Italian photographer Federico Veronesi, named Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026, spotted an unusual trail of drag marks across the sand of a dry riverbed while tracking elephants in Namibia's Huab River Valley. Following the tracks, he came across a female elephant carrying a dead calf, its leg wedged between her tusk and trunk. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.

Initially, Veronesi assumed the elephant was the calf's mother. But after sharing his photographs with an elephant research project working in the area, he learned that this wasn't certain. Researchers recognised the elephant as a female who had lost a calf several years earlier and said she had previously picked up dead calves belonging to other females.

For Veronesi, the encounter was deeply significant. "Of all the 20 years I've done photographing animals, this is the most heart-wrecking and fascinating and dramatic," he said, describing it as "revealing of the depth and complexity of the emotions, the feelings of the animals."

He hopes the image will encourage people to look beyond animals' physical appearance and recognise them as individuals with their own relationships, memories and emotions. "It's a small window that opens just a crack into the complexity of their world," he said.

The competition's annual exhibition opens at the Natural History Museum on Friday 16 October 2026.

Young winners and other award-winning images

**Oscar Whitfield** — Young Grand Title and 11 to 14 Years. Photographer: Oscar Whitfield, Zimbabwe/UK. Location: Zambezi National Park, Zimbabwe.

Only by lying in the dust and capturing the beetle at eye level could Whitfield show how much strength its task required. While on a family game drive in Zimbabwe, near his home in Victoria Falls, he spotted the dung beetle struggling to push a ball of dung uphill through the sand, with a trail of flies following closely behind. After experimenting with different angles and compositions, he captured a moment that reveals the extraordinary effort involved in this seemingly simple task.

"I hope that when people look at the photograph, they can see too, and maybe appreciate how much can be happening in a small moment in the natural world," says Whitfield.

**Amelie Davis** — 10 Years and Under. You do not need a camera or a plane ticket to take an award-winning photo. Davis captured this shot in the garden using her dad's smartphone. The image freezes in time a single wingbeat from a common carder bumblebee as it prepares to land on a flower.

**James Lewin** — Animals in their Environment. Location: Chyulu Hills National Park, Kenya. Lewin captured this dreamy, black-and-white photo of a young bull elephant spraying zebras at a waterhole. He softened the usually harsh light by using a camera converted to infrared.

**Aaron Sanders** — Animal Portraits. Common octopuses are usually found in the warmer Mediterranean Sea. But with global warming pushing up springtime sea temperatures, sightings across south-west England have massively increased. Sanders described the moment he spotted a single eye peeking from behind the kelp: "We remained perfectly still, watching one another with a seemingly shared curiosity."

**Isak Pretorius** — Birds. Photographer: Isak Pretorius, South Africa. Fewer than 5,300 mature shoebill storks are estimated to remain in the wild. Yet Pretorius, while canoeing with a guide, was able to capture these two – likely a breeding pair collecting material for their nest. Despite their name, shoebill storks are actually more closely related to pelicans, herons and ibises.

**Konrad Gräeter** — 15-17 Years. Spring sees male blackbirds search for high vantage points to sing and try to attract a mate.