Picture of an otter diving in a kelp field.

See our best wildlife photos from 2023

A tender moment between mountain hares. Chickens strutting their stuff on the catwalk. Orcas on the hunt. These are our 18 favorite animal pictures of the year.

A sea otter pup forages for crabs or snails, which the animal will carry to the surface in its armpits. An adult sea otter eats about a quarter of its weight in shellfish per day, and as their populations rebound, tensions with shellfish fishermen increase, according to the story, published in our February issue. (Image taken under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit 37946D.)
Photograph by Ralph Pace
ByRachel Fobar
Curated byAlexa Keefe
November 14, 2023
10 min read

A curious sea otter pup peeks out from behind a column of kelp while it forages for crabs or snails off California’s Monterey Bay. Each of these furry marine mammals might eat about 15 pounds of shellfish meat daily.  

Yet in the early 1900s, this scene might be extremely rare, as the fur trade drove these aquatic predators to near-extinction. Fortunately, efforts such as reintroducing animals to the wild have helped the species rebound, though they’re still not out of the woods. The southern sea otter, a subspecies, is threatened in California, with only 3,000 animals remaining.

Ralph Pace’s photograph, published in the February issue of National Geographic, provides a close-up look at wildlife in their native habitat. It’s also one of 18 photos that National Geographic’s photo editors chose as our best wildlife photos of the year.

“The images chosen this year reflect the wide range of stories we covered—across species, ecosystems, geographies and photographic styles—that convey the wonder, surprise, humor and vulnerability of the creatures with whom we share the planet,” says visual lead for natural history and conservation storytelling Alexa Keefe.

She hopes these images inspire a love of the natural world. Some of the animals featured represent success stories, like the endangered African wild dogs, whose populations have stabilized in Mozambique's Niassa Special Reserve thanks to investment from locals. Others are imperiled—like mountain hares in the Scottish Highlands that have evolved to camouflage with snow, but they could face an uncertain future in an increasingly snowless world. Others simply encourage us to take a closer look at the creatures who inhabit our wondrous world—like the hidden beauty and charm of spiders or the amazing techniques orcas use to capture out-of-reach prey.

