The best nature photos of 2022 include giraffes fighting by ‘necking,’ neon green mushrooms, and a baby elephant rescue


Anup Shah/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

  • The Nature Conservancy’s photo contest recognizes stunning portraits of animals, landscapes, and plants.

  • This year’s winners include sparring giraffes, a black sand beach, and neon mushrooms.

  • The photos showcase the colorful diversity of life and landscapes on Earth.

The Nature Conservancy announced the winners of its annual photo contest on September 29.

two jackals snarl at each other while a third watches

Baiju Patil/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

This year’s winning photos showcase the vast diversity of life and landscapes on Earth.

elephant face in the dust

Panos Laskarakis/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Photographer Li Ping won the Grand Prize, using a drone to capture this photo of a highway cutting across tree-shaped gullies in Tibet.

tree shaped gullies with highway cutting across

Li Ping/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Other photos capture animals in the wild — like this pair of lions rubbing heads. The one on the right is clearly older than the left lion.

two lions walking rubbing heads

Anup Shah/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

These giraffes look like they’re being friendly or romantic, but necking, or swinging their heads and necks into each other, is actually how they fight.

giraffes press their necks together fighting

Torie Hilley/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

These eagles were fighting, too — over a piece of salmon, according to the photographer.

eagles fly past each other in snow

Rick Dowling/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

This elephant seal had to fight off a striated caracara that was trying to attack her calf.

elephant sneal roars at bird flying at baby seal

Fabio Saltarelli/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Another photo shows workers at Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy rushing to treat a wounded elephant calf, while sedating its mother so they can do so safely.

woman running with dart in front of elephant on its knees on the ground

Marvin Mwarangu/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Animals aren’t the only ones who can be dramatic. Lightning struck this mountain at just the right moment.

lightning strikes mountain

Hendy Wicaksono/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

A layer of fog gave an eerie glow to this mangrove tree in Lamongan, East Java.

mangrove roots spike upwards through fog with mangrove tree in distance

Waluya Priya Atmaja/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Fog also made this scene look peaceful, as the mist thinned above a glassy lake and distant snowy trees.

snowy white and green evergreen trees beneath fog across a glassy lake

Effy Varley/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Snowy mountains stand in stark contrast against a black sand beach in Iceland.

black sand beach with orange grass snowy white mountain in background

Ivan Pedretti/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Fireflies in Japan create contrast, standing out as circles of bright yellow light against the dark forest.

circles of yellow light in dark black woods

Masahiro Hiroike/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Another bright pop of color, in another forest, comes from bioluminescent Omphalotus Nidiformis, nicknamed ‘ghost mushrooms.’

neon green mushrooms in dark forest

Callie Chee/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Other photos capture humans’ impact on nature, like this factory built on the edge of a beach in Greece.

two people towel off on beach in front of large factory

Janusz Jurek/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Humans have also changed the landscape with wastewater ponds like these.

wastewater ponds

Jassen Todorov/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

A more colorful sign of human presence is these pink lagoons near a salt mine.

pink lagoons

Nick Leopold Sordo/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

A burn scar, filled with charred trees, lies in the wake of the Dixie Fire — California’s largest single wildfire.

dixie fire burn scar charred trees

Jassen Todorov/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Further north, along the Oregon coast, fog pours into a natural hole in the rock, known as the Drainpipe of the Pacific.

fog pours into hole in mountains

Tom Fenske/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

These dragon blood trees only grow in the high plateaus of Socotra Island, in the Indian Ocean.

dragon blood trees

Cristiano Xavier/Courtesy TNC Photo Contest 2022

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on November 19, 2022.

Read the original article on Business Insider



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