TIME LightBox World Press Photo

Here Are the Best Wildlife Photos of the Year

Each year, World Press Photo selects the best photojournalism images produced over the previous 12 months.

This year’s World Press Photo winners in the nature categories show that our planet can be both brutal and awe-inspiring: A sunbather in a bikini reads lazily on a Sydney beach as a massive cloud tsunami looms overhead; divers surround a gigantic humpback whale and her newborn calf in the Revillagigedo Islands in Mexico; an orange orangutan climbs over 30 meters up a tree in an Indonesian rainforest.

Each year, the World Press Photo selects the best photojournalism produced over the previous 12 months. This year, the Nature category singles winners were photographers Rohan Kelly, Anuar Patjane and Sergio Tapiro. The stories winners were Tim Laman, Brent Stirton and Christian Ziegler.

Selected from among 82,951 images submitted by press photographers, the nature category was one of eight themed categories, including Sports, Portraits and News. The Overall winner, photographer Warren Richardson, captured a refugee father handing his baby to another man as they crossed the barbed-wired border between Serbia and Hungary.

Rachel Lowry is a writer and contributor for TIME LightBox. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @rachelllowry.

 

Nature, 3rd prize stories. Madagascar holds more than half of the world's chameleon species; however, as a result of deforestation causing habitat loss, 50 percent of the chameleon species is endangered. Nature, 1st prize singles. A massive 'cloud tsunami' looms over Sydney as a sunbather reads, oblivious to the approaching cloud on Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia on Nov. 6, 2015. Nature, 2nd prize singles. Divers observe and surround a humpback whale and her newborn calf whilst they swim around Roca Partida in the Revillagigedo Islands, Mexico, Jan. 28, 2015. Nature, 3rd prize singles. Colima Volcano in Mexico shows a powerful night explosion with lightning, ballistic projectiles and incandescent rockfalls; image taken in the Comala municipality in Colima, Mexico, Dec. 13, 2015.

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