The entries in this year’s World Nature Photography Awards have been judged, and the winning images and photographers have just been announced. Jens Cullmann was awarded the grand prize for his image of a crocodile lurking in the mud in Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe. Competition organizers have once again shared some of the winning images, shown below, from their 14 categories. Captions were provided by the photographers and have been lightly edited for clarity.
Winners of the 2022 World Nature Photography Awards
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Third place, Behavior - Mammals. An African savanna elephant attempts to camouflage itself behind a too-small bush in Marataba Private Reserve, Marakele National Park, Limpopo, South Africa. #
© Staffan Widstrand / World Nature Photography Awards -
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Winner, Nature art. Spawning coral in the Red Sea. Shlesinger: "Corals are animals, and this is how they reproduce. Usually, at the exact same time, thousands of corals of a given species along hundreds of kilometers of the reef reproduce by spawning egg-and-sperm bundles altogether into the open sea. These bundles will be carried away by the currents, mixing in the water, until they finally encounter a match—a sperm will fertilize an egg and new life will be created. Yet catching coral spawning is tricky business as it usually happens only once a year in a certain month of the year, on a specific night of the month, and at a certain hour of the night for a very short time window of only few minutes. In this photo, a close-up of a branching coral spawn pinkish egg-and-sperm bundles." #
© Tom Shlesinger / World Nature Photography Awards -
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Winner, People and nature. Inside a glacier, Sólheimajökull, South Iceland. Reglioni: "This is how it feels to be inside a glacier's guts. Not many people would even dare to go in there, where it is dark, deep, cold, loud, and wet. And that is the whole purpose of this photograph; pushing your limits to capture what only a few people will ever experience at night." #
© Virgil Reglioni / World Nature Photography Awards
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