This year’s photography competition attracted more than 8,000 entries in eight different categories celebrating the natural world: Animal Behavior, Camera Traps, Landscapes, Small World, The Night Sky, Underwater, Urban Wildlife, and Wild Portraits. Contest organizers at Nature TTL were kind enough to share some of the winners and runners-up below. The captions were written by the photographers and lightly edited for style.

I See You. Wild Portraits winner. When a huge lion looks you right in the eyes, you immediately forget that you are sitting safely in a car. Instinctively, you cower and slowly retreat deeper inside the car so as not to provoke a predator. Fortunately, he and his brothers were busy consuming a young buffalo that had been hunted several minutes earlier. #

Top of the World. Camera Traps runner-up. A snow leopard scans for prey across the jagged peaks of the Ladakh mountain range in India. Thick snow blankets the ground, but the big cat’s dense coat and furry footpads keep it warm. I captured this image during a three-year DSLR-camera-trap project in the Indian Himalayas. #

African Elephant Puffing Dust. Animal Behavior runner-up. After wallowing in the mud, this majestic African elephant was walking toward our safari vehicle in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, Africa. It sucked up some dust in its trunk and before long, it turned its trunk upwards and released a huge puff of dust. #

Pretty in Pollen. Small World runner-up. A micro-moth (Micropterix calthella) is covered in golden balls of pollen from a creeping buttercup flower found in Mutter's Moor near Sidmouth, Devon, United Kingdom. #

Great Crested Grebe. Under 16 runner-up. My local pond is great place for grebes. There are at least four breeding species on this pond, and they're pretty tame because fishermen are often there. This little great crested grebe was posing for me the entire time the sun was setting. #

A Cat and Its Prize. Overall winner and Animal Behavior winner. We had received word about a serval hunting birds along the shore of Lake Ndutu (lower Serengeti), so we raced over to see. Upon arrival, we quickly realized that it was, in fact, a caracal and not a serval, and it was hunting flamingos that were feeding in the shallows. Within a minute of arrival, the caracal started stalking and eventually was successful (in dramatic fashion) at hunting one of the beautiful but unlucky birds. #

Sunset Ray. Underwater winner. A pink whipray splits a school of bannerfish, photographed against the setting sun on a late afternoon at the famous "Tuna Factory" dive site located close to Malé, the capital of the Maldives. #

Vantage Points. Under 16 winner. Malabar parakeets are wonderful creatures. They are also called blue-winged parakeets. They usually flock together and are seen in huge numbers. It was my privilege to shoot this image from inside a bird hide. Photo taken in Hosanagara, Karnataka, India. #

A Moment of Wilderness. Wild Portraits runner-up. As I cautiously observed this fox for a month, I noticed that this spot was well used for scent marking. Photo taken in Graubünden, Switzerland. #

City Hare. Urban Wildlife winner. During the daytime, this place on the outskirts is totally crowded by people going about their daily business. But at night, it belongs to the animals that come out to play under the streetlights. Photo taken in Kassel, Germany. #

Nature Fights Back. Landscapes winner. A thunderstorm passes over a sunflower which, against the odds, has managed to survive in a rubbish dump in the semi-arid Karoo region of South Africa. #

Ice Bear. Camera Traps winner. A large grizzly bear passes in front of my camera trap. In Canada's Yukon Territory, a unique phenomenon happens every year: The bears will freeze their fur and stay out until the month of December, despite the temperature reaching as low as –30 degrees Celsius. This picture was taken by a camera trap set up along the river about two days before a snowstorm. #

The Astonishing. The Night Sky runner-up. This shot is a mixture of magical elements: the light of the moon, whose incidence at the right angle generated a magnificent rainbow; the beautiful northern lights shot just above the lunar rainbow; and finally Goðafoss, a spectacular waterfall in Iceland. #

The Journey of a Moth. Small World winner. I managed to photograph this moth in summer at dusk. To keep track of the flight, I used an LED headlight to light the moth. Photographed in Hungary's Őrség National Park. #

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