Are these the most stunning wildlife photos ever?

A red fox photographed in the arctic by photographer Konsta Punkka

A diver poses alongside a sleeping female whale in a shot taken by photographer Steve Woods

An adult giraffe doting on its young in a shot taken by Gurcharan Roopra

A collared mountain lion prowls at night beneath the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles

A young swan, called a cygnet, only a few days old nestles with its mother in Derbyshire, United Kingdom in a shot taken by Andy Parkinson  

A lion poses regally in a shot taken by wildlife photographer Shaaz Jung

Giraffes under a tree in the Maasai Mara National reserve in Kenya, in a shot taken by Ken Geiger

A polar bear poses for a portrait in the arctic in a shot taken by the aptly named Shannon Wild

A mother two-toed sloth and her two-month-old baby hand before the lens of Suzi Eszterhas

Rajan, a 66-year-old Asian elephant, was brought to the Andaman Islands off of India to work in a logging operation. He learned to swim, as seen in his photograph by Jody MacDonald

A pair of pandas gaze into the distant in a photo taken by Ami Vitale

Two horses stand in the snow on a farm in Pennsylvania in a photo snapped by Scott Goldsmith

A young girl named Christina dressed up as a princess at the reindeer herding camp where she lives in the arctic tundra. The shot was taken by Evgenia Arbugaeva

Young black bears have fun in a backyard in Asheville, North Carolina, in a photo taken by Corey Arnold

An Orangutan seeks shelter beneath a large leaf during a rainstorm in a shot taken by Andrew Suryono

A close up shot of the brilliantly colored face of a caaowary, taken by Robert Clark

Beneath the nighttime time sea, a juvenile cowfish swims in a shot by Jennifer Hayes

Two lions, Morani and Friend, nuzzle eachother as they walk in Kenya, in a shot taken by Anup Shah

A chimpanzee and her young offspring at in Gambe, Africa, in a 1993 photo taken by Jane Goodall

Bering Sea/Aleutian IslandsThe Aleutian Islands, also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a chain of 14 large volcanic islands and 55 smaller islands. Most of the Aleutian Islands belong to the U.S. state of Alaska, but some belong to the Russian federal subject of Kamchatka Krai

The horse drawn to the mirror by it’s own reflection. Born in Boston, Joseph-Philippe Bevillard started drawing and painting after he lost his hearing at the age of 3. He took up photography during his senior year at a private school in Massachusetts

A pod of spinner dolphins hunts the open ocean off south west Costa Rica. These small dolphins form huge pods, sometimes one or two thousand strong. Charlie Hamilton James is a National Geographic Magazine photographer

Only One founder Shawn Heinrichs is an artist and Emmy-award winning cinematographer, photographer and marine conservationist. His stunning and often stark artwork is fueled by his passion to protect the oceans

Lena River, Russia. Ira Block can best be described as a cultural documentary photographer. He uses his cameras and lights to document people around the world and the changes in traditions and practices

A view of the steps to a water temple on the Indonesian Island of Bali

Penguin Parents and Chicks. Two Emperor penguin parents, each with their own 5-month-old chicks, begging for food in Atka Bay, Antarctica

‘The African dust around the supergiant is one of the best spectacles in wild Africa. In this shot, in the Namibian area of Erindi, the elephant kicked up dust in the warm sunlight to protect its skin,’ explains Panose Laskarakis

Tamara Dean is a critically acclaimed photo media artist. Her practice explores our connection to nature and fragility of the environment

Habituated Meerkats photographed at Tswalu Kalahari, South Africa. Keith Ladzinski is a National Geographic Photographer and Emmy nominated director

Surfing Under the Northern Lights. The location was deep in the West Fjords

‘Palace of Dreams’ by Tamara Dean, 2022

El Capitan. Jimmy Chin is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, National Geographic photographer, New York Times Best Selling author and mountain sports athlete known for his ability to capture extraordinary imagery and stories while climbing and skiing in extremely high-risk environments and expeditions

An iceberg made of compactly frozen ice, illuminated by the midsummer Arctic 24 hour daylight. Greenland. Nick Cobbing is a photographer driven by a curiosity about the natural world

A friendly family of sperm whales, comprising several adult females and three juveniles. The prominent white stripes on the ventral surface of the adult in the forefront made it relatively easy to distinguish this family unit from the many dozens of others gathered in the area for socialization

