A simple concept with breathtakingly beautiful results: The WildArt Photographer of the Year Competition’s most recent winners highlight an interaction that is common to every living thing on the planet — the relationship between animals and water. Designed “by wildlife photographers, for wildlife photographers and judged solely by wildlife photographers,” the competition is awarding winners in 10 themed categories over the next year, and this first category, entitled “WET,” was conceived by wildlife photographer Gail Bisson.

The photos below are the standouts from over 1100 submissions, including the overall winner, Marek Mierzejewsk’s stunning tableau of marbled white butterflies in a…

Niki Colemont is a photographer based in the Belgian village of Diepenbeek who has developed a particular talent for capturing the essence of just what it is that our friends the squirrels are all about. Their inquisitiveness and curiosity, their agility and dexterity, and their joyous, playful natures are all captured in these patiently planned photographs, which Niki has been taking in his girlfriend’s grandmother’s garden since 2016.

Niki’s love of wildlife and his talent for capturing unique and revealing moments in the day-to-day lives of the local animals in his life shines through in every photo, and it’s impossible…

The finalists of this year’s Bird Photographer of the Year competition have been selected from more than 22,000 entries by photographers in 73 different countries around the world. Now in its sixth year, the competition was created to reward excellence in avian photography and to draw attention to the importance of bird conservation through a partnership with Birds on the Brink.

This year’s finalists are notable for their range, not just in the diversity of species that are captured, but in the differences in tone — from the humorous to the heartwarming to the macabre — and style. …

During mating season, fireflies engage in a call and response of flashing lights to court potential partners. This dance is familiar to anyone with fireflies in their garden, but it’s utterly dazzling if you’re lucky enough to witness it on Kyushu Island in Japan, where millions of fireflies congregate in the summer to light up the night sky.

German artist Alex Pick has an incredible gift for the art of the mashup. Through his Instagram page, he’s reimagined popular movie posters with Disney characters, Disneyfied Harry Potter, and made pretty much everyone into mermaids. And his latest project has a quality to it that makes it particularly hard to look away. He does such a good job of turning iconic Disney animals into humans (and vice versa) that it often takes a minute to realize that the switch has even happened.

Each of Alex’s “Humanimals” mashups is a joy to contemplate, as the characters seamlessly change species while…

The prestigious Tokyo International Photo Awards (TIFA) recognizes amateur and professional photographers from all around the world with winners in nine major categories, and the winners in this year’s “Nature” category are truly exceptional. With awards given for the best aerial, floral, landscape, panoramic, and underwater photos, as well as for the standout photos of pets, seasons, sunsets, trees, and wildlife, the top photographs make for a stunning collection of images celebrating nature’s beauty and diversity and highlighting the extraordinary talent of those who seek it out.

From a gorgeous dreamlike dawn scene in Tuscany to a breathtaking vista of…

Simon Needham is a photographer based in LA whose passion for travel developed into a commitment to conservation work after he was inspired by the powerful experience of being up close with animals in their natural habitat. Recently, a photo-series of his depicting a 6-year-old white lion named Moya (pictured above) at a lion sanctuary in South Africa gained international attention thanks to the animal’s majestic locks, and Simon hopes that the increased focus on his work will help raise awareness about the issue of lion conservation.

In addition to the fabulous photos of Moya (more of which are below)…

If If you happen to feel a great disturbance in the magnetosphere, it might be because some charged particles from the sun are bopping around in there. And as freaky as that sounds, it’s actually no cause for alarm (as far as I know?). What it is the cause of though, is an Aurora — glowing polar lights named after the Roman goddess of dawn that are just one more reason that our planet is a magical place.

These 25 gorgeous photos of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights (borealis is Late Latin for “North Wind”) were selected by the…