beauty and horror. These two concepts of his co-exist in his 2022 Photo Contest winning entry for the BMC Ecology and Evolution journal.

The winner, announced Friday, has a fly facing the camera and a parasite extending from its body to its stem. One of her judges described it as “something like science fiction”.

The image contest looks to shed light on the wild and wonderful scenery of the natural world. All applicants belong to research institutions. Topping the list is Roberto García Roa, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Valencia, Spain. García Roa photographed in the Peruvian jungle.

The fungus was a death sentence for flies.

“This image depicts a conquest shaped by thousands of years of evolution,” Garcia-Roa said in a statement. , forced the fungus to move to a more favorable location for growth, after which the fruiting body erupts from the fly’s body and should be dumped to infect more victims.”

The journal chose winners and runners-up in the categories of Nature Relationships, Threatened Biodiversity, Close-Ups of Life, and Research Activities. All images are worth seeing. They depict a wide range of subjects, from a dreamy moment when a jackdaw bird eats a berry to a researcher surrounded by thousands of tree frogs.

The contest also aims to raise awareness about the impact humans have on the natural world. Judges focused not only on composition and visual appeal, but also on the scientific story behind the images. One notable photo shows a seabird’s stomach full of plastic waste. It’s not pretty, but it makes sense for stories that tell about human encroachments on vulnerable wildlife.