A stoat “dancing” over the snow, a David Bowie spider and a jaguar going for the kill are among the first images released from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024 competition. More than a dozen highly-commended images have been unveiled on Thursday (August 29) by the Natural History Museum for this year’s collection. The 2024 competition attracted a record-breaking 59,228 entries from photographers of all ages and experience levels from 117 countries and territories.
Among the newly-released images, which received awards in their categories, are Jose Manuel Grandio’s joyous image of a stoat jumping high into the air over fresh snow and young photographer Sasha Jumanca’s shot of two curious tawny owlets. A post shared by WildlifePhotographerOfTheYear (@nhm_wpy) Randy Robbin’s photo of the frosted body of a deer on the forest floor was also unveiled as the first-ever awarded smartphone image. A jaguar delivering a fatal bite to a caiman in the Pantanal in Brazil was captured by British photographer Ian Ford.
Meanwhile, Theo Bosboom’s image showed how mussels bind together to avoid being washed away from the shoreline in Sintra, Portugal. Also among the 14 images that have been released are shots of lions mating with a backdrop of storm clouds in Tanzania, a Pallas’s cat staring down the lens as the moon sets in China, a jackdaw bringing stones to its nest in London, and a requiem shark in a final act of resistance in the bycatch of a ship in the South Atl.