Nature’s Pitfall
. Winner, Animals, and Overall Winner. Two juvenile spotted salamanders are trapped inside a carnivorous northern pitcher plant in xAlgonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. #

Three Sisters. Plants Finalist. From the photographer: "Pulsatilla pratensis hungarica blooms near my home city of Debrecen, Hungary, in spring. It is a highly protected plant located on an old Russian combat-training ground, which is now a nature reserve." #

Microspur. Animals Finalist. Lung-Tsai Wang: "October to December is the season for the Taiwan Province green cat spider to give birth to their tiny offspring. In the mountains of central Taiwan Province, I found a nest at the top of some Setaria viridis grass. In the oblique evening backlight it looks like honeycomb, but as you look more carefully it turns out to be a nest of small spiders, with a female spider guarding it." #

The Footprint Friend. Second Place, Animals. From the photographer: "As this pond near Monda, Spain, dried up, hundreds of miniature toads, barely a centimeter in size, began to wander around seeking refuge. A pair of them found safety in the huge paw print of a mastiff that was left in the mud when it came to quench its thirst at the water’s edge." #

Flying Willow Tit. Young Finalist. Lorenz: "In winter, I went hiking with two friends in the Swiss mountains, looking for animals. It was freezing cold. At one point in the forest, various birds were repeatedly fed by tourists, which made them quite trusting. I tried to photograph the willow tits flying in front of the sun with the wide-angle lens, so that their wings were illuminated from behind." #

Wings. Butterflies & Dragonflies Finalist. Faber: "Early in the morning, damselflies have to warm up before they can fly, which makes them easy to find and photograph. I’m always intrigued by the details of the wings. Damselflies keep their wings closed when resting, but this one opened its wings a bit, which gave me the perfect chance to capture an abstract damselfly photo." #

By the River Bank. Butterflies & Dragonflies Finalist. A group of butterflies gathers near a puddle on a rural road in Haining County, Zhejiang Province, China. #

Little Naughty Draw Circle. Third Place, Insects. Yuan: "The beetle Aplosonyx nigriceps has developed a clever tactic to be able to eat Alocasia macrorrhiza leaves and avoid the toxic alkalies that the plant secretes. It nibbles a three-centimeter circle on the leaves to cut off the toxin transmission before feasting inside the circle free of poison. This example was photographed in Nonggang National Reserve, Guangxi Province, China." #

Schistidium Capsule. Third Place, Micro. Cederlund: "I am fascinated by the Schistidium mosses. The intricate capsules look like tiny flowers when viewed up close. With the peristome teeth extended, the capsule is only about one millimeter wide, yet from afar the mosses often give a drab blackish impression. They thrive on exposed surfaces such as rocks on the shoreline or forest edge and persist unnoticed on concrete slabs in city locations. I picked this one up from a concrete foundation close to where I live in Ulleråker, Sweden, and shot it in my living room." #

Cannibalism. Insects Finalist. Ishiguro: "I found this praying mantis in Miyagi, Japan, on the side of the road. It was eating another mantis, which continued to move even after decapitation." #

Slime Mold Copse. Intimate Landscape Finalist. Webb: "These slime mold fruiting bodies are dehisced, which means their spores have already dispersed. They were found growing on an old, dead apple branch, on a log pile in my garden in South Buckinghamshire, U.K., in April." #

A Rare Moment in Nature. Insects Finalist. A lacewing lays eggs in Pasir Ris Park, in Singapore. Bharathi: "This clever insect has developed a brilliant way to protect its offspring. It releases a silky line attached to a stem and pulls the silk into a stalk that solidifies immediately. The egg is then attached to the end of the stalk, suspending it in the air out of reach of passing insects. It spaces the eggs apart in such a way that the lacewing larva, when it hatches from the egg, will not be able to eat the other unhatched eggs." #