The photo of the Asian sharptail, taken by the French biologist Laurent Ballesta, became the absolute winner of the prestigious world photo competition Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023. The sharptail is a living fossil – this species was already on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago, in the time of trilobites. It is now threatened with extinction due to environmental changes and the use of its blue blood in the pharmaceutical industry.
Ballsest’s underwater shot won in a competition of almost fifty thousand images, which were entered into a competition organized by the London Natural History Museum (Natural History Museum) sent by photographers from 95 countries around the world.
Sharp-tailed deer have survived in the wild for hundreds of millions of years, but are now facing environmental changes and are also threatened by overhunting. The beaches that these animals need to reproduce are disappearing. Their meat is used as bait by fishermen and is considered a delicacy in some Asian countries. It is also hunted for its blue blood (more precisely, it is hemolymph). It is used in the pharmaceutical industry and in medicine, where it is an ingredient in the production of some diagnostic tests).
“Seeing the horsetail in its natural environment, captured in such an incredibly beautiful way, is amazing. We are looking at an ancient species that is very endangered and at the same time of fundamental importance to human health. This photo is unreal,” commented the winning image of the competition jury president Wildlife Photographer of the Year Kathy Moran.
Laurent Ballesta is only the second photographer in the competition’s fifty-nine-year history to win the absolute winner prize repeatedly. He received it for the first time in 2021.
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition was founded in 1965 and was founded by BBC Wildlife Magazine, which was then called Animals. In 1984, the Natural History Museum in London joined the competition and its present form was created. Now the competition and traveling exhibition fully falls under the Natural History Museum (Natural History Museum, www.nhm.ac.uk).
If you are going to London:
The exhibition of prize-winning images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023 competition has been open since October 13 at the Natural History Museum in London and will run until June 30 next year. Tickets are suitable buy in advance onlineespecially on weekends they tend to be sold out.
Mike Korostelev: Hippopotamus with babies. Winner in the Underwater Photography category. | Photo: Mike Korostelev, Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023
Larger photo gallery of award-winning images:
A more extensive photo gallery can be viewed on the competition website: www.nhm.ac.uk/wpy/gallery.
For photographers who wish to participate:
Pictures for the 60th anniversary can be sent from October 16 to December 7. Participants under the age of 17 can submit images for free, adults pay a participation fee of 25 British pounds. More information is here: www.nhm.ac.uk/wpy/competition.
