Winning images of the 2024 BigPicture natural world photography competition

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A fox in the sun, fireflies and a brush fire, and trees blanketed with butterflies are among the striking images caught by winners of the California Academy of Sciences’ annual contest. Now in its 11th year, it highlights biodiversity and the many threats our planet faces

Main image: A Moment in the Sun, finalist in the
terrestrial wildlife category, captures a blue arctic fox on St George Island, in Alaska’s Pribilof Islands. The foxes are endemic to these remote islands in the Bering Sea. Photograph: Kathleen Borshanian/BigPicture: Natural World Photography Competition/California Academy of Sciences

  • The Forest of the Monarchs – grand prize winner

    What looks like sunlit foliage on trees are actually millions of monarch butterflies. The only species that migrates to avoid North America’s winter, they fly up to 3,000 miles south to Mexico’s warm and humid Sierra Madre mountains. The butterflies cluster on oyamel fir trees, cozying up to generate warmth and conserve energy as temperatures dip.
    A stand of trees, with light shining through them, are covered in thick clumps of butterflies

  • Underwater Harmony and Chaos – winged life winner

    The dramatic hunting of northern gannets (Morus bassanus) sees the birds reach speeds up to 60mph (96km/h) and depths of 21 metres (70ft) as they dive into the water to catch their prey. Following a cluster of fishing vessels off Scotland’s Shetland Islands, the photographer Franco Banfi tracked a colony of the gannets, diving into the dark water to capture the chaos and beauty of their daily fight for food.
    A group of gannets diving into water, seen from below

  • Stardust Forest – art of nature winner

    Fireflies hold particular cultural significance in Japan, where their emergence marks the changing of the seasons and is thought to be a manifestation of the souls of dead soldiers. The floating light trails captured in this photo from Yamagata, Honshu island, were mostly created by male fireflies, which hover and emit frequent bursts of light when courting mates.
    A night-time clearing of trees dotted with fireflies.

  • Good Fire – human/nature winner

    ‘When you hear the words “wildfire” and “California”, many think first of devastation,’ says the photographer Maddy Rifka. Yet for centuries, California’s Indigenous peoples tended the land by igniting frequent, low-intensity burns, mimicking those caused by lightning. By clearing fire-prone brush, these burns encouraged growth of native plants, maintaining biodiversity and protecting water supplies. Here, Steven Saiz, a Hoopa Valley tribal member, coaxes flames to spread through the undergrowth surrounding a Yurok elder’s home.
    A man stands under a tree, flames burning around him, and pours fuel on the undergrowth

  • In Celebration – landscapes, waterscapes and flora winner

    In the tidepools off South Africa’s Cape peninsula, the photographer Geo Cloete captures the symbiosis between the crashing waves and sea anemones: only when there is a chance to feed do these colourful cnidarians bloom, extending their tentacles to ensnare plankton, crabs and tiny fish. As the waves sweep over the pools at high tide, nutrients and other microscopic organisms are delivered to the pool’s intricate food web.
    Colourful sea anenomes are revealed under the surface of the water as a wave crashes above

  • Northern Ghosts – photo story winner

    To Peter Mather, finding the Arctic’s transient wildlife feels like trying to pin down a ghost. By leaving motion-activated camera traps in the field for months or years, Mather captured rare images of wildlife in the icy expanses of Alaska’s Arctic coast, including this caribou carcass and an arctic fox. Mather’s images hint at the other harsh reality of life in the Arctic: without adequate conservation efforts and a dramatic slowing of climate breakdown, these animals might become apparitions, too.
    A small white arctic fox stands behind a dead caribou lying on an icy landscape

  • Beauty of the Desert – terrestrial wildlife winner

    The Schokari sand racer is a snake known for its whip-fast speed and agility: their pursuits can reach up to 10mph (16km/h). Here, a sand racer moves through a shrub in north-west India’s Thar desert. Despite its inhospitable climate, the desert is a refuge for a variety of endemic and endangered species, including the critically endangered great Indian bustard, the mugger crocodile and the phog shrub sheltering this sand racer.
    A snake is coiled around the branches of a shrub in the Thar desert

  • Tadpole Migration – aquatic life winner

    Every summer’s day in the lakes of Vancouver Island, hundreds of western toad tadpoles (Anaxyrus boreas) wriggle their way from the relatively safe depths of the water into the sunlit shallows, where their algae dinner awaits. The veteran underwater photographer Shane Gross had heard of the tadpoles’ migration and was amazed by the numbers he witnessed.
    A group of black tadpoles swimming under the long stems of lilypads

  • Hopeless – human/nature finalist

    This haunting image of an entangled humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) off California captures the grim reality these marine mammals face in the oceans. Decades of aggressive hunting, vessel strikes, disease and entanglement in fishing gear have killed thousands of humpback whales and threaten many cetacean populations worldwide.
    A humpback whale swims, entangled in fishing tackle, which has cut into its tail

  • A Moment in the Sun – terrestrial wildlife finalist

    Perched on the cliffs of the Pribilof Islands in Alaska, this blue arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus pribilofensis) basks in the sunlight – a rare occurrence for an archipelago often shrouded in thick fog. Blue arctic foxes are endemic to these remote islands and have adapted over generations to the unique, treeless environment: below the fox lies the entrance to a maze of tunnels that form a den for these secretive mammals.
    A small black fox sits in sunlight on an outcrop covered in plants.

  • March of the Spider Orchids – landscapes, waterscapes and flora finalist

    Against the moody, rain-soaked backdrop of Western Australia’s southern coast, flowers from a lone white spider orchid emerge from the brush and unfurl. As so many spider orchids are found only along this coast, local officials have promoted recovery plans to protect critically endangered species and help their numbers recover in regions devastated by invasive weeds and animals, wildfire and human activity. These images originally appeared on bioGraphic, an online magazine about nature and regeneration and the official media sponsor for the California Academy of Sciences’ BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition.
    Small, white flowers with pointed petals photographed in a moody, rainy landscape
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