeburg, Germany, for the victims of a Christmas market attack.
At least five people were killed and more than 200 others injured when a car ploughed into crowds shopping on Friday evening.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (C) and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (R) at the memorial service. Pic: AP
Among those attending the service in the city’s cathedral was Chancellor Olaf Scholz, interior minister Nancy Faeser and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
In a post on X, Mr Scholz described it as a “moving moment of compassion and solidarity for a deeply affected city”.
“The whole of Germany stands in these dark hours with the people of Magdeburg,” he wrote.
Magdeburg marked the tragedy on Saturday with the cathedral bells tolling at 7.04pm local time (6.04pm UK time), exactly 24 hours after the attack.
German football also paid tribute to the victims with silences before Bundesliga games on Saturday evening.
Earlier, while visiting the scene of the atrocity, Mr Scholz said: “There is no more peaceful and cheerful place than a Christmas market.
“What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality.”
Read more:
What we know about attack so far
Magdeburg in shock as it tries to make sense of the senseless
The aftermath of the Christmas market attack. Pic: Reuters
Young child among the dead
Four adults and a nine-year-old child were killed when a black BMW was driven into people at the Christmas market.
Of those injured, 41 are said to be seriously hurt, and authorities have warned the number of dead could rise.
Meanwhile, a man is being questioned by police after being arrested at the scene.
He has been named by German media as Taleb A, with his surname being withheld in line with privacy laws, although the name has not been confirmed by German authorities.
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What do we know about ‘Taleb A’?
Saudi suspect being held
The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who worked as a doctor and arrived in Germany in 2006, premier of Saxony-Anhalt state Reiner Haseloff said.
Taleb A is being investigated for five counts of suspected murder and 205 counts of suspected attempted murder, prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said.
The motive for the atrocity is not yet known.
Investigators are looking into whether the attack could have been motivated by the suspect’s dissatisfaction with how Germany treats Saudi refugees, Mr Nopens added.
Interior minister Nancy Faeser told reporters it was “clear” the suspect was “Islamophobic”.
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German police detain suspect
Residents in Magdeburg told Sky’s Europe correspondent Siobhan Robbins they are “shocked” and “traumatised” by the attack.
One woman said she “can’t find words to describe how traumatised we are”.
“We need a lot of time to process what happened,” she said.
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Magdeburg attack: A timeline of what happened
‘Show solidarity’
She added she wanted to attend the memorial service to “show solidarity” with others in the city and “feel collective support”.
“In such a tragedy the only thing that can help us to absorb and to process everything is to be around each other and to show our solidarity, not just with words but actions.”
Narrow escape
Andrea Reis, 57, and her daughter Julia, 34, had been at the market on Friday evening and had a narrow escape.
They could have been in the path of the car but Julia had wanted to keep walking around the market rather than stop to eat.
Andrea said: “It was the terrible sounds, children calling ‘mama, papa’, ‘help me’ – they’re going round in my head now.”
Although many people went to the site on Saturday with candles to mourn the victims, several hundred far-right protesters gathered in a central square in Magdeburg with a banner that read “remigration”, reported news agency dpa.
World
Christmas market suspect may have been ‘dissatisfied with treatment of Saudi refugees in Germany’: Here’s what we know
The suspect in the attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg appeared to be dissatisfied with the treatment of Saudi refugees in Germany, a prosecutor has said.
On Friday evening, a car was driven at speed into visiting crowds in the central German city.
Five people have died so far – including a nine-year-old child and four adults – with at least 200 more injured, according to authorities. Of those injured, 41 are said to be seriously hurt.
The suspect – who was arrested at the scene – was a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who worked as a doctor and arrived in Germany in 2006, premier of Saxony-Anhalt state Reiner Haseloff said.
He has been named as Taleb A in German media.
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Magdeburg attack: A timeline of what happened
Police director Tom-Oliver Langhans told a news conference on Saturday the attack had left the city “very alarmed”.
He added that officers arrested the suspect three minutes after the first emergency calls were made from the market.
Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said the motive behind the attack appeared to be “dissatisfaction with the treatment of refugees from Saudi Arabia and how they are being treated in Germany”.
German interior minister Nancy Faeser has said the suspect was Islamophobic.
The suspect has described himself as an “ex-Muslim” who sought asylum after receiving death threats for denouncing his faith.
