Most animals would be afraid to go near a crocodile, but biting flies have no qualms about landing on this fearsome predator and drinking its blood. This photo, taken by in Panama’s Coiba National Park, was chosen as the overall winner of the British Ecological Society’s annual .

“This crocodile was lurking in a tidal marsh off the beach,” said Rowe, a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, in a statement. “I got as close and low as I dared, waiting for that direct eye contact.”

The judges also selected 10 category winners, including this shot by , a South African-based photographer, which won in the interactions category. During the dry season in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park on the border between South Africa and Botswana, flocks of birds were drinking at a waterhole when a pride of lions approached, scaring the birds away.

at the University of Nottingham, UK, won in the animals category with this image of a Wallace’s flying frog (Rhacophorus nigropalmatus). These amphibians, named for the biologist Alfred Russel Wallace, use their webbed feet to glide between trees in the rainforests of South-East Asia.

A bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) in the Rocky mountains has its nose swabbed in this photo by , a photographer and biologist at Penn State University, which was highly commended in the ecologists in action category. Pneumonia is a major issue for bighorn herds, often wiping out young lambs in the spring. Researchers suspected that asymptomatic adults were spreading the disease to vulnerable youngsters, so they implemented a campaign to test wild sheep and treat the infected individuals. This helped to reduce mortality and let populations recover.

In the mountainous Altos de Cantillana nature reserve in Chile, wildlife photographer captured this photo of a fly resting on a mushroom, which won in the plants and fungi category.

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In another highly commended image from the ecologists in action category, taken by wildlife researcher and photographer , three undergraduate students are using a beach seine – a type of fishing net – to count coastal fish species in New Brunswick, Canada, as part of a project monitoring seasonal population changes.

These twisting threads wrapped in thinner, looping strands are the silk of an Australian net-casting spider (Asianopis subrufa), a consummate ambush predator. Instead of building a web and waiting for prey to fall into it, this spider holds its net in its front four legs and throws it over a hapless insect. As this electron microscope image shows, its silk is specially adapted for this unusual hunting technique: it consists of an elastic core encased in a sheath of harder fibres of varying sizes, making it both strong and exceptionally stretchy.

The photo, taken by at the Argentinian Bernardino Rivadavia Museum of Natural Sciences and his colleagues, is the overall winner of the Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition 2025.

The winning photo in the behaviour category shows a fight between two male greater prairie-chickens (Tympanuchus cupido), snapped by at the Pennsylvania State University. Like many grouse species, males gather at a so-called lek during the breeding season, where they compete for mates by leaping into the air and attempting to strike their opponent.

at the University of Turin, Italy, won in the ecology and environmental science category with this photo of tadpoles, taken during fieldwork in Madagascar. The tadpoles, thought to be the young of a Guibemantis liber frog, are swimming in a gelatinous substance hanging from a tree trunk.

This image by a UK-based photographer, is the runner-up in the behaviour category. It showcases the masterful mimicry of the Atlas moth (Attacus atlas), one of the largest moths in the world, with a wingspan of up to 30 centimetres. The tips of its wings resemble snake heads: a disguise that helps it avoid being eaten by birds.

In Chile’s Atacama desert, stratocumulus clouds drifting in from the coast are a valuable resource. at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and his colleagues are exploring techniques for catching the fog and turning it into drinking water for communities living in one of the driest places on Earth. Ríos Silva’s photo was the runner-up in the earth sciences and climatology category.

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The return of the sun after six months of darkness at the South Pole is captured in this image by at McGill University in Canada, the runner-up in the astronomy category. Chokshi had to heat up his camera and contend with the icy wind at -70°C (-94°F) for several minutes to take a 360-degree panoramic shot of the horizon as the sun rose. He then turned it into a stereographic image resembling a small planet, fringed by a green and purple aurora with the Milky Way above.