Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023

This year, French underwater photographer and marine biologist Laurent Ballesta, was awarded Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023 for ‘The golden horseshoe’ (below).

The tri-spine horseshoe crab has survived for more than 100 million years but now faces extinction due to habitat destruction and overfishing. However, in the protected waters of Pangatalan Island in the Philippines, there is hope.

Laurent is only the second photographer in the competition’s fifty-nine-year history to be awarded the Grand Title award twice. See this remarkable shot among the other winners in our gallery below.

A dramatic cliffside clash between two Nubian ibex in the Zin Desert, Israel. The battle lasted for about 15 minutes before one male surrendered, and the pair parted without serious injury. Picture: Amit Eshel/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A hippopotamus and her two offspring rest in a shallow lake in South Africa’s Kosi Bay. The photographer spent two years visiting the hippos to get them accustomed to his boat and was able to capture this image in just 20 seconds. Picture: Mike Korostelev/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Toad tadpoles feast on a dead fledgling sparrow in Spain after an unsuccessful launch caused the baby bird to fall into a pond. Picture: Juan Jesús Gonzalez Ahumada/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

$A fungus releases its spores in the forest near Mount Olympus, Greece. The colourful touches come from refraction of the light passing through the spore-laden air currents and rain. Picture: Agorastos Papatsanis/Wildlife Photographer of the Year$

A fungus releases its spores in the forest near Mount Olympus, Greece. The colourful touches come from refraction of the light passing through the spore-laden air currents and rain. Picture: Agorastos Papatsanis/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Captured by camera trap in French Guiana, a perfect alignment of grey-winged trumpeters watch a boa slither past. This shot took six months to capture as the trap was plagued by high humidity, plastic-munching ants and damage by poachers. Picture: Hadrien Lalagüe/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

This shot of a tri-spine horseshoe crab was the overall winner. A prehistoric species that has survived for more than 100 million years, the crab now faces habitat destruction and overfishing for food and for its blood, which is used in vaccines. Picture: Laurent Ballesta/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Kittiwake chicks illuminated in an abandoned factory in Norway. Recently numbers of these birds have plummeted, and some have headed for urban areas due to food shortages caused by warming oceans. Picture: Knut-Sverre Horn/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

To enable an early ascent into ibex territory, the photographer spent a bitterly cold night in a temporary shelter in the French Alps, having skied for six hours. Luca thawed his camera with his breath and took the ibex's portrait. Luca Melcarne/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Anamalai Tiger Reserve in India is illuminated with fireflies. The flashes start at twilight, with just a few, before the frequency increases and they pulse in unison like a wave across the forest. Picture: Sriram Murali/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Initially rescued, this orca in the Netherlands was stranded again on the beach and died. Research shows that orcas in European waters are often contaminated with banned chemicals which results in inevitable fatalities. Picture: Lennart Verheuvel/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A gannet pair is framed against the guano-painted curves of sandstone cliffs in Scotland. Each summer the Isle of Noss hosts more than 22,000 northern gannets, which return to breed on the ledges carved by the elements. Picture: Rachel Bigsby/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Contestants line up to have their bobcats weighed in the March 2022 West Texas Big Bobcat Contest, the highest-paying predator-hunting contest in the USA. In Texas, certain predators such as bobcats, mountain lions and coyotes have no protection and can be killed at any time and by any means. Karine Aigner/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A lowland tapir steps cautiously out of the swampy Brazilian rainforest. Lowland tapirs rely on the forest for their diet of fruit and other vegetation and in turn the tapirs act as seed dispersers. Picture: Vishnu Gopa/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Barn owls rest in an abandoned concrete building near a busy road in Israel, which has the densest barn-owl population in the world. Picture: Carmel Bechler/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

A drone shot sees a pod of orcas as they prepare to 'wave wash' a Weddell seal in Antarctica. With rising temperatures melting ice floes, seals are spending more time on land, and this behaviour of hunting may disappear. Picture: Bertie Gregory/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London.

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Tapirs to tadpoles: Winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Tapirs to tadpoles: Winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year

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