5 winning wildlife photos that are truly stunning

If there's one thing we've learned from the Wildlife Photography Awards, it's that you can never have too many wildlife photos to look at.

The Natural History Museum's annual contest is a constant source of stunning imagery, collecting together photos from across the world that showcase nature at its most beautiful and brutal.

The main awards took place in August last year, but — as is tradition — a public vote has since taken place online to crown the people's champion. A whopping 50,000 images were entered into the awards in total, from which a shortlist of 25 were chosen for the public to vote on.

From the winning image of Italy's Santa Croce Lake, taken by Cristiano Vendramin (which received almost 32,000 votes), to some highly commended images from the USA, Canada, The Netherlands, and China, here are the photos the public chose.

Credit: Cristiano Vendramin

Credit: Ashleigh McCord

Credit: Jo-Anne McArthur

Credit: Jeroen Hoekendij

Credit: Qiang Guo

Want more where that came from? You can check out the 2020 images here.