Shadows at Sunrise. The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming is not only the largest hot spring in the United States but one of the most magnetic places to view from above

‘When you finally get the shot you have been dreaming of!’ Michael Shainblum is a landscape, timelapse and aerial photographer based in San Francisco, California

Tanzania, East Africa. Britta Jaschinski heard tales of a solitary old lion wandering in the Lobo area of Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. Fascinated, Britta spent three days searching for him and found him resting in the shade of an acacia tre

Tree Climber, Fosters Pond, 2021

In December 2021, a flood destroyed the land belonging to Florentino and his family. There had been a few other floods in the past, but nothing like this one. The family lost all of their crops, as well all their irrigation. Florentino believes that it will take about ten years to earn the necessary money to get the land back to a place where it can be planted again

Looking east through a dawn wildfire haze, the Grand Canyon Village sits on the South Rim (right) of Grand Canyon National Park

Mammatus, Bolton, Kansas, 2016

‘Air bubbles slowly escape the sea lion. I have felt a deep connection with the ocean for as long as I can remember,’ said photographer Matt Bagley

Hendrum, Minnesota, 2017

Woonsocket, South Dakota, 2022

Mitch Dobrowner owes much to the great photographers of the past, especially Ansel Adams, for their dedication to the craft and for inspiring him in his late teens

Arno Rafael Minkkinen’s a Finnish American photographer, essayist, educator and curator with over 120 solo shows and 200 group exhibitions at galleries and museums worldwide

Aspider monkey, 3, is photographed at Senda Verde Animal Sanctuary

Aerial view of the sea freezing and forming abstract ice lines on the water. The packed ice was swept away by storms which broke up and drove the ice south leaving the fjord full of open water on the east coast of Svalbard in winter

Elephants surround their young after leaving a water hole in Tanzania. Annie Griffiths is an American photographer known for her work at National Geographic

Nature’s Lungs, 2018 (From the series “Are We Dead Yet?”) Are We Dead Yet? Is an ongoing series of works centered around our planet’s climate crisis focused on recent disasters

A Green Sea Turtle hatchling cautiously surfaces for air to a sky full of hungry birds. Against all odds, this hatchling must battle through the conditions of a raging storm whilst evading a myriad of predators. Not only has the tropical storm brought out thousands of circling birds, but there are also patrolling sharks and large schools of fish on the hunt for baby turtles. Only 1 in 1000 of these hatchlings will survive, will this one survive against all odds. Hannah Le Leu has always been intrigued by the ocean. Its mystery and diversity inspired her to begin her journey underwater as a photographer

Kazakh Cowboy. Andrea Bruce is an award winning documentary photographer whose work focuses on people living in the aftermath of war

A little owl (Athene noctua) perches on top of a rock at sunrise in Spain

Two orphaned orangutans cling to each other at a rehabilitation center in northern Borneo. Like humans, they need affection and care from their mothers in order to become healthy adults

Arno Rafael Minkkinen says : ‘Two quotes have guided my creative life. “Unless we see with the eyes of a child,” Brancusi wrote, “we make no art.” Add to this Braque’s dictum, “Out of limited means new forms emerge.” Thus, I made a contract with myself about what I would not do. There would be no manipulation of any kind so that the image would correspond exactly with the reality before the lens’

Bioluminescent Ghost Mushrooms. Nicknamed ghost mushrooms due to its eerie green glow, the scientific names of these bioluminescent mushrooms are Omphalotus Nidiformis. The glow is very much visible to the naked eyes in complete darkness

This project focuses on birds, in order to capture in a single time frame, the shapes they generate when flying, making visible the invisible. Ornitographies is a balance between art and science. Ornithographies arises from the concern for capturing those unnoticed moments and from the interest in questioning the limits of human perception

A polar bear treks through the snow on an Arctic ridge. Dutch photographer Jasper Doest creates visual stories that explore the relationship between humankind and nature and is a contributing photographer to National Geographic magazine. Having majored in ecology, Doest knows human life depends on everything our planet has to offer, yet he recognizes the unsustainable nature of the current human patterns of consumption

Tim Flach is a photographer best known for his stylized portraits of animals and for the originality that he brings to capturing animal behaviour and characteristics

