The otherworldly weirdness and beauty of fungi and slime moulds are captured in these photographs, taken by Jay Lichter for his new book , a guide to the “micro marvels” of New Zealand.

The ruby bonnet fungus (Cruentomycena viscidocruenta), pictured above, gets its scientific name from the Latin words for “bloody” and “slimy” because of the sticky substance coating its stalk, which can form large droplets. “The reflections you get in these globules from a diffused flash make for an awesome shot every time, so I never get sick of shooting them,” writes Lichter.

Below is the Cribraria slime mould, which is a protist, like certain algae and amoebas.

Below is the carnival candy slime mould (Arcyria denudata), named for the pink tufts it forms during its fruiting phase. It is only 4 to 6 millimetres tall.

Lichter discovered the relatively uncommon fungus Mycena lividorubra (below) under a log in New Zealand’s Waitākere Ranges.

And finally, below is another Mycena mushroom – though this one has been targeted by mould, “almost like a bridal veil”, Lichter writes. “But that’s not all! The mould in this photo is producing droplets of guttation (excess moisture) along its threads, making for an absolutely wild shot,” he adds.

Lichter hopes to inspire readers to discover the secret life of fungi themselves. Moss and rotten wood in the forest are your best bet, but Lichter has also found stunning specimens in car parks and vacant lots. “Even the most unassuming locations are exploding with fungal life,” he writes.

Jay Lichter
Allen & Unwin Aotearoa NZ

Poaching and a changing climate forced the northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) out of the northern foothills of the Alps around 400 years ago. But now they are on their way back.

This photograph shows Helena Wehner flying in the passenger seat of an ultralight aircraft, singing a German song through a megaphone to guide the birds on their way to their new winter homes. Wehner, behind pilot Johannes Fritz, is part of an Austrian conservation group known as Waldrappteam – named after the ibis’s local name – which is trying to establish a healthy European population once more.

The birds are hand-raised by human carers and form bonds, which means they are happy to follow people even when they are riding in the aircraft. Since its inception in 2004, the migration project has amassed numerous followers and fans from local communities along the birds’ route. The 50-day journey covers 2800 kilometres from south-east Germany to south-west Spain.

The stunning shot of the formation flying over the olive groves of Jaén in the south of Spain was taken by student Gunnar Hartmann and won him the overall top spot in . Hartmann joined the conservation team as a volunteer in 2024 while a science undergraduate at the University of Koblenz in Germany. In an announcement about the awards, Hartmann said the image brought up “so many emotions” for him. “I can smell the air from this day and imagine the sounds,” he added.

Other winning photographs in the Scientist At Work competition include this image from deep in the Red Sea off the Saudi Arabian coast, below, taken by marine biologist Uli Kunz. It shows scientists installing an incubation chamber over a coral reef ecosystem. The project aims to understand how different corals – Acropora here – react to rising water temperatures caused by climate change by measuring their oxygen output.

The winning image below, taken by Robert Harcourt, shows biologist Michael Doane holding his breath and diving down to carefully skim the skin of a whale shark (Rhincodon typus) with a syringe at Ningaloo Reef off the coast of Western Australia, collecting a sample of the microorganisms that dwell there.

Another winning aquatic image, this time shot from above, shows algal blooms on Dog Lake in Ontario, Canada. The Microcystis aeruginosa and Dolichospermum flos-aquae create a “toxic, vile-smelling layer of rot” on the lake each summer, according to photographer Haolun (Allen) Tian, a PhD student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. The thick green bloom kills fish and clogs water supplies. The boat in the image, shown below, contains scientists taking water samples for environmental DNA analysis.

Finally, photographer Shayanta Chowdhury captures an entomologist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana observing a yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) under a microscope, below. Scientists are studying how the drug nitisinone can be used to kill blood-feeding insects, and the mosquito has been fed a sugar mixture spiked with both the drug and a fluorescent dye.

In the parched terrain of Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park, the spiderweb of animal tracks that splay out from an ancient acacia, known as the Tree of Life, are reminiscent of roots. The scene is a reminder of the fragility of life’s connection to water.

