All animal life – and death – is here

Published on Wednesday 29 October 2008 21:10

AN award-winning photograph by a Scots zoologist captures the life-and-death struggle between a frog and a snake in the forests of Central America.

David Maitland, from St Andrews, won two awards last night at the 44th Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition run by the Natural History Museum in London and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

His award-winning frog image, Deadlock, won the "Behaviour – All Other Animals" category, and was taken in Chiquibul Forest Reserve, Belize.

Mr Maitland had been watching critically endangered Morelets treefrogs fighting off rivals to mate with females when he discovered the fight between the frog and a cat-eyed tree snake.

"The snake had failed to get its jaws around the whole of the frog's head. It wouldn't let go, presumably because the frog would have leapt away. But it couldn't swallow it, either. The kicking frog showed no sign of weakening and the stubborn snake wouldn't budge. It was a complete stalemate," Mr Maitland said.

Mr Maitland's second award-winning image, Sacrifice, showing an endangered Gabon black colobus monkey being thrown into a fire and prepared for human consumption, won the "One Earth" award category.

American photographer Steve Winter won the overall Wildlife Photographer of the Year award for pictures taken during ten months he spent tracking extremely rare snow leopards in isolated areas of northern India and Pakistan.

Antoni Kasprzak, of Poland, was overall winner for his Clash of Eagles image in the "Behaviour – Birds" category.

Mr Kasprzak waited five hours beside a dead moose before an adult and an immature white-tailed eagle arrived in a snowstorm and fought for their prey.

Mark Carwardine, chairman of the judging panel, said: "The judges spend weeks in a darkened room, looking at thousands of beautiful images, but the final exhibition photographs have a creativity, originality and sheer drama that set them apart."

The competition attracted a record entry of more than 32,000 submissions from 82 countries.