Michel Roggo/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Stems of Eurasian watermilfoil, bearing soft, feathery leaves, reach for the sky from the bed of Lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
- The London Natural History Museum's annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition awards photographers whose work inspires us to consider our place in the natural world and our responsibility to protect it.
- This year, the contest received 48,000 entries from photographers in 100 countries.
- The frontrunners captured images of a leopard seal lunging for a penguin, a male hippo crushing a newborn in its jaws, and a sea turtle strangled to death by a rope.
- Here are the 14 best photographs from this year's contest.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Humans are rarely offered a glimpse into the raw, unfiltered world of the animal kingdom. But the astounding images from the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London, throw into sharp relief the brutality of predator-prey interactions and the resilience of species around the world.
This year, photographers traipsed through the Amazonian jungles of Peru, dove deep into the waters of French Polynesia, and stalked isolated ice floes in Antarctica to capture images of animals' struggles to survive and get a decent meal.
Picture-takers from 100 countries submitted 48,000 entries for the 2019 contest, including photos of a leopard seal lunging for a penguin, a male hippo crushing a newborn in its jaws, and a sea turtle strangled to death by a rope.
Here are 14 of the "highly commended" front runners in this year's contest. The overall winners will be announced on October 15.