Animals come from far and wide to shelter under the shade of this solitary tree. The most marvellous thing about water is the infinite ways that life responds to it – a tree sends down roots, a canopy grows, animals converge, a landscape is marked.

This image was captured by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, author of the bestselling photo book The Earth from Above, published in 1999. It is included in his new book, (out 11 June), a look at the world through the lens of its freshwater systems, co-written with biologist Bill François.

François says the tree shot is an “iconic picture from Yann’s work”. “A tree can spread 400 litres of fresh water a day in the surroundings by leaves’ transpiration,” he says. “And in its shade, temperature drops by 5°C. The tree is helping underground water reach the surface of the Earth and nurture life, acting as a living water well.”

Freshwater explores the scarcity of perhaps our most precious resource, which can sometimes seem plentiful and limitless. We may think that we live in a water world, but, as the authors point out and the images in the book demonstrate, water – especially fresh water – is actually the thinnest skin on what would otherwise be a barren, dry and lifeless planet.

“Let’s imagine for a moment that all the water on our planet was gathered into a single drop,” they write. This drop would be 1385 kilometres in diameter, representing over a million cubic kilometres of water. “At first glance, this seems enormous, beyond what we can imagine,” they write – yet this is less than the distance from Paris to Rome.

In reality, the sight of this drop of water, illustrated in Freshwater next to the scale of Earth, is sobering. Even more dramatic is the minuscule, full-stop’s worth of fresh surface water – this drop would be a mere 56 kilometres in diameter.

“If Earth were the size of a hot-air balloon, this fresh surface water would fit inside a wineglass. Tropical forests, civilizations, and living beings—from earthworms to giant sturgeons—depend on this small drop, representing less than a thousandth of the total water on Earth,” the authors write.

Below is another shot from Freshwater, of white pelicans in the Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary, Senegal.

“This park is a mangrove ecosystem, so a very important place for many species, at the interface between salt water and fresh water. It plays a particularly vital role for juvenile saltwater fish. Two thirds of fish caught in the world’s marine fisheries have grown in an estuary,” says François.

“Like many other places, this estuary is threatened by the human activities impacts on the river,” he says. “In this case, damming of the river and draining of nearby plains for agriculture led to an overgrowth of water plants that clogged the ecosystem and created a mosquito and water snails invasion.”

Above is another river snapped by Arthus-Bertrand, this time on the Auyán tepui in the Gran Sabana region of Venezuela. Below is his photograph of a waterfall on Bråsvellbreen glacier on Nordaustlandet Island, Norway.

The beauty of fresh water comes from the complex interplay of its molecules’ physics and chemistry. Salt and air dissolve in it; animals can swim in it; ice floats when other frozen substances sink; and it forms a solid, a liquid and a gas. All three of these phases – running rivers, vast and exquisite lakes, glaciers, polar ice caps, storm clouds and fog – have been the playthings of poets and artists for thousands of years.

Like many beautiful things, however, fresh water can also be transient, altering the appearance of a landscape in scales that span seconds as well as millennia. “A drop of water remains in the atmosphere for a short period, about ten days, compared to several thousand years in the ocean,” the authors write. “Therefore, it is quite rare for a drop to have the chance to end up in the sky; this happens on average every 2,737 years.”

The illegal trade in live and dead animals funds crime and political corruption and threatens biodiversity. Sadly, prosecutions are rare.

Alexandra Thomas and Louise Gibson at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) Wildlife Forensic Lab are working on techniques to change that.

This image of a green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) shows a glowing handprint, revealed by a special fluorescent powder dye photographed under ultraviolet light, which may serve as forensic evidence to help catch poachers and animal traffickers. Under UV, certain chemicals can also reveal blood and other bodily fluids, and gunpowder residues.

The image, taken by Britta Jaschinski, is the overall winner in this year’s Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation’s Environmental Photography Award.

Jaschinski says the dead turtle was confiscated at London’s Heathrow Airport and transported to ZSL, but that details about how the handprint was left on the turtle, and by whom, are “highly confidential”.

