First prize

Damselflies mating

Damselflies mating

Mr Peter Sabol

First Prize 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Dragonflies and damselflies

Second Prize

Sawflies eating a birch leaf

Sawflies eating a birch leaf

Dr Anthony Cooper

Second Prize 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Ants, bees, wasps and sawflies

Specially Commended

A female ichneumon wasp drills into wood with her ovipositor.

Manganese drill bit

Adam Poledníček

A female ichneumon wasp drills into wood with her ovipositor.

Specially Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Ants, bees, wasps and sawflies
Common green darners, Anax junius, mating on the pond near the Cleveland Botanical Gardens restaurant.

Common green darners, Anax junius, mating on the pond near the Cleveland Botanical Gardens restaurant.

Liz Pearson, USA

Specially Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive

  • Dragonflies and damselflies
Weaver ant (possibly Oecophylla smaragdina) photographed in forest habitat near Pavagadh, over 30km from Vadodara,

Weaver ant (possibly Oecophylla smaragdina) photographed in forest habitat near Pavagadh, over 30km from Vadodara,

Narayan Patel, Gujarat, India

Specially Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Ants, bees, wasps and sawflies
Brimstone butterfly on flower of runner bean

Fire and brimstone! Brimstone butterfly on flower of runner bean

Keith Pursall

Specially Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive

  • Butterflies and moths

Commended

A lone cockroach hiding between plant stalks in the photographer’s garden. Jose Ramos located the cockroach by torchlight (flashlight) when he was looking for insects to photograph in his garden at night.

Alone in the dark

Jose Ramos, II

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Cockroaches and termites
A pair of bombyliid bee-flies (Toxophora iavana) mating in a garden in Bogor, West Java.

Mate

Beni Arisandi (Jakarta, Indonesia)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • True flies
A katydid completes its moult in the Amazonian rainforest. Claire Waring photographed this night-time emergence in the early hours of the morning when she was on a ‘bug-hunt’ in the forest.

A Katydid Completes Its Moult

Claire Waring, (Northamptonshire, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Grasshoppers, crickets and bush-crickets
A female burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides, feeds pre-digested meat to one of her larvae.

Parental Care

Dr Tom Houslay, (Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Beetles
A swallowtail caterpillar amongst dune vegetation at Dunas de Mira in Portugal. João Petronilho used a tripod and flash for this well-composed and atmospheric picture.

Resting Time

João Petronilho (Portugal)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Butterflies and moths
A nomad bee (Nomada sp.) at rest on a leaf. This is a focus stack of 20 pictures taken with the camera on a tripod with a focus rail, plus flash and a white reflector

A nomad bee (Nomada sp.) at rest on a leaf. This is a focus stack of 20 pictures taken with the camera on a tripod with a focus rail, plus flash and a white reflector.

Adam Poledníček (Cornwall, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insect Alive category

  • Ants, bees, wasps and sawflies
This wood ant (Formica sp.) has captured a small millipede on vegetation litter near Brno in the Czech Republic.

Lunchtime

Adam Poledníček (Cornwall, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Ants, bees, wasps and sawflies
This photograph of an adult butterfly and a moth caterpillar on a legume pod was taken in a botanical garden in Howrah in early April 2014.

Male blue tiger butterfly with tiger moth caterpillar on Crotalaria pods

Rabin Chakrabarti (India)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Butterflies and moths
The blue-tailed damselfly, Ischnura elegans, has five different female colour forms. The female in the mating pair here is the immature rufescens form, with a salmon-pink thorax and blue tail spot.

Coupled blue-tailed damselflies

Dr Ann Mills (Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Dragonflies and damselflies
Five-spot burnet (Zygaena trifolii) feeding on buttercup

Five-spot burnet (Zygaena trifolii) feeding on buttercup

Brian Pearson (Staffordshire, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Butterflies and moths
Red mason bee feeding on wallflower in the photographer’s garden in late May 2014. This was the first time that Brian Pearson had introduced red mason bees to his garden with the purchase of about a dozen pupae, which had all emerged successfully.

Red mason bee feeding on wallflower in the photographer’s garden in late May 2014. This was the first time that Brian Pearson had introduced red mason bees to his garden with the purchase of about a dozen pupae, which had all emerged successfully.

