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See our best wildlife photos from 2022

A polar bear sleeping in a field of flowers, a fish that looks like seaweed, and leopards courting in the mist: These 21 images are our favorite animal pictures of the year.

A large black bear leaves its den under a vacant home in South Lake Tahoe, California. As bear populations grow and humans expand into formerly undeveloped areas, more of the bruins are learning to live alongside people—though ultimately city life is not good for these bears. (From “Wild animals are adapting to city life in surprisingly savvy ways,” July 2022.)
Photograph by Corey Arnold
Photos curated byAlexa Keefe
ByDouglas Main
November 29, 2022
10 min read

The black bear emerges from his den, sleepy and slow-moving. His fur is matted and shaggy, and he’s mammoth, easily weighing over a couple hundred pounds. But this wild creature is not a denizen of the wilderness: His winter home lies underneath an abandoned house in South Lake Tahoe, California. This populous resort town offers plenty of garbage and easy-to-snag food, and as a result, these urban bears weigh about 25 percent more on average than their counterparts in wild areas.

Corey Arnold’s photograph offers an intimate look at the underappreciated animals that humans are increasingly sharing spaces with. The photo is one of 21 chosen by National Geographic’s photo editors as our favorite wildlife photos of 2022. 

Of course, most animals do better in the wild, especially when humans work to help the creatures—or merely leave them alone. Some animals that are benefiting from such approaches include the Iberian lynx, whose numbers are growing due to a large breeding and reintroduction effort in Spain and Portugal; leopards in India’s Nagarahole Tiger Reserve, which are rebounding thanks to improved anti-poaching measures that have boosted prey populations; and beautiful coral reef species such as red-tooth triggerfish, whose populations soar when marine reserves are established and harvesting dwindles.

Assistant managing editor Alexa Keefe sorted through thousands of photos to choose these, guided by a desire to show “all the roles animals play in our lives.” These selections “give us an opportunity to see animals in all the different ways they inhabit the planet, and all the intersections we have with them.”