“Many species, from well-known animals like elephants and rhinos to lesser-known ones like pangolins, are pushed toward extinction by illegal hunting, causing lasting damage to global biodiversity,” says Jaschinski. “Beyond environmental harm, the illegal wildlife trade fuels organised crime and poses risks to people. It is one of the world’s largest illegal industries, often linked to corruption and criminal networks. It also contributes to the spread of diseases that can jump from animals to humans, increasing the risk of pandemics.”

Sergio Pitamitz, a conservation photographer who chaired the prize, said in an announcement about Jaschinski’s win that her approach when documenting crimes against wildlife “avoids graphic or sensational imagery, instead producing photographs that communicate clearly and effectively to a wide audience”.

The competition’s ocean category was won by Henley Spiers for his shot of a wedge-tailed shearwater (Ardenna pacifica) plunging into a football pitch-sized school of lanternfish, shown above.

The bird surfaced without catching anything and circled back for another dive. Lanternfish are thought to be the most numerous vertebrates on Earth, accounting for up to 65 per cent of deep-sea fish biomass.

The prize for the polar regions category went to Vadim Makhorov for his photograph of a group of Pacific walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens), below. These are the largest of the two species of walrus, with males reaching up to 4 metres in length and weighing as much as 1.5 tonnes.

Makhorov’s photograph was captured on Ratmanov Island, or Big Diomede, the easternmost part of Russia. The island’s entire southern coastline is occupied by walruses, most of them males. Female walruses only come ashore during the breeding season.

Runner-up in the changemaker category is Maud Delaflotte’s image of black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens), shown below. Feeding insect protein to farmed animals could be a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional sources like fishmeal and soya.

These dreamlike images offer a view into one person’s experience with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Last year, one week before visual artist turned 40, he received a diagnosis of ADHD. Soon after, he started taking the ADHD medication lisdexamfetamine. The drug transformed his experience of the world, helping to ease his symptoms, such as being easily distracted. “I tend to describe [ADHD] like you’re watching five projected films in your mind, all over the top of each other, and they all have their own soundtrack, and they all have their own subtitles,” says Regan.

“The medication is like turning down the volume on that, so it’s like you’re just watching one film or two films at the same time,” he says. “It means that I’m much calmer and more present.”

As Regan experienced these changes, he used a Polaroid camera to photograph himself and his surroundings while hiking in Australia. He then submerged the images in varying ratios of his ADHD medication and water for up to three months, distorting the original images. “It felt very natural for me to start processing this kind of new experience of a diagnosis, of taking medication, by engaging with the medication as a kind of creative collaborator,” he says.

In one self-portrait (main image), Regan’s body appears to be wrapped in a silk shroud. “There’s something really beautiful in that image of being held by this very sort of fragile texture and material,” he says.

Another image (above) captures greenery in the Australian bush, surrounded by bubble-like structures. “What I really like about this particular image is that it is very chaotic, so as I was describing earlier, it captures how all the dials and sliders are turned up [when experiencing symptoms of ADHD],” says Regan.

This vivid blue image (above) was originally a self-portrait, but submerging it in the medication and water has given it a “kind of biological, cellular and molecular effect, which I find interesting considering I’m putting a chemical into my body that affects the neurotransmitters in my brain”, says Regan. Lisdexamfetamine works by raising levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain.

Silhouettes of leaves and trees are enveloped by luminous yellows and greens in the final two images, above and below. The last picture, below, also reminds Regan of his late mother. “I often look at it, and I wonder what she would have made of the late diagnosis and whether she would have thought that explained previous difficulties that I’d had in the past,” says Regan.

The images, collectively titled “C₁₅H₂₅N₃O”, which is the molecular formula for the medication, will be displayed as part of Regan’s at Bethlem Gallery, London, between 22 April and 11 July 2026. His work comes amid growing awareness of ADHD. There are multiple types of ADHD, but it commonly involves persistently experiencing symptoms such as being forgetful, finding it hard to manage time or follow tasks, and being impulsive, with these .

“It’s kind of hard sometimes to describe or find the right analogies for people to get what an internal experience is like, but I think that the images represent some of that internal kind of chaos and layering,” Regan says.