The Natural History Museum, London, has officially unveiled the 24-image shortlist for the 2026 Nuveen People's Choice Award.
This prestigious contest, a key part of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and supported by lead sponsor Nuveen, invites the public to decide which image will be crowned the winner.
This year's selection was curated from over 60,000 entries across 113 countries, featuring everything from a rare 'dark knight' tiger in India to the final, poignant portrait of a polar bear cub.
You can explore the full gallery and vote for your favourite image online at the official link: Vote for the 2026 People's Choice Award (External Link)
Uniqueness
Daniela Anger (Germany)
A leucistic otter feeds on a catfish in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.
On holiday in the southern Pantanal, Daniela was keen to see the neotropical river otters that live in the Aquidauana River.
After many boat trips, she spotted this otter feeding on a catfish.
It has leucism, a lack of melanin, resulting in pale or white fur. Animals with this condition can be more vulnerable as they don't have their normal camouflage.
The unique otter often returned to this branch to feed. It seemed very comfortable being observed.
Hold Me Tightly
Dvir Barkay (USA)
A brown-throated three-toed sloth mother cradles her young in her arms to shelter it from the rain.
Dvir observed this mother and her baby at the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica.
They spent most of their time high up in the canopy.
Brown-throated three-toed sloths aren't the world's fastest animals -- in a week, they moved between just three trees.
Downpours are common in the area. One afternoon, as the rain fell, the female nestled her young in her arms, sheltering it so it didn't get too wet.
This image shows the baby with its arms wrapped around its feet, asleep in its mother's embrace.
Ready to Pounce
Joseph Ferraro (USA)
An ambush bug nymph remains motionless in a flower, waiting for prey to wander within reach.
Joseph spotted this nymph close to his front door in Ferndale, Michigan, USA.
Ambush bugs are predatory. They stay still, waiting to surprise prey that wanders too close.
They use their powerful raptorial forelegs to grab the victim, then use their mouthparts to inject an immobilising venom.
This venom also pre-digests the insides of the prey before the bugs slurp up their meal.
Along for the Ride
Chris Gug (USA)
Against the darkness of the night-time sea, a juvenile swimming crab hitches a ride on a jellyfish.
Chris spotted this scene while scuba diving at night in Lembeh Strait, North Sulawesi, Indonesia.
The relationship between the crab and the jellyfish is not clearly understood.
The crab could be catching a ride to save energy.
It could be using the stinging tentacles as protection from predators.
Or it could be using the jellyfish as a platform to spy out small fish to eat.
For Chris, the scene offered more questions than answers.
Does the crab eat the jellyfish? Does it steal particles of food? Do the crab's sharp feet damage the jellyfish's delicate bell?
Flying Rodent
Josef Stefan (Austria)
A young lynx playfully throws a rodent into the air before killing and devouring it.
Josef has wanted to photograph lynxes for a long time.
He was delighted when the opportunity arose to spend two weeks observing them from a hide at Torre de Juan Abad, Ciudad Real, Spain.
It's common for young lynxes to play with their prey before killing it.
This one repeatedly threw the rodent high in the air and caught it again. To Josef, it looked as if the rodent could fly.
The whole game lasted about 20 minutes before the lynx got bored. It then took the rodent behind a bush and ate it.
A Fragile Future
Lance van de Vyver (South Africa)
A pangolin pup nestles into the warmth of a blanket at a rescue centre in South Africa.
Pangolins are among the world's most trafficked animals.
This baby's mother was a victim of poaching and endured appalling conditions.
But she was rescued and, against the odds, her baby was born.
Shortly after, the mother died.
This image shows both the resilience of life and the ongoing problem of the illegal wildlife trade.
Dark Knight
Prasenjeet Yadav (India)
A rare tiger with wide, dark stripes wanders a tiger reserve in India.
Deep in the Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha, India, a tiger named T12 roams.
It has pseudo-melanism, a rare genetic condition where the dark stripes are wider. At times they make the animal seem completely black.
A decade ago, there were fewer than seven tigers left in the reserve and T12 was the only known male. Against all odds, he's fathered new generations.
Prasenjeet spent months tracking his trails and setting hidden camera traps.
This image is a rare, intimate glimpse of Similipal's dark knight, a powerful symbol of survival and hope.
Into the Furnace
Mogens Trolle (Denmark)
A sun bear shelters from the rain in a furnace as a butterfly settles on its snout.
Mogens took this image in the Kaeng Krachan National Park in Thailand.
In recent years, sun bears have started visiting the campsites in the park, looking for an easy meal.
