The dazzling winners of the British Ecological Society’s photography awards

The eye-catching photo above and the selection below celebrate the beauty and diversity of nature. The pictures were taken by ecologists and students around the world and are among the winners, runners-up and highly acclaimed entries in the British Ecological Society’s 2020 photo competition “Capturing Ecology”.

The overall winner was Alwin Hardenbol from the University of Eastern Finland for the inaugural recording of a Dalmatian pelican, the largest pelican species threatened with loss of their breeding colonies and aquatic habitats.

Pichaya Lertvilai, SIO, UC San Diego / British Ecological Society

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This shot of Verrill’s two-point squid larvae emerging from their egg sacs was won second by Pichaya Lertvilai at the University of California at San Diego.

Roberto García Roa, University of Valencia / British Ecological Society

Roberto García Roa, of the University of Valencia, Spain, was the winner of the “The Art of Ecology” category for this picture of a Cope vine snake using its open mouth as a tactic to scare predators.

Upamanyu Chakraborty / British Ecological Society

The runners-up show a procession of weaver ants bringing younger colony members to safety, photographed by Upamanyu Chakraborty, a researcher at the Wildlife Institute of India.

Gabor Pozsgai, Fujian University of Agriculture and Forestry / British Ecological Society

These final images are from the critically acclaimed list: one perfectly camouflaged Oiticella convergens Moth captured by Gabor Pozsgai, who is at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in China; and a coyote captured by Peter Hudson of Pennsylvania State University.

Peter Hudson, Penn State University / British Ecological Society