See nature in close-up in these gorgeous images

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 – often called amplexus – by one other mate.

Aloys Pichard captured one in every of these “breeding balls” in Could (principal image), when the toads have been crossing a highway at night time in southern France to succeed in egg-laying grounds. His photograph, 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 regarded in additional than 1000 flowers round Groningen within the Netherlands till he discovered the snoozing bees. “My passion is to share the unseen beauty of the tiny world all around 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 beneath.

The competitors winners will likely be introduced in January.