The winning image

Federico Veronesi, a Milan-born nature photographer and safari guide, took the overall title at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 contest run by the Natural History Museum in London. His winning picture, called The Aftermath, was taken in the Huab river valley in Namibia. Veronesi had been following elephant tracks when he came across unusual drag marks in the sand, left by a female who was moving the body of her calf between her trunk and tusks. He photographed her carrying the calf across a dried-out river, and the black and white rendering makes the scene more stark. The contest drew more than 65,000 entries from 121 countries and territories, and an international jury of experts in photography, film, science and conservation judged them on creativity, originality, technical excellence and storytelling. Veronesi, who was born in Milan in 1975, moved to Kenya in 2002 and has made elephants one of his main subjects. It is the 62nd edition of the contest.

An elephant that was not her own calf

Veronesi first assumed the elephant was the mother of the dead calf, but regional elephant researchers told him that was not necessarily the case. Christin Winter, conservation programme director at Elephant Human Relations Aid (EHRA), a nonprofit that works to protect Namibia's desert elephants, said the animal is not the calf's mother. The elephant, now 14 years old, lost a calf of her own two years earlier. Since then Winter has seen her four times carrying stillborn calves belonging to other elephants, and she said this is the first time such behaviour has been documented in the area. Veronesi followed the herd for several hours and watched the elephant set the calf down to feed or drink before lifting it again and continuing along the Huab river. Veronesi filmed the scene in September 2025, and some researchers believe that elephants' behaviour around death, observed in both Asian and African elephants, is a way of processing grief. Winter has described the behaviour as a possible form of emotional processing.

Other prizes and the exhibition

Oscar Whitfield, a British photographer based in Zimbabwe, won the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year title with 'Labour of Love', which shows a dung beetle straining to push its prized load. Amelie Davis, from Britain, won the under-10 category with a picture of a bumblebee in flight, taken on her father's smartphone. James Lewin of the UK won the Animals in their Environment category with 'The Meeting Place', which shows a young bull elephant spraying a group of zebras at a waterhole in Kenya's Chyulu Hills. Lewin used a camera converted to infrared to soften the harsh light at the waterhole. Vegard Byrkjeland Aasen photographed an orca mother in a Norwegian fjord supporting her dead calf and bringing it back to the surface again and again, and he considered it important to record the moment despite its sadness. The 100 best photographs will be displayed at the Natural History Museum Basel from 20 November 2026 to 27 June 2027.