Brian Pearson (Saffordshire, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Ants, bees, wasps and sawflies
Red ants fiercely attacking an intruder near a flower bed in a park in Hong Kong on a sunny day. Icy Ho was taking insect photos with her 90mm macro lens when she noticed this circle of red ants surrounding a black insect that had invaded their territory.

Red ants fiercely attacking an intruder near a flower bed in a park in Hong Kong on a sunny day. Icy Ho was taking insect photos with her 90mm macro lens when she noticed this circle of red ants surrounding a black insect that had invaded their territory.

Icy Ho (Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Ants, bees, wasps and sawflies
This sawfly larva first caught Beverley Brouwer’s eye because it didn’t have the black head that she had previously seen in other sawfly larvae. Looking closer, she saw that this was because it had just shed its old skin, which was wrapped neatly around

New Coat

Beverley Brouwer (The Netherlands)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Ants, bees, wasps and sawflies
Common red soldier beetles, Rhagonycha fulva, are frequently seen as mating pairs like this. Beverley Brouwer reports that they are often in great abundance in the fields near her home in Genemuiden. In this photograph she especially liked the contrast

Family planning

Beverley Brouwer (The Netherlands)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Beetles
These two marbled white butterflies were photographed mating in the National Trust beauty spot of High and Over, an area of downland overlooking the Cuckmere river. The female caught Bob Eade’s eye because of the distinctive bright orange-brown colour wh

Marbled whites mating

Bob Eade, (East Sussex, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Butterflies and moths
A pair of black-tailed skimmers (Orthetrum cancellatum) perching on a stem near the water at a local pond in Palovec while mating. This gave Petar Sabol the opportunity to capture this well-focused image of these two strikingly-coloured dragonflies.

Orthetrum cancellatum dragonflies mating

Peter Sabol, (Croatia)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Dragonflies and damselflies
A pair of weevils mating in the seclusion of a large colourful flower in Vadodara, Gujarat.

Honeymoon on flower

Dipesh Bhatt (Gujarat, India)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Beetles
A reed beetle (Plateumaris sp.) of the beetle family Chrysomelidae. This is an uncommon species in the UK, though Woodwalton Fen provides a typical habitat for these reed-feeding insects.

Reed beetle preening

Paul Giles (Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Beetles
Taken at a bird hide near the Mopani Rest Camp in Kruger National Park in mid-March 2014. Kerry-Ann van Eeden observed that the cuckoo wasp inspected a few other potter wasp nests before selecting this one, chewing a small hole, e

Cuckoo wasp laying an egg

Kerry-Ann van Eeden (Perth, Australia)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Ants, bees, wasps and sawflies
Photographed in Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s reserve at Bradfield St George near Bury St Edmunds. Richard Davies records that it was a hot July day, so the bright sunshine supplied the crisp lighting.

Small white feeding

Richard Davies, (Suffolk, United Kingdom)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Butterflies and moths
Photographed in Suffolk Wildlife Trust’s reserve at Bradfield St George near Bury St Edmunds. Richard Davies records that it was a hot July day, so the bright sunshine supplied the crisp lighting.

Small paper wasp-RAPALIDIA REVOLUTIOALIS-building its nest in a leaf vein

Parameswaran Pillai Karunakaran (Kerala, India)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • Ants, bees, wasps and sawflies
Two robber flies mating – one with a kill – at the edge of the jungle at Punjen Hide-Away in northern Thailand.

Two robber flies mating – one with a kill – at the edge of the jungle at Punjen Hide-Away in northern Thailand.

Mr Nick Milsum (New Zealand)

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Insects Alive category

  • True flies
Close up of damselfly eyes in Genemuiden, Netherlands.

Close up of damselfly eyes in Genemuiden, Netherlands

Marc Brouwer

Commended 2014 NIW Photography Competition Small is Beautiful category

  • Dragonflies and damselflies
Four-spotted chaser dragonfly, Libellula quadrimaculata, perching

Four-spotted chaser dragonfly, Libellula quadrimaculata, perching.

Tim Daish

Commended 2008 NIW Photography Competition adult category

  • Dragonflies and damselflies