Milky Way stars in eucalyptus forest at nightMilky Way stars seen through canopies of eucalyptus forest at night, New South Wales, Australia

In ‘Peak’ photographer Bastiaan Woudt travels through the mountains of Nepal for a month. An expedition of 26 days takes him to the often uninhabited areas around Mount Annapurna, where he climbs up to almost 6000 meters. It results in a document that shows not only the landscapes and still lifes but also the proud Nepalese people he encounters along the way

Norbert Rosing has won international awards at the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition

When Mr. Rogers was on the set of The Neighborhood in Pittsburgh, he would often pause for a moment between takes, to contemplate the impact of how his message might be received by children. He took their young lives very seriously. Lynn Johnson was recently awarded a National Geographic fellowship. She is known for shooting elusive subjects-language, disease, rape, water-and for asking tough questions. Dedicated to exploring the far reaches of the human condition, she spends maybe two months a year at home in Pittsburgh, packing that camera bag over and over

Kilifi was an 18-month-old rhino and his keeper, Kamara was hand-raising along with two other baby rhinos at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya. Kamara would spend 12 hours every day watching over the vulnerable baby rhinos. Kenya’s black rhinos population had plummeted to near extinction but their numbers are again rising in Kenya due to the efforts by the people and government to protect them

Sacred Baobab of Nianing by Beth Moon. The Senegalese hold a special place in their hearts for the baobab tree-it is greatly loved. A sleepy, picturesque village, Nianing is one hour south of the Senegal’s capital on the west coast. The largest tree in the center of the village shows evidence of inscribed markings on the trunk

An expedition of 26 days takes him to the often uninhabited areas around Mount Annapurna, where Bastiaan Woudt climbs up to almost 6000 meters

For almost 30 years, Paolo Verzone has been photographing the world around him

Ushguli is a community of five villages located at the head of the Enguri gorge in Svaneti in the Republic of Georgia. Aaron Huey is an American photographer

Christian Ziegler is a photojournalist & filmmaker specializing in natural history and science – related topics

Doves in front of Mazar-e Sharif’s famous Blue Mosque

‘The warm weather caused widespread melting on nearby glaciers. I imagine all the tiny snowflakes that had fallen over many lifetimes to build this masterpiece and all the life that depends on it. With the loss of sea ice, we face mass extinctions of wildlife and sea-level rise, which will ripple all across the globe,’ says Michaela Skovranova, an Australia-based photographer

‘Friends reported to me that one night while watching a movie in their basement apartment, they glimpsed a mountain lion outside the sliding glass door. So I strapped a camera trap to their patio furniture and a birdbath and waited. Two months, multiple blizzards and an array of housecat selfies later, we caught a glimpse of the visitor we’d been searching for,’ explained photographer Morgan Heim

Odin’s Cove by Beth Moon

Michael Melford’s mission is to share the wonders of the natural world with others, and to help them the see the beauty that surrounds us. He hopes that we might preserve it for future generations

Air Pollution Particles. Cyanotype made from a closeup image of air pollution particles collected on Brixton Road, Lambeth, South London, on the 20th of August 2020

Polar bears from Wapusk National Park in Canada

‘Personalities differ so much in between bears, but one thing they all have in common is a charismatic behavior that grips your attention, whether it’s playful, shy, grumpy or cheeky. This particular grizzly bear was neither of those, she was calm and serene,’ says Jack Plant

Sudhir Shivaram is one of India’s most respected and renowned wildlife photographers

Anna Ivanova as the beautiful Aurora of Sleeping Beauty, in a Moscow tenement. Joe McNally is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning photographer whose prolific career includes assignments in nearly 70 countries. McNally is known world-wide as not only one of the top, technically excellent photographers of his generation, but his charming demeanor, confidence and humor make him a sought-after choice from CEO’s to celebrities to commercial and magazine clients alike

In her early days at Gombe, Dr. Jane Goodall spent many hours sitting on a high peak with binoculars or a telescope, searching the forest below for chimpanzees

A Galapagos sea lion blasts through a school of salema looking for a meal at Cousins Rock Galapagos Islands

‘When I need a pick me up, this picture I call ‘Wonder Woman’ reminds me to turn my frown upside down and get on with it,’ says Melanie Dunea

