Miniscule larvae carve winding tunnels as they eat through small leaves in a small forest near the town of Velbert in western Germany in July 2022. The hungry green sawfly larvae measure just three millimetres in length and are difficult to spot on the leaves of the beech tree unless up close. (Photo by Christian Brockes/Solent News)

The winners of The London’s Natural History Museum's prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year for 2013 have finally been unveiled. Selected from almost 43,000 entries from 96 countries, the winners offer a glimpse of the stunning array of natural beauty on our planet. Photo: Canada: “Lucky pounce”. “Anticipating the pounce – that was the hardest part”, says Connor, who had come to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA, in search of wildlife as much as the spectacular landscape. He had found this fox, his first ever, on his last day in the park. It was so absorbed in hunting that Connor had plenty of time to get out of the car and settle behind a rock. It quartered the grassland, back and forth, and then started staring intently at a patch of ground, giving Connor just enough warning of the action to come. When it sprung up, Connor got his shot. And when it landed, the fox got his mouse. (Photo by Connor Stefanison/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013)

A fuzzy caterpillar on a basil plant in west Bengal, India on December 25, 2023. The caterpillar’s defence system is its hair, which has microscopic barbs that break off easily in the skin of would-be predators. (Photo by Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Winner, photojournalism. Elephant in the room, by Adam Oswell, Australia Zoo. Visitors watch a young elephant performing underwater. Oswell was disturbed by this scene, and organisations concerned with the welfare of captive elephants say performances like this encourage unnatural behaviour. In Thailand, there are now more elephants in captivity than in the wild. With the Covid pandemic causing tourism to collapse, elephant sanctuaries are becoming overwhelmed with animals that can no longer be looked after by their owners. (Photo by Adam Oswell/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021)

An orange oakleaf rests on a plant at the Taipei Zoo on November 26, 2020. (Photo by Sam Yeh/AFP Photo)

Damselflies covered in dew rest on a wild flower by the Po River, northern Italy on August 15, 2016. (Photo by Alberto Ghizzi Panizza/Barcroft Images)

People and Nature category winner: Why did the sloth cross the road? by Andrew Whitworth (Osa Conservation and University of Glasgow), taken in Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. “I was driving out from the Osa Peninsula, located on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica on a dark, stormy day. This female three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) had luckily just about made it across the road, and the drivers of the Toyota on this occasion had spotted her in good time”. (Photo by Andrew Whitworth/2019 British Ecological Society Photography Competition)

Enthusiasts skate on a frozen fen in sub-zero temperatures on February 11, 2012 in Sutton, England. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)