LONDON: A photo capturing a Tibetan fox pouncing on a startled marmot in China’s Qilian Mountains was awarded the top prize in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

The competition, developed and produced by London's Natural History Museum, received more than 48,000 entries from 100 countries.



“The picture captures the instant a female Tibetan fox, hunting to keep her three cubs alive, engages in a fight for survival with a Himalayan marmot,” the museum’s website said.

The photo was taken by Bao Yongqing, the director and chief ecological photographer of the Qilian Mountain Nature Conservation Association of China. His work has been featured in magazines and newspapers and awarded in international competitions.

“This compelling picture captures nature’s ultimate challenge: It’s a battle for survival,” said Sir Michael Dixon, the museum’s director.

Roz Kidman Cox, the chair of the competition’s judging panel, was quoted on the website as saying that the image was “quite simply the perfect moment” photographically.



“The expressive intensity of the postures holds you transfixed, and the thread of energy between the raised paws seems to hold the protagonists in perfect balance,” she said.

“Images from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are rare enough, but to have captured such a powerful interaction between a Tibetan fox and a marmot – two species key to the ecology of this high-grassland region – is extraordinary.”

Little are known about Tibetan foxes, which live in altitudes of up to 5,300m and are only found on Tibetan and Ladakh plateaus.

“As a photographer, I believe it is my responsibility to let people know that wild animals are indispensable friends to humans,” Bao said.



OTHER AWARDEES

Also among the highlights of the competition are a photo of a bigfin reef squid shot by teenager Cruz Erdmann of New Zealand.

Cruz Erdmann from New Zealand took the top spot for the "11-14 Years Old" category with this photograph of a squid from the Lembeh Strait in Indonesia. (Photo: Cruz Erdmann/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

Erdmann, 14, won the grand prize in the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Taken during a night dive in the Lembeh Strait in Indonesia, the image showed the squid flashing iridescent colours against a pitch dark backdrop.

“Top dive in the pitch dark, find this beautiful squid and be able to photograph it so elegantly, to reveal its wonderful shapes and colours, takes so much skill. What a resounding achievement for such a young photographer,” Theo Bosboom, a member of the judging panel, was quoted as saying.

Audun Rikardsen from Norway won the "Behaviour: Birds" category with this image of a golden eagle. (Photo: Audun Rikardsen/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

This image by Ingo Arndt shows a puma attacking guanaco in Chile. (Photo: Ingo Arndt/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

Other awardees include a photo by Germany’s Ingo Arndt showing a puma attacking a guanaco in Patagonia, Chile, and one of a golden eagle poised to land on a branch, taken by Norway’s Audun Rikardsen using a camera attached on a tree branch.

A herd of antelope leave a trail of footprints in the snow, in China's Kumukuli Desert. (Photo:Shangzhen Fan/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

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This black and white image shows a bison in the snow at Yellowstone National Park, United States. (Photo: Max Waugh/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

Spawning frogs gather in a pond in South Tyrol, northern Italy, in this photo taken by Manuel Plaickner titled Pondworld. (Photo: Manuel Plaickner/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

This image, titled The Garden of Eels, shows a colony of garden eels off Dauin, in the Philippines. (Photo: David Doubilet/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

This photo, titled The Huddle, shows more than 5,000 male emperor penguins huddled against the wind and late winter cold on the sea ice of Antarctica’s Atka Bay. (Photo: Stefan Christmann/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

Two male Dall’s sheep in full winter-white coats stand immobile at the end of a fierce clash on a windswept snowy slope in this photo titled Frozen Moment. (Photo: Jérémie Villet/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

A hummingbird hawkmoth, hovering in front of an autumn sage, siphoning up nectar with its long proboscis in France. (Photo: Thomas Easterbrook/ Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

The winning photos will be on display at London's Natural History Museum from Friday until May 31 next year.