His social media pages, which he posted on in the hours leading up to the attack, promote anti-Islam views – and claim Germany is allowing the “Islamisation of Europe”.
Map
Read more
What we know about the attack so far
Video shows suspect being arrested
The suspect, who says he works as a psychiatrist at a government hospital, has appeared in various media reports about his efforts to help other former Muslims flee Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations.
Tamara Zieschang, the state’s interior minister, told reporters the suspect had been practising medicine in Bernburg, around 25 miles south of Magdeburg.
He has a website that he told the BBC in 2019 has helped “hundreds of people” seek asylum overseas.
The homepage reads: “My advice: do not seek asylum in Germany.”
In videos with voiceovers in English, he claims he is being pursued by German police, who “sent someone carrying a knife to steal a USB stick from my mailbox”.
Special police forces at the incident.
Pic: AP
Tweets supporting Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson
Another tweet criticises a commentator for saying X owner Elon Musk and far-right activist Tommy Robinson should be arrested.
He claims they “cited Germany as a shining example of media censorship”, and adds: “My experience in Germany leaves no doubt – they actually censor victims.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
German terrorist expert Professor Peter Neumann described the suspect’s profile as unusual.
He says he “loves the AfD [Alternative for Germany] and wants to punish Germany for tolerance towards Islamists”, the director of King’s College London’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation wrote on X.
Professor Neumann said: “After 25 years in this ‘business’ you think nothing could surprise you anymore… that really wasn’t on my radar.”
The doors of the white van are thrown open. Dozens of armed French police jump on board, their colleagues on the ground form a human chain and get to work.
The van is carrying precious cargo. Water. Small plastic bottles stacked roof high and van deep.
It’s chaotic.
Orders are being shouted in French and Chimaore, the language spoken by Mayotte’s African community.
Security is high. The gendarmes are backed up by armed local police.
Local residents are angry. That anger could easily turn to violence.
It’s why a 10pm curfew remains in place across the island. One resident described the situation as “volcanic”.
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Short supply of aid after Cyclone Chido
Cyclone Chido tore through Mayotte on Sunday, but this is the first water delivery Ouangani has received since Saturday.
Nobody understands why.
‘There’s no word and no one has water’
Arriving at the distribution centre just after the water is loaded on to another van for delivery to nearby villages is Ouangani’s mayor, a young, former English teacher who speaks multiple languages.
He is considered and thoughtful when describing the situation facing his country.
“It’s not sufficient,” he tells me. “There’s no word and no one has water.”
“The authorities weren’t prepared,” he adds. “There’s not only a water problem, it’s food, electricity. Nothing on the island has been done.”
He then delivers a dire warning of “people starving”.
The destruction caused by Cyclone Chido
Residents expressed their fury at the response to the cyclone
I ask him who he thinks is to blame? He says that everyone is responsible.
“I cannot imagine that with all the means we have with technology, that they couldn’t have seen this coming,” he says.
But this region is not remote. It’s only an hour-long drive south of the capital on one winding road.
That’s why there is so much fury.
The man who challenged French President Emmanuel Macron is from here.
“Where is our water?!’, he demanded of the leader on his visit to the Indian Ocean island.
Read more from Sky News:
What we know so far about Germany attack
US says it killed Islamic State leader
Girl, 7, killed and more injured in school attack
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Macron met with anger in Mayotte
This van load of water is supposed to serve between three to five villages in the area.
That’s a population of anywhere between six and 12,000 people. Nobody knows for sure because of the problem with undocumented migrants.
We follow the van to the first drop-off.
The vehicle pulls up and drops off 10 to 20 crates of half-litre plastic bottles. Each crate has 12 small bottles. People have been waiting. They’re mostly women. Each one grabs a pack and disappears.
Within minutes it’s all gone.
Some more people show up seconds later. Their anger at missing out is obvious. “What’s the point?!” a man shouts.
‘It’ll only last about one or two hours’
Fundi has been lucky enough to get some water.
“We only just received aid now, I really don’t think that’s good enough,” she says.
Fundi has a family of seven and said the water given out would only last a couple of hours
They were just outside when they saw the van arrive with the water. Pure luck.
“Usually communication is good, but I don’t know why they came unannounced like that today,” she says.
But it’s not enough, Fundi explains: “Twelve bottles of water that are only 500ml, for a family? That’s really very little, it’ll only last about one to two hours.”
It’s no wonder, Fundi has a family of seven living under one roof.
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