The winning images from "National Wildlife" magazine's 42nd annual photography competition

by Laura Tangley:    Amos Nachoum, San Francisco, California, First Place, Mammals

Creating this striking image of a leopard seal “playing” with its prey—a recently drowned Gentoo penguin—required nearly as much patience from the photographer as from the predator itself. To capture young penguins wading into shallow water off Antarctica’s Pleneau Island, seals make their way toward shore and sit perfectly still for one to two hours “looking like a typical rock in Antarctica,” says Nachoum, who spent “a lot of time waiting to see this happen.” After ambushing its victim, the seal crawls on its belly back to deeper water, where it catches and releases the penguin again and again before finally devouring the bird.

Photo winners here.