Reindeer herd in Northwest Territories Canada in the snow
Inuvialuit herders move Canada’s last free-range herd of reindeer, numbering around 4,000, to the animals’ calving grounds in our November story. The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation took full ownership of the herd in 2021 with a goal of growing a sustainable food source.
Photograph by Katie Orlinsky
African wild dogs are endangered, particularly due to habitat loss. But thanks to investment from locals, these so-called painted dogs have stabilized in Mozambique's Niassa Special Reserve, with about 350 canines in up to 35 packs, we reported in September.
Photograph by Thomas Peschak
Picture of spider on hot-pink blossom.
Spiders often have a bad reputation. But photographer Javier Aznar shows how the arachnids can be beautiful, unique, and even charming—like this bromeliad spider perched on a banana flower in Ecuador, which appeared in our March issue.
Photograph by Javier Aznar
Picture of two hares inspecting one another gently with their noses back and forth.
Mountain hares in the Scottish Highlands have evolved to fit their surroundings—but as climate change ushers in varying weather, these animals stand out more often against a dark, snowless landscape, possibly leaving them vulnerable to predators, we reported in our March issue.
Photograph by ANDY PARKINSON
Three orcas swimming towards a seal on an ice floe.
These orcas have mastered a hunting technique called “wave washing”: In unison, the orcas turn water in a weapon, swimming fast and creating waves that crack the ice upon which a Weddell seal rests. When the seal falls into the water, the predators feast, as seen in an Antarctic channel in our November story.
Photograph by Bertie Gregory
Picture of an ants face very close up of a male Dorylus mayri ant from West Africa
Inspired by his daughter’s curiosity, photographer Eduard Florin Niga documented the tiny yet fascinating world of ants up close in our April issue. With fossil records that indicate ants have been around for up to 168 million years, they’re one of the planet’s most abundant and successful animals, as seen in this Dorylus mayri ant from West Africa.
Photograph by Eduard Florin Niga
Dozens of different strange looking objects like small bids.
Using distilled water and a paintbrush with a single hair, photographer Levon Biss spent hours cleaning the eggs of phasmids, more commonly known as stick or leaf insects, for a story in October. These eggs in this composite grid of images are an average of 0.12 inch long.
Photograph by LEVON BISS
Picture of an elephant stepping over a barbed wire fence at night
An Asian elephant steps over an electric fence on a moonlit night at the edge of Sri Lanka’s Kaudulla National Park. Though the island has nearly 3,000 miles of  fencing, elephants often outsmart it, for example using their trunks to push trees onto the fences. The endangered species are increasingly squeezed into small habitats within Southeast Asia, and humans and elephants have an uneasy coexistence, we reported in our May 2023 issue.
Photograph by Brent Stirton
After a hunter accidentally shot Zoubia, a short-toed snake eagle, in the head with a BB gun, the bird was left blind in his right eye, as we reported in August. The eagle was later brought to New Hope Centre, a wildlife rehabilitation facility in Amman, Jordan, for animals rescued from mismanaged zoos, war zones, or smugglers.
Photograph by Muhammed Muheisen
Asian elephants on the grounds of a tea estate in India
Before it was converted for tea production in the late 1800s, this estate in Valparai, India, was once forest habitat for Asian elephants. Now, more than a hundred elephants coexist alongside the approximately 70,000 people who live and work nearby, according to the story in our May issue.
Photograph by Brent Stirton
Picture of white fox and deer carcass on foreground.
Photographer Stefano Unterthiner documented four seasons in Svalbard, Norway, where animals like these Arctic foxes search for food in one of the fastest-warming spots on the planet. The carcass of a reindeer, a sought-after winter food source, has been picked clean by various predators, we reported in May.
Photograph by STEFANO UNTERTHINER
Picture of three manatees in shallow water facing one another.
Florida manatees are beloved, and their peaceful demeanor has been critical to the subspecies’ success. Conservationists have helped them rebound from under a thousand individuals in the 1960s to more than 7,500 about six years ago—but recent die-offs have troubled conservationists, according to our January story. Above, manatees gather on a sandy bottom near Homosassa Springs, where the water is warm in winter.
Photograph by Jason Gulley
Picture of rust colored rooster with white head plumage.
A chicken “is not just an animal that gives us eggs,” says photographer Alex ten Napel—they have personality, panache, and style. “I can’t direct them. I have to be patient and feel how they will show themselves.” Above, a Polish rooster bred for competition stares down the camera in our February story.
Photograph by Alex ten Napel
Picture of
Photographer Thomas Peschak spent two years documenting the wildlife and surrounding majesty of the mighty Amazon River for a story that published in July. In a mountain range northwest of Colombia’s Chiribiquete National Park, a tropical aquatic plant called Macarenia clavigera turns red in sunlight.
Photograph by Thomas Peschak
An ocelot captured in a trap set by a research biologist
Hunting and habitat loss have winnowed populations of the iconic northern ocelots to a few hundred individuals in South Texas. But scientists hope to trap these small cats like Javier, pictured above, and breed them in captivity, National Geographic reported in October. “When people are made aware of the cats, they’re enthusiastic about their presence,” says one advocate. “We owe them this fair fight for survival.”
Photograph by Karine Aigner
Cardinal fish and glassy sweepers swirl around a sea fan beneath a coral ledge in the Wayag Islands. Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago is home to some 1,600 species of fish and more than three-quarters of the world’s coral species, and Wayag is among its most spectacular regions, National Geographic reported in July.
Photograph by David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes
Fatu, pictured here at Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy, is one of the world’s two remaining northern white rhinoceroses. Scientists have recently teamed up with a company known for attempting to resurrect the woolly mammoth. But as our September story asks: Can “de-extinction” technology really save living rhinos—and is it worth it?
Photograph by Ami Vitale