Photographed on a cold blustery arctic day in Svalbard, Norway. ‘After waiting patiently for a few hours behind the lens for this polar bear to wake from its slumber on a snow bank, he woke up and (of course) walked in the opposite direction from me,’ Andy Mann recalled 

A young cheeky leopard rests momentarily in a tree as it’s mother lounges below. Botswana, 2022 Karine Aigner was raised in Saudi Arabia, motorcycled through Vietnam, circumnavigated the globe by ship, taught English in Taiwan, and then there was the time the hyena pups chewed her shoes (while on her feet). Her adventures uncover her fervor to tell the stories of life through the lens of a camera

Sea Lion Rolling. In, Ecuador on the Galapagos Islands, a playful sea lion is captured rolling on the edge of a cliff at Isabela Island

Slope of Mount Adi, in Navarra. Francisco Javier Munuera González is a trained driver by profession, and amateur photographer with self-taught training. A lover of nature and especially of open landscapes, he tries to capture them in the photographs. He has won several photo contests over the years in local, regional, and national photo contests

Two King penguins under beautiful colorful evening clouds, South Georgia Island. Two King penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) on beach under beautiful colorful evening clouds in St. Andrews Bay on South Georgia Island. Yva Momatiuk and John Eastcott, a wife and husband team, are internationally published photographers of nature

This project focuses on birds, in order to capture in a single time frame, the shapes they generate when flying, making visible the invisible. Ornitographies is a balance between art and science

Horses on Isle of Muck, Scotland. Horses on the beach at Isle of Muck Farms at the end of the road on the small island. From here you can see the Isle of Rum

Lion Brothers at Naboisho Conservancy, Kenya Graeme Green is a British photographer and journalist

Window Washer. Mysterious People explores the tension in our curious reality. The moments when we find ourselves looking and looking again, asking, ‘Did that just happen?’ Or maybe even, ‘Did the camera see something that I didn’t?’ Amy Sacka is a documentary photographer based in Detroit, Michigan, who is passionate about celebrating the beauty of people and culture, particularly in Detroit and the Midwest

Fifi cradles her infant son Faustino–August 1990. Says Dr. Jane Goodall, ‘This is Fifi with her fifth infant, Faustino, taken in I think 1990. Fifi was alpha-female then, having taken over that position from her mother after Flo’s death. Fifi was the most prolific of any Gombe female. She gave birth nine times and lost only two of these youngsters in infancy’

Common Octopus. Scientific Name: Octopus vulgaris, Specimen #: 12, Size: 3.5 inches mantle length. This specimen is from Florida Keys Marine Life

These flamingos lived at Zoo Miami (then called Miami Metrozoo) in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew destroyed the zoo. It was always part of the protocol to capture the flock in the front lake of the zoo whenever there was a hurricane warning issued, and transport them to the public restroom which was used as a bunker to protect them

Winter landscape in Stokksnes, Iceland, on a beach with black sand and the majestic mountain called Vestrahorn. Ivan Pedretti studied chemical engineering in Cagliari with a passion for science and chemistry. In 2010 he began to get closer to photography

This is a portrait of a chimp named ‘Milla’ taken by photographer James Balog. Milla had been poached as an infant when her family group was killed by poachers. She was taken out of the wild and spent her entire juvenile and adult life in a cage at a bar in Tanzania. There, she was the main attraction as a booze-drinking and cigarette-smoking addict. Jane Goodall discovered her there in 1990. Jane personally carried Milla, who was now seventeen years old, in an airplane to Zambia

Dr. Jane Goodall and photographer Hugo van Lawick study the F – Family of chimpanzees in Gombe Reserve in 1965. Photo taken by Jane’s mother, Vanne Goodall

‘Every spring 80% of Lesser Sand Hill Cranes and some Greater Sand Hill Cranes come to the Platte River, and the concentration is higher here than anywhere in the world. The Crane Trust counted 413,000 Sandhill Cranes on this evening-more than they’ve ever counted before, so this image is what it must have looked like millions of years ago,’ photographer Randy Olson said

From the artist, Jo Sax: ‘Reclaimed by nature. A lockdown daydream ,an exploration into if our work and social spaces would be reclaimed by nature when we return to them. During the first lockdown of 2020 I noticed how loud birdsong was without the usual noise of human activity and wondered how quickly nature might creep into man made structures. Seeing empty restaurants, offices salons and bars I wondered how these spaces would look, reclaimed by nature. This inspired a daydream vision of what might become.I explore the fragility of human occupation and the strength of nature, life and death’ 

