Cate Reilly, Texture like sun. The Pantanal, Brazil, September 2025 (ANIMAL & NATURE 2025)

In the late afternoon and early morning, the wild expanse known as the Pantanal - the planet’s largest wetland - is saturated, jewel-like, with colour. A female jaguar (Panthera onca) - named Stella by local biologists and one of the many progeny of the region’s reigning matriarch, Patricia - bathes in the last rays of the setting sun, draped on a tree branch overhanding the Corixo Negro. A young Yacaré caiman (Caiman yacare) rests on a fallen log in the soft light of dawn. Caiman are the jaguars’ main food source in this part of the Pantanal. As the sun sets, two juvenile capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) rest on the muddy shore of one of the Pantanal’s many meandering waterways, close to the family group are watching over them. A Black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) - one of 13 species of herons and egrets that help make the Pantanal one of the world’s most biodiverse bird habitats - waits to strike as morning lights up the Corixo Negro.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.