Tony Wu's Moray Eels Win Underwater Category at Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026

The Natural History Museum, London has revealed the winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026, and this year's underwater images are among the most striking in the competition's 62-year history. From the first documented courtship of Abbott's moray eels to a polar bear's face peering down through the sea ice, the winning and commended photographs show just how much of the natural world remains to be discovered beneath the surface.

Chosen from a record-breaking 65,403 entries from 121 countries and territories, the 2026 winners were selected anonymously by an international jury of experts in wildlife photography, filmmaking, conservation and science. Images were judged on originality, technical excellence, ethical practice and creativity. Italian photographer Federico Veronesi took the overall title with The Aftermath, an image of a female elephant carrying a dead calf in Namibia's Huab River Valley. Oscar Whitfield, a young British photographer living in Zimbabwe, was named Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year for Labour of Love, a dung beetle at work.

Below are the underwater photographs that won or were commended in this year's competition. (Aerial and topside images from the Oceans and Wetlands categories, including the drone shots, are not covered here.)

Tony Wu (USA/Japan) won the Underwater category with Making Morays, which is likely the first time the courtship and spawning of Abbott's moray eels has been documented. Tony has been working with biologists to close a knowledge gap in the social behaviour of this species, and his observations are feeding into published scientific studies. Using only a dim red light to minimise disturbance and a customised fisheye lens, he has followed one male since 2024 as it visits the females living in crevices on a reef off Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyūshū, Japan.

Two further winners came from beneath the water. Aaron Sanders (UK) won Animal Portraits with A Watchful Eye. Diving off Porthkerris Beach in Cornwall, Aaron noticed the footprints of octopus suckers on a thin blade of kelp, then a single eye slowly emerging. "We remained perfectly still, watching one another with a seemingly shared curiosity," he says. Sightings of common octopuses, a species more usually found in the warmer Mediterranean, have increased dramatically off southwest England in recent years, a "bloom" linked to above-average spring sea temperatures.

Anton Sorokin (USA) won Behaviour: Amphibians and Reptiles with Protective Pose. Having documented newt behaviour every winter, Anton had never seen this posture before. The pond was too dirty to swim in, so he waded along the edge and carefully dipped his camera and lighting below the surface. The California newt interlocks its back feet to guard a clutch from other newts, and stays there until the gelatinous egg mass has swollen too large to be eaten and has solidified onto the stem.

The jury also highly commended five photographs in the Underwater category itself.

Liang Fu (China) spent a year documenting a pair of pearl oyster shrimps living inside a black-lipped pearl oyster off Romblon Island in the Philippines. A small, extended macro probe lens, narrow enough to reach through the thin gap in the shell without touching the oyster or the shrimps, let him create A World in an Oyster. Recent evidence suggests the shrimps feed on the oyster's reproductive organs, which points to a parasitic relationship.

American photographer Isaac Szabo had two images highly commended. In Freshwater Colour, shot while snorkelling in Giles County, Virginia, he came upon a vivid gathering at a common spawning site, centred on a nest of stones built by a male bluehead chub. The nest attracts females of many species, sometimes hundreds of fish, and by sharing it the chub improves the odds that his own offspring survive if predators strike.

His second image, Riverbed Rest, shows a hellbender in North Carolina's Transylvania County. Isaac snorkelled during the mating season, when these ancient-looking amphibians are most active, and took care that his camera never bumped against the rocks so as not to unsettle them. Hellbenders need cool, clean, fast-flowing rivers, and pollution, dams and recreational disturbance have degraded many of those waterways.

Shane Gross (Canada) was highly commended for Dutiful Guardian, a male plainfin midshipman guarding his brood under a rock at low tide in Bowser, British Columbia. Shane used a macro probe lens to peer beneath boulders without disturbing the fish, and laid a towel over the sharp rocks before slowly composing the shot. A successful male can accumulate a brood of more than 1,000 young and guards them constantly, not even leaving to feed, until the fry disperse after four to six weeks.