Ornithographies arises from the concern for capturing those unnoticed moments and from the interest in questioning the limits of human perception. This project focuses on birds, in order to capture in a single time frame, the shapes they generate when flying, making visible the invisible

A juvenile beluga whale swims beneath the tail of an adult whale in Cunningham Inlet on Somerset Island in the Canadian Arctic

Tim Flach is a photographer best known for his stylized portraits of animals and for the originality that he brings to capturing animal behaviour and characteristics. His work is driven by a desire to better communicate stories of the natural world and to explore questions around art, communication and conservation science

TRUNCATED (2005-2008) It is an intensive portrayal of an ageing pine forest plantation in Derbyshire, England

Before his rescue, cheetah cub Freya had been kept in a wood-and-wire cage and was skinny and dehydrated. Now healthy, he loves climbing on logs, sitting on high platforms, and playing with toys. Fewer than 7,000 adult cheetahs are left in the wild, but every year scores-perhaps hundreds-of mostly very young cheetahs are trafficked out of Somaliland to Persian Gulf states to be sold as pets

This is a photo that depicts Ural owls’ life in a gloomy and dark November, when they don’t have a family to provide for, but only take care of themselves

This project focuses on birds, in order to capture in a single time frame, the shapes they generate when flying, making visible the invisible. Ornitographies is a balance between art and science; a nature-based dissemination project and a visual poetry exercise but above all, an invitation to perceive the world with the same curious and innocent look of the child we once were

Dusty Tusks. Marina Cano is a Spanish wildlife photographer, with more than 25 years of photographic experience

Arctic Fox Sleeping, 1984

‘We slid quietly off the side of the boat and finned into the blue. Suddenly the water directly in front of us erupted as several whales broke the surface and blew a dense cloud of mist into the air. And then we were face-to-face with this stampede of behemoths, 15 adult whales weighing 500 tons in total – like diving head-first into a herd of charging dinosaurs! The ocean shook as they passed below and on both sides, their massive pectoral fins carefully navigating around us and their powerful tails turning the sea into a frothing cauldron of blue and bubbles. And then, as quickly as they appeared, they were gone, 14 males in hot pursuit of a single female. But, even these words barely do justice to the incredible power and magnificence of the Humpback Whales,’ Shawn Heinrichs said while explaining how he got this shot

Sage Cattabriga-Alosa skiing a first descent near Petersburg, Alaska while filming with TGR for their film, Light the Wick

Nicholas Hughes, 2012

‘This work is a very personal reaction to the climate emergency, in particular to the Australian fires which almost destroyed my family home. Although we have not experienced the ferocity of the 2019/2020 bushfires this year, the threat is ever present. This work uses my own archival images, and, through painting, scratching, and reworking, reimagines the landscapes of my childhood home, now with the threat of environmental devastation. The interference of my brushstrokes on the prints became a mirror of human intervention in nature, my own hand attempting to control the uncontrollable,’ explained photographer Aletheia Casey

Silhouette lone tree and magical stormy, sunset sky in Kenya’s Masai Mara, April 2018. The Mara’s vast plains are full of these iconic single standing acacia trees, they are what give the Mara its name with the Masai word mara meaning ‘dotted’ or ‘spotted’. With a 17-year career in photography traveling much of Africa on assignment, and now as a mother of two girls, Georgina Goodwin has expanded her career to mentor and empower storytellers through her media agency GGImages Media

This work explores the silent and fragile places of the post-pandemic landscape. The images physically depict the aftermath of disconnection and isolation. Aletheia Casey is a photographic artist based between Sydney and London. During the last 12 years Aletheia has published and worked with The Guardian, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Financial Times Magazine, BBC London and BBC World, Australian Associated Press, BBC Wales, SBS Television, and various international publications

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at home, shortly after her nomination to the court. David Burnett has been an internationally acclaimed photojournalist for nearly seven decades. He has worked on contract with LIFE, Time and PEOPLE, and continues to work for a variety of magazines in the US and Europe

Dolly Parton and fan with her Dolly Doll and tour bus, 1976. Jodi Cobb’s trailblazing career spans four decades as a National Geographic staff field photographer, the only woman to have held that position in its history