Brandon Güell/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Brandon Güell documents a rare breeding frenzy of tree frogs in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. These spectacular mass-breeding events occur in only a few remote locations, a few times a year. Each female lays around 200 eggs and eventually the hatched tadpoles drop into the water below.
Tiina Törmänen/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Tiina Törmänen met a school of European perch on her annual lake snorkel in Finland. She framed the orange-finned fish flying through clouds of algae. Although beautiful, excessive algal growth is a result of climate change and warming waters and can cause problems for aquatic wildlife.
Suzi Eszterhas/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
US photographer Suzi Eszterhas captures an encounter between a brown-throated sloth and a dog in Costa Rica. Having taken part in a sloth-safety training program, the dog simply sniffed it. Sloths live in trees and rarely descend but have been forced in to urban areas by habitat loss.
Srikanth Mannepuri/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Srikanth Mannepuri takes a sobering look at the scale of unsustainable fishing in Andhra Pradesh, India. Mannepuri was shocked to see so many recently caught marlin and sailfish at a fish market in one morning. He used a drone to take the image from a bird's-eye view. Sailfish and marlin are top ocean predators essential to ecosystems.
Samuel Sloss/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Samuel Sloss was highly commended in the 15 to 17-year-old category for his image of a coconut octopus peeking out from a clam shell. He shot the image while muck diving in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The octopus shut the lid of the shell when Samuel approached, but then slowly opened it, revealing colors and coils.
Richard Robinson/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Richard Robinson's main challenge was to swim far enough from the curious whale calf to photograph it. Now protected, New Zealand's southern right whales, known as 'tohorā' in Māori, were hunted to near extinction by European whalers in the 1800s, then by Soviet whalers in the 1900s.
Morgan Heim/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Morgan Heim reveals an intimate encounter between a beetle and a rabbit in Washington state's Columbia Basin. Heim set up camera traps by the burrows of pygmy rabbits to observe them. She was delighted as one of the rabbits sniffed at a stink beetle that had been sheltering in its burrow.
Joshua Cox/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Joshua Cox frames a red deer stag standing majestically as the snow falls. It had just started to snow when Joshua, 7, and his father arrived in Richmond Park in London, England. They followed the deer at a safe distance when suddenly the snow intensified and one of the stags stopped.
Jose Fragozo/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Jose Fragozo from Portugal captures the contrast between the natural world and human infrastructure. Dwarfed by the giant pillars of Kenya's new Standard Gauge Railway running through Nairobi National Park, the gray blocks contrast with the unmistakable pattern of nature's tallest land mammal.
Jo-Anne McArthur/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Canadian Jo-Anne McArthur shows American mink kits fighting for space in a small cage on a Swedish fur farm. The sign above indicates two have died. Due to legislation changes since this photo was taken, farms now have slightly larger cages, but the standard of life remains poor.
Jasper Doest/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Jasper Doest shot a portrait of Lubinda Lubinda -- station manager for the Zambezi River Authority -- revealing the impact of drought on the flood plain. Wildlife is dependent on regular floods, as are the Barotse people. Lower water levels mean Lubinda's new house (right) did not need to be so high.
Heikki Nikki/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
After years of visiting the Finnish river, Heikki Nikki knew every 'dipping' rock favored by white-throated dippers. Picking one hidden beneath flowing water, he sat quietly on the bank. Suddenly the spot became the subject of a hotly contested argument.
Dmitry Kokh/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Dmitry Kokh used a low-noise drone to capture this image of a polar bear on the small island of Kolyuchin, in the Russian High Arctic. With climate change reducing sea ice, hunting is becoming increasingly difficult, pushing these bears to scavenge.
Britta Jaschinski/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Britta Jaschinski uses a torchlight to highlight the impact of mining coltan, a component of phone and laptop batteries. Here Jaschinski surrounds it with mining tools and the remains of animals impacted by the industry, all seized by customs authorities: A gorilla skull, vertebrae and leg bone and porcupine quills.
London CNN  — 

A snow-covered stag, an underwater wonderland and a tree frog pool party are some of the highly commended entries in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022 competition.

A selection of 14 pictures have been released ahead of the awards ceremony for the 58th edition of the competition, which is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London.

An upcoming exhibition, which will run at the museum before touring, features 100 of the best pictures, which were judged on their creativity, originality and technical excellence.

This is the wildlife photo of the year, as chosen by the public

The contest attracted entries from photographers of all ages and experience from 93 countries, organizers said.

Roz Kidman Cox, chair of the judging panel, said in a press release: “What’s stayed with me is not just the extraordinary mix of subjects in this year’s collection – a vast panorama of the natural world – but the emotional strength of so many of the pictures.”

Other highly commended images to have been released include an encounter with a polar bear in Russia and a sobering shot of unsustainable fishing in India.

Stunning images of nature's weird and wonderful unveiled in photo competition

Also commenting in the press release is Doug Gurr, director of the Natural History Museum, who said: “These inspiring images convey human impact on the natural world in a way that words cannot – from the urgency of declining biodiversity to the inspiring bounce back of a protected species.”

Winners will be announced on October 11 at a ceremony hosted by wildlife presenter Chris Packham. The exhibition opens three days later.

Submissions for the 2023 competition will open on October 17.