Top Nature Photography of 2025 Captures Global Wildlife

Namibia's Skeleton Coast provides a dramatic backdrop for one of the year's most striking behavioral discoveries. Griet Van Malderen captured a small group of desert lions that abandoned their traditional inland hunting grounds to seek prey along the Atlantic Ocean shoreline.

The image shows a lioness named Gamma guarding a seal carcass on a pebble-strewn beach while storm waves crash in the background. This represents a significant behavioral shift for these predators, who have adapted to coastal feeding.

In the same country, Wim van den Heever documented a rare brown hyena wandering through an abandoned diamond mining town. The photographer spent 10 years waiting to capture this iconic image. These endangered animals use the deserted structures to escape the desert heat and even raise their cubs within the crumbling buildings.

Meanwhile, in Rwanda's misty Virunga Mountains, a young male gorilla displayed unexpected acrobatic skills. Mark Meth Cohn/Nikon Comedy Wildlife captured the primate performing flips and kicking high in a forest clearing. This photograph won the 2025 Comedy Wildlife Photo award.

The oceans revealed their own spectacular scenes in 2025, from the Amazon basin to Japanese coastal waters. Hussain Aga Khan photographed the mysterious pink river dolphin in the Amazon region, a species threatened by hunting, fishing net capture, and pollution. Indigenous communities both fear and revere this aquatic mammal.

In Japanese waters near Satsuma-Iojima island, Hitomi Tsuchiya captured a turtle swimming through an ethereal 'aurora subaquática.' The extraordinary color comes from iron-rich substances expelled by underwater hydrothermal vents known as 'iron mountains.' This image was a finalist for the 2025 Oceanographic Photographer of the Year award.

Other marine highlights include:

• A torpedo fish capturing prey directly beneath a heron's beak in China's Lake Yundang, captured by Qingrong Yang
• Stingrays stirring ocean floor sand in Mexico, captured by Ysabela Coll, who placed third in the Fine Arts category
• A male Australian fish incubating eggs in its mouth, photographed by Daniel Sly during a night dive in Sydney harbor

These images document critical behaviors and the delicate balance of marine ecosystems.

High-altitude photography revealed species previously undocumented in certain regions. The WWF India captured the first photographic evidence of the elusive Pallas's cat living in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh state in northeastern India.

The camera trap image shows the cat staring directly into the lens at nearly 5,000 meters above sea level in the remote Mago Chu valley. The organization deployed over 130 cameras in the area, also documenting record-altitude sightings of common leopards, clouded leopards, marbled cats, and other wildlife.

In the Arctic, photographer Roie Galitz challenged expectations by capturing two young polar bears playing among pink flowers in Nunavut, Canada, in August 2025. Usually associated with white ice, the bears appeared in a colorful sea of blossoms.

Other unique sightings include:

• A 'Mad Hatter' caterpillar wearing a translucent tower of old head shields, captured by Georgina Steytler
• A weaver spider surrounded by car headlights on a pedestrian bridge in Ibbenbüren, Germany, photographed by Simone Baumeister
• A fluorescent pitcher plant illuminated by ultraviolet light, captured by Chien Lee

The 2025 photography awards recognized both technical excellence and unique behaviors. The Comedy Wildlife Photo award went to the acrobatic gorilla image, while the Oceanographic Photographer of the Year competition featured multiple finalists documenting marine life.

Simone Baumeister won recognition for her surreal image of a weaver spider on a pedestrian bridge, surrounded by vehicle lights. The photograph shows the spider sitting on its web, which is constructed with a non-adhesive structure first, followed by sticky capture threads. The spider uses its legs as measuring sticks during construction.

Georgina Steytler won for her image of a gum leaf skeletonizer caterpillar's protective headgear. The translucent tower consists of old head shields the caterpillar retains during molting, believed to repel predator attacks.

Chien Lee won the Plants and Fungi category with an image of a fluorescent pitcher plant. Unlike most plants that absorb nutrients from soil, pitcher plants are carnivorous, trapping prey in a pool of digestive fluid. Lee used ultraviolet flash to reveal the plant's mysterious purple glow after sunset.