See nature in close-up in these gorgeous pictures

Annually, hordes of spiny toads (Bufo spinosus) collect to breed and lay their eggs in freshwater lakes and ponds, primarily throughout Spain, Portugal and France. Mating is a tough and tumble affair, although, with males usually outnumbering females by 5:1. Of their desperation to discover a mate, males will generally clasp onto a feminine already locked into an embrace – generally known as amplexus – by one other mate.

Aloys Pichard captured one in all these “breeding balls” in Might (principal image), when the toads have been crossing a street at night time in southern France to achieve egg-laying grounds. His picture, together with the others proven right here, was shortlisted on this 12 months’s Shut-up Photographer of the Yr contest.

Joris Vegter’s picture of 4 gold-tailed Melitta bees (Melitta haemorrhoidalis) nestling in a flower head is proven above. Melitta bees usually sleep collectively inside bell flowers in a single day for heat. Vegter says he seemed in additional than 1000 flowers round Groningen within the Netherlands till he discovered the snoozing bees. “My ardour is to share the unseen fantastic thing about the tiny world throughout us,” he says.

Pictured above is Ignacio Castellanos’s picture of a male Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus) in an oak forest in Huasca, Mexico. These moths measure greater than 15 centimetres from wing tip to wing tip.

Daniel Sly’s shot of a potbellied seahorse (Hippocampus abdominalis) close to Naked Island, Australia, is proven above, with Aris Kolokontes’s close-up of a ladybird spider (Eresus walckenaeri) pictured under.

The competitors winners might be introduced in January.