A sign on the furnace says 'Evolution'. Mogens says this is indeed a type of evolution -- a wild animal's opportunistic response to humans disturbing its natural habitat.
No attacks have been recorded so far, but Mogens worries that this is a conflict waiting to happen.
The Final Portrait
Nima Sarikhani (UK)
A polar bear cub looks into the camera as it accompanies its mother on an unsuccessful hunting trip.
There's a sad story behind this picture, taken on the coast of Svalbard archipelago.
Soon after it was taken, the polar bear and its family went too close to an area of huts, and people forced them away.
Not long after, the mother bear was found dead in the water near the shore. According to reports, she had died from serious internal injuries.
Her cub was by her side. Police shot it dead because it seemed to be aggressive.
This is likely the last image of the cub.
Family Rest
Christopher Paetkau (Canada)
A mother polar bear and her three cubs pause peacefully in the summer heat.
This type of scene is getting rarer.
The sun is high, the land wide and open. The polar bears rest after their long journey north along the Hudson Bay coast in Canada.
Shrinking sea ice is making it harder for polar bears to hunt and find food to survive in summer.
This is a story of endurance and a fleeting moment of hope in a world where survival is anything but certain.
Dancing in the Headlights
Will Nicholls (UK)
A silhouetted pair of young bear cubs rear up and play-fight in the middle of a quiet road.
Bears are a fairly frequent sight in the Jasper National Park, Canada.
But cubs are rarer, as mothers tend to keep them away from any threats.
It's an enchanting moment, but also a risky one for the playful young cubs silhouetted against the glow of car headlights.
Framed by the darkness of the surrounding forest, the scene took on an almost theatrical feel for Will.
When the lights aligned, he knew it was the image he was after.
Portrait of Extinction
Adam Oswell (Australia)
A mountainous pile of confiscated snares lies behind Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers.
This huge pile consists of snares that had been confiscated over a one-year period in the Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda.
Adam joined several rangers and community volunteers to build it. They wanted to show the scale and urgency of the snare crisis in Africa. It took a week to build.
Snares are an affordable and effective method of catching wildlife.
Some communities use them because they're in need of income and food security, but they're also used by sophisticated poaching syndicates.
Above and Below
Charles Davis (Australia)
A brushtail possum joey mirrors its mother climbing a branch while out foraging.
Over a month, Charles set up a camera trap on this branch in Miena, Tasmania.
He was hoping to photograph quolls. In the end, the cheeky brushtail possums were the stars.
This mother and large joey visited often.
Most nights they were just moving through, foraging for fresh leaf buds, insects or anything else they could eat.
This time the joey got a little mischievous, mirroring its mother on top of the branch.
Beauty Against the Beast
Alexandre Brisson (Switzerland)
A group of flamingos stands out against a stark industrial backdrop of power lines.
After a 10-hour drive, Alexandre arrived at this bird sanctuary in Walvis Bay, Namibia, just as the sun was setting.
The smell from a nearby open-air dump was overwhelming, a sharp contrast to the beauty of the lesser flamingos.
He waited for the right moment, hoping to capture them flying between the power lines.
When two of them finally took off, their graceful flight stood out against the backdrop.
The image shows how even spaces meant to protect wildlife carry the signs of human expansion.
Swirling Superpod
Cecile Gabillon (France)
A spectacular superpod of spinner dolphins herds lanternfish towards the surface of the ocean.
Cecile was free-diving in the Pacific Ocean, near Costa Rica, when she came across the dolphins. They were herding lanternfish and guiding them towards the surface.
Cecile was swimming so hard to keep up with them that it was almost impossible to take pictures. And her fisheye lens wasn't wide enough to take in the full scene.
She says that being surrounded by these dolphins was one of the most amazing encounters of her life. As they welcomed her into their realm, she nearly forgot to come up for air.
Sadly, pollution and overfishing are making these massive groups rarer.
Beak-to-Beak
Ponlawat Thaipinnarong (Thailand)
A sarus crane parent shares an intimate and moving moment with its one-week-old chick.
Ponlawat watched the sarus cranes and their chicks in the rice paddies in Huai Chorakhe Mak Non-Hunting Area in Buri Ram, Thailand.
To avoid disturbing the birds, he would lay still for several hours a day while he watched.
In the evenings, after the adults had fed their chicks, they rested on their nests.
The parent of this one-week-old chick carefully cleaned it. Then, in a moment of intimacy, it made beak-to-beak contact and moved its beak around the chick's for a while.
Marvellous Spatuletail
Dustin Chen (UK)
A male marvellous spatuletail hummingbird shows off its long tail while it feeds on flowers.