Picture of a silhouetted school of triggerfish with their distinctive, wide, two-pronged tail fins.
A school of triggerfish hover above a river of convict blennies, in a coral reef in the Philippines’ Verde Island Passage. The so-called Coral Triangle faces threats such as pollution and overfishing, but conservationists are working to protect more areas—which boosts tourism and sustainable fisheries. (From “Coral reefs in the Philippines are some of the world’s most vibrant,” June 2022.)
Photograph by David Doubilet
Picture of a school of green and blue moon wrasse fish overwhelming a large purple and golden titan triggerfish, which has laid down across its nest as a last resort.
After battling to defend the eggs in its nest, an exhausted titan triggerfish lies down in a last attempt to save its young from being eaten by moon wrasses near Anilao, in the northern Philippines. The robust corals on the reef attract a stunning array of sea life—and divers eager to see it. (From “Coral reefs in the Philippines are some of the world’s most vibrant,” June 2022.)
Photograph by Jennifer Hayes
Picture of two yellow fish inside of a glass bottle, looking straight at the camera.
A pair of golden gobies peer from inside a glass bottle that they’ve made their home, off Anilao, south of Manila. Ocean pollution is a threat to marine life, but some animals make due with found items for shelter. (From “Coral reefs in the Philippines are some of the world’s most vibrant,” June 2022.)
Photograph by David Doubilet
Picture of a grey and straw colored songbird mid-flight, as it plucks a seed from the tongue of its handler. Behind, a crowd of people watch in interest.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, people came to trade, sell, or watch birds at places like this in Havana, where onlookers gathered to watch a songbird take seeds from a handler’s tongue. The demand sparked by these competitions put wild birds at risk from illegal collectors. (From “How Cuba’s popular songbird competitions are putting wild birds at risk,” April 2022.)
Photograph by Karine Aigner
Picture of one baby elephant among adalts.
A young forest elephant trots along with its parents in Lopé National Park, Gabon, along one of many paths that generations of the animals have cut through the fruit-rich rainforest. Elephants pass on the knowledge of what to forage, where to find it, and when it’s likely to be ripe. Researchers have discovered that Earth’s warming temperatures could be lowering the fruit yield of many species of trees at the park, which in turn seems to be causing some forest elephants to go hungry. (From “How a warming climate threatens Africa’s endangered forest elephants,” May 2022.)
Photograph by JASPER DOEST
Picture of two leopards perched near one another in a flowering tree.
Leopards court in a flowering coral tree on a misty winter morning in southern India’s Nagarahole Tiger Reserve. Anti-poaching measures have helped increase prey populations in the park, which allows both big cat species to thrive. (From “In this dense Indian forest, tigers and leopards are thriving,” March 2022.)
Photograph by Shaaz Jung
Seahorses, pipefish, and sea dragons belong to a family of fish known as Syngnathidae, a taxonomic group that includes 295 species. Family traits include long snouts, fused jaws, bony body armor, and males that incubate eggs. Many species, such as the ribboned pipefish, are masters of disguise. (From “The weird, wondrous world of seahorses,” April 2022.)
HALIICHTHYS TAENIOPHORUS, Birch Aquarium
Picture of crickets flying though the night sky, their bodies lit yellow and their wings purple, while the movement of their flight is captured as a trail of green light.
In Uganda, cone-headed bush crickets are a popular food harvested by local farmers. This photograph employed a slow shutter speed to capture the insects’ flight patterns. (From “Inside the booming business of cricket catching,” March 2022.)
Photograph by Jasper Doest
Picture of bear sleeping on its side on blooming fireweeds.
Polar bears spend so much time in the water that many scientists consider them to be marine mammals. But when ice and snow are scant, they spend time inland—like this individual sleeping in a patch of fireweed near Churchill, Manitoba, in summertime. (From “Snoozing in flower beds? Behold the bears of summer,” September 2022.)
Photograph by MARTIN GREGUS, JR.
Baboon being examined
After darting a baboon in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, researchers with the Amboseli Baboon Research Project took measurements and samples of the animal’s blood, fluid, and skin, then released it unharmed. This long-running study has shed light on how primates age—offering clues for human health as well. (From “What wild baboons can teach us about aging,” November 16, 2022.)
Photograph by Nichole Sobecki
Picture of a small red wish and a long silver fish swimming through a field of eels sticking out from their holes in the ocean floor.
A two-spot wrasse and a cornetfish swim through a colony of garden eels about two-thirds the size of a football field on a sandy slope near Negros Island, Philippines. Social but shy, they vanish into their holes when disturbed. (From “Coral reefs in the Philippines are some of the world’s most vibrant,” June 2022.)
Photograph by David Doubilet
Picture of a sloth held in the hands of a poacher by the side of the road.
A man offers a baby three-toed sloth for sale to passersby on a highway in Altos de Polonia, in northwestern Colombia. The town is one of several hot spots in the region for the illegal sloth trade. (From “A notorious sloth cartel kingpin vanished—We tried to find him,” January 11, 2022.)
Photograph by Juan Arredondo
Fungal filaments frame a spiky-bodied rotifer, a microscopic animal common in freshwater ecosystems. In soil, rotifers propel themselves through the thin films of water that surround plant parts and dirt particles, eating organic debris along the way. (From “Meet the marvelous creatures that bring soil to life,” September 2022.)
Image by Oliver Meckes and Nicole Ottawa
Scales of silica cover the single-celled body of a testate amoeba. These types of amoebas are named for the hard shells they create. These images were taken with a scanning electron microscope, which uses electrons instead of light to capture fine details. (From “Meet the marvelous creatures that bring soil to life,” September 2022.)
Image by Oliver Meckes and Nicole Ottawa
Picture of three brook trout in the clear waters of a Virginia stream.
Brook trout prepare to spawn in fall in a northwestern Virginia stream. They’re the state fish—but climate change threatens the cold water they need to survive. (From “Climate change comes for a favorite summer pastime: fishing,” August 27, 2021.)
Photograph by Kholood Eid
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In San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, raccoons stand upright following the arrival of a resident who regularly feeds them—despite laws against the practice. Raccoons that become reliant on human food are more likely to spread disease and get hit by cars. (From “Wild animals are adapting to city life in surprisingly savvy ways,” July 2022.)
Photograph by Corey Arnold
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A blacktip reef shark traverses a mangrove forest of Aldabra Atoll in the Seychelles, which serves as both a nursery and hunting ground for many marine species. The island hosts one of the healthiest inshore shark populations in the Indian Ocean. (From “Scared of sharks? This photographer aims to turn shark fear into fascination,” July 2022.)
Photograph by THOMAS PESCHAK
Picture of a tri-spine horseshoe crab jumping, leaving behind a large cloud of sediment.
A tri-spine horseshoe crab kicks up sediment along the muddy bottom of the Pangatalan Island Marine Protected Area in the Philippines. After a decade of restoration work to the islet’s bay, its green waters are rich with plankton and ready to welcome back bigger animals. (From “Dazzling photos show horseshoe crabs thriving in protected area,” August 2022.)
Photograph by Laurent Ballesta
Picture of shrimp hiding amongst a horseshoe crab's pincers.
A horseshoe crab hides an ecosystem within its shell. The hairlike objects along its body are hydroids—tiny, fuzzy invertebrates related to jellyfish—and there are at least eight shrimp clinging to the crab’s pincers. Horseshoe crabs are relatively unstudied; little is known about how they interact with other species. (From “Dazzling photos show horseshoe crabs thriving in protected area,” August 2022.)
Photograph by Laurent Ballesta
Picture of a young lynx framed by a rustic farm doorframe, looking toward the camera.
A young lynx is photographed by camera trap at an abandoned farm. In 2002 fewer than a hundred of these animals survived in the wild. Since then, the population has grown tenfold, with at least 1,100 animals scattered across Spain and Portugal. Juveniles eight to 23 months old establish their own territory, with males often traveling nearly 20 miles away from their birthplace. (From “How this golden-eyed feline became the biggest comeback in cat conservation,” June 2022.)
Photograph by Sergio Marijuán

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