Picture Perfect

Some more stunning shots, this time from the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year hosted by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife magazine.

The show by Catriona Parfitt (UK) Young Wildlife photographer of the year. No lion in its right mind would dare to attack a grown giraffe: a well-placed kick from one of those long legs could be fatal. Yet as Catriona and assembled gemsbok watched one evening near a waterhole at Hobatere Lodge in Damaraland, Namibia, this young male lion repeatedly harassed the thirsty giraffe.

First encounter by Brian Skerry (USA) Winner of The Underwater World category"Swimming along the ocean bottom with a 14-metre long, 70-tonne whale," says Brian, "was the single most incredible animal encounter I have ever had."The picture was taken some 22 metres down off the Auckland Islands, far south of New Zealand.

Snowstorm leopard by Steve Winter (USA) Wildlife photographer of the year and winner of the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife Steve had taken a number of pictures of snow leopards between January and July, but the shot he was after eluded him: a snow leopard in a snowfall with a backdrop that conjured up the atmosphere of its extreme environment. Checking his camera one freezing May morning, he found this snow leopard gazing back at him exactly in the place in the frame he had hoped it would be.Today, the snow leopard is at crisis point, hunted as a predator of livestock but also for its luxurious coat and its bones.

Frodo's prize by Cyril Ruoso (France) Winner of the Animal Behaviour: Mammals categoryFrodo, now 31 and going grey, may have lost the alpha status he held for many years, but he is still the biggest, most powerful and most skilled hunter of the Kasekela chimps in Tanzania's Gombe National Park.Usually the chimps go for monkeys. This time Frodo, egged on by the frantic screeches of the rest of the group, had caught something much more unusual: a bushpig. There had clearly been a frenzied tug-of-war, because the bushpig's body was ripped in two.

Deadlock by David Maitland (UK) Winner of the Animal Behaviour: All Other Animals categoryIt was at about midnight when David discovered this life-and-death struggle. A cat-eyed tree-snake, coiled around a branch, was locked in an embrace with a Morelet's treefrog - a critically endangered species."The snake had failed to get its jaws around the whole of the frog's head," says David. "It wouldn't let go, presumably because the frog would have leapt away. But it couldn't swallow it, either."