Marco Colombo (Italy) was highly commended for Cave of Wonder, taken in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. Olm salamanders have rudimentary vision and avoid bright light, so, with scientists accompanying him, Marco used "a gentle pulse of flash on the olm, and torches on the background". Olms live in the near-perpetual darkness of limestone caves and are considered Vulnerable, with populations declining because of water pollution.

Several other highly commended images were taken underwater in other categories.

In Animals in their Environment, Jason Gulley (USA) was highly commended for Between Layers. While photographing fish at the striking boundary between spring-fed and tannin-stained water in Florida, he saw a manatee mother and calf swim into view. Keeping his distance, he framed the mother showing her calf the warm water it will need to survive future winters.

In Animal Portraits, Audun Rikardsen (Norway) was highly commended for Icy Window, which shows a polar bear from a seal's point of view. After spotting polar bear tracks beside a seal hole, he drilled a neighbouring hole for his underwater camera and connected it to a motion sensor on the ice above. Eight hours later the bear approached and looked down.

The Oceans: The Bigger Picture category, which highlights the pressures on our seas, produced two more highly commended underwater photographs. Aaron Sanders returned with Ghosts in the Net, taken in the Forgotten Islands, a remote archipelago in southeast Maluku, Indonesia. He and his dive partner cut free two living surgeonfish and a dead grey reef shark, then severed the floats holding the discarded net in the water so it would not attract more fish.

Shane Gross's second commended image, Calm Amid the Storm, is a split shot of a school of bigeye trevally at sunrise as a storm approaches D'Arros Island in the Seychelles. Shane flipped his camera upside down to help with buoyancy and slowly approached the curious school. The waters around the island became a Marine Protected Area and no-take zone in 2023, part of the worldwide initiative to protect 30% of Earth's land and ocean by 2030.

In Wetlands: The Bigger Picture, Ralph Pace (USA) was highly commended for Ocean Protector, a sea hare gliding through an eelgrass meadow in Monterey Bay, California. Ralph wanted to show a hopeful scene of "a gentle giant safeguarding the last green meadows of the sea". Sea hares help restore eelgrass by grazing on the red algae that block sunlight, and eelgrass is an important carbon sink.

Finally, Nicolas Hahn (Argentina) was highly commended in the Photojournalist Story Award. The lead image of his portfolio, Clambering Crabs, opens a window onto the little-known porcelain crabs, called "changai" locally, that gather in the kelp off Chile's Hualpen Peninsula. The portfolio is part of Nicolas's wider mission to make the marine life of his home continent better known.

The winning images will go on display in the sixty-second Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, opening on Friday 16 October 2026 and running until Sunday 11 July 2027. After London, the exhibition will begin a UK and international tour. Alongside the photographs, the exhibition uses the Museum's Biodiversity Intactness Index, a measure of how much of a region's natural biodiversity remains, to show how the habitats pictured are changing.

The exhibition is open Monday to Sunday, 10:00 to 17:50, with last admission at 16:30, and weekends sell out quickly. Adult tickets start at £19.00, concessions at £15.20 and child tickets at £9.50, excluding an optional Gift Aid donation, with cheaper off-peak tickets available. Book through the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition page. Wildlife Photographer of the Year Portfolio 36, edited by Keith Wilson with a foreword by Kathy Moran, is published on 14 October 2026 (RRP £28).

Underwater photographers can start planning their own entries. The sixty-third competition opens for entries at 11:30 GMT on Monday 19 October 2026 and closes at 11:30 GMT on Thursday 3 December 2026. Adults may enter up to 25 images for a £35 fee. Entrants aged 18 to 26 may enter up to 25 images for free, entrants aged 17 and under up to 10 images for free, and entrants from 114 countries across Africa, Southeast Asia and South America can also enter free of charge. Full details are on the competition page.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London. Its Lead Corporate Sponsor is Nuveen, a leading global asset manager. For the exhibition, tickets and further information, visit the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition page. Social media tags: Instagram @nhm_wpy, Facebook /WildlifePhotographerOfTheYear, #WPY62.