Dustin spent two weeks watching birds at Huembo Lodge in Pomacochas, Peru.
This male marvellous spatuletail hummingbird was his main focus.
In Dustin's photo, the bird shows off its long tail while feeding on flowers.
The spatuletail uses its impressive tail to attract females.
Dustin considers it to be one of the world's most fascinating birds.
Population growth and deforestation from logging and farming have eroded its habitat.
Now, it's restricted to a small area in the Andes of northern Peru.
A Fleeting Moment
Lior Berman (Costa Rica)
An elusive rufous-vented ground cuckoo plucks up a cicada in the depths of the rainforest in Costa Rica.
Silent and sharp-eyed, it follows columns of army ants. It doesn't want to feed on the ants, but on insects and small creatures fleeing the swarm.
Here, it locks onto a cicada frozen in fear.
There's a flash of movement – sharp beak striking, tail sweeping. A purple shimmer glints from its feathers, momentarily lighting up the forest floor.
This secretive predator is rarely seen and even more rarely photographed. It thrives in the chaos of the undergrowth and relies on split-second decisions and perfect timing.
A Leap into Adulthood
Peter Lindel (Germany)
Three young kestrels prepare to leap from their nest to a nearby beam.
From April to July 2023, Peter observed and photographed a pair of common kestrels. He witnessed moments from their courting until the time their young left the nest.
He took this picture from his living room in Dortmund, Germany.
It shows the moment when the young kestrels appear to be thinking about how to reach the beam, which was only 80 centimetres (31 inches) away.
It took them nearly a week to pluck up the courage and take the leap.
They then explored around the outside of his house for another week before leaving.
Solar Waves
Francesco Russo (UK/Italy)
Rows of solar panels stretch across the landscape like ripples on a water's surface.
This solar farm is in the land surrounding the hamlet of Cambridge in England, UK.
The panels had to be carefully organised around the divisions between pastures.
The result is a pattern that resembles the shapes of bodies of water.
This image is part of a project to document the relationship between nature and industry along the River Severn, which flows near this solar farm.
It shows clearly the effects of human activities on the environment.
Precious Cargo
Thomas Hunt (UK)
A cellar spider, sometimes known as a daddy long-legs, carries a ball of precious eggs in its mouth.
Thomas found this female cellar spider in the top corner of his sister's room in their home in Southampton, England, UK.
Upon closer inspection, he noticed it was carrying a ball of precious eggs in its mouth.
He encouraged it onto a piece of wood to move it into the garage so it could safely raise its young.
The mother spider watches over her eggs for three to four weeks until they all hatch into tiny transparent spiderlings. She then guards them in her web for a short while until they leave.
Couple's Camouflage
Artur Tomaszek (Poland)
A tiny male sits on the abdomen of a well-camouflaged female broad-headed bark spider, waiting until she moults and is ready to mate.
Artur was lucky to encounter these broad-headed bark spiders in the Khao Phra Thaeo non-hunting area, Phuket, Thailand.
The spiders spend the day on the bark of a tree and go down to their webs when it gets dark.
They are so well camouflaged against the tree bark that Artur found it hard to see them in the daytime.
He had to find them on their web at night first. Then he came back during the day and searched nearby tree branches to get the photograph.
Female broad-headed bark spiders are usually at least three to four times larger than males.
Males often piggyback subadult females for some time, ready to mate with the female as soon as she moults to maturity.
Never-ending Struggle
Kohei Nagira (Japan)
A sika deer carries the interlocked severed head of a rival male that had died after their battle.
In autumn, male sika deer fight over females by clashing their antlers.
This deer won the fight, but their antlers became tightly locked and wouldn't come apart.
A local fisherman says the deer dragged the whole body for several days before finally tearing off its head.
Kohei observed the deer on Notsuke Peninsula in Hokkaido, Japan, from late November 2020 to April 2021.
It was living alone, yet it continued to forage for grass and branches and managed to survive the winter.
The image shows life and death bound together.
Bond in Motion
Lalith Ekanayake (Sri Lanka)
The striking eyes of a curious lion-tailed macaque and its infant are on display as it races along a path.
Lalith was exploring the city of Valparai in the Western Ghats, India. He was surprised to come face to face with these macaques.
The mother raced towards Lalith, both pairs of eyes gazing forward, full of curiosity.
The image was taken at ground level set against a lush backdrop.
These are one of the most endangered species of macaques in the world.
Human activity is eroding their habitat. Now, they survive in small, fragmented populations.
To Lalith, this snapshot immortalises the macaques' resilience in a world where their future is